大象传媒

This story has been added to the site by 大象传媒 Radio Cornwall CSV Producer Nina Davey, on behalf of the author June Hughes nee Kingan who understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

I was a 19 year old medical student living in Putney when I heard Neville Chamberlain on the radio saying we were at war.

Immediately he made the announcement the siren sounded it was frightening as we thought it was an immediate attack.

I was part of the first age group who had to register. I was concerned I would be made a nurse but instead was given a reserved occupation and able to continue as a medical student.

The London School of Medicine for Women/Royal Free Hospital had to be evacuated to Aberdeen for two terms because of the bombing. I returned to London in the summer, later the flat I had been living in near Great Ormond Street had been bombed and so too had the London School of Medicine for Women/Royal Free Hospital. We were then evacuated to Exeter. The clinical teaching was done at Arlesey in Bedfordshire and in London and we were able to save money by sleeping in the First Aid Post. When I could afford the rent I lived in an attic bed sit in Bloomsbury and as soon as the shrapnel from the bombings fell on the roof I鈥檇 go down to the basement. The building was several storeys high so there were quite a few of us sheltering there.

When I qualified as a doctor I took a temporary job as a medical officer at the Civil Service Sanatorium in Benenden. The patients there all had TB. While there we heard all the planes flying over for D Day. Not long after this we were hit by a flying bomb. I remember running down the corridor and the blast of the bomb blew the doors out, one of them hitting me hard injuring my leg. The bomb killed some people and there were dead sheep in the trees. It also hit a house killing the family inside. The medical staff stayed with the patients and we all then moved to St Christophers in Tunbridge Wells. This was originally where nursery nurses trained but it was considered too dangerous for them and they were moved out and we moved in!

The Women鈥檚 Voluntary Service, WVS fed us twice a day. For some reason along with the greasy breakfast we had purple tea. I still don鈥檛 know why it was purple! In the evenings we were given stoop a watery stew.

After a few days I was back in London as House Physician at the Royal Free.

Two of my fellow colleagues Alison Laing and Peter Alwyn Smith a doctor at St Marys Hospital, announced they were getting married and I was asked to be bridesmaid. I arrived at Kings Chapel of the Savoy in the Strand in London all dressed up in my pink linen dress and jacket which I鈥檇 spent my precious coupons on in Libertys, but there was no one in the church. I couldn鈥檛 understand where they were. They were all hiding under the pews as a flying bomb had been heard, the noise had cut out and they were waiting for the explosion.

These bombs became a part of everyday life. Whilst working as a house physician at the Royal Free the V2s would come over twice a day, one in the morning and one in the evening. These bombs didn鈥檛 give any warning before exploding.

My call up papers came when I was just 24. Many of my friends were in the forces so although I had the opportunity I didn鈥檛 appeal. I got myself kitted out with a uniform and went to the station for the RAMC depot. I didn鈥檛 realise it but the hospital had appealed for me stay in London but they were refused. Fortunately I didn鈥檛 know about this until I was already prepared to go. However many of my colleagues weren鈥檛 so fortunate and having their appeals turned down they had to leave work immediately and head for the station in the clothes they were wearing.

Our army training was near Aldershot? And the first thing we had to do on arrival was make our wills. We were then issued with Red Cross permits which we were told to show to our captors. This was part of the Geneva Convention. Then we went to Aldershot to see what it was like to be gassed. I remember a huge commando shouting at us to follow him and run across a make believe mine field. We were not allowed to put on our gas masks until given the signal. Smoke surrounded us and the signal didn鈥檛 come for what seemed ages. Unknown to us Tear Gas had been released in the smoke and by the time we got our masks on tears were streaming down our faces it was very, very uncomfortable. At other times having been told never to touch anything soldiers would be asked to bring something to the commando in charge, only for it to explode when picked up.

I was in Newport for a very short time and an old Brigadier told me women wouldn鈥檛 be sent abroad unless we volunteered. I told him I鈥檇 already volunteered and he said India was the place to go 鈥淚t will be lovely鈥�. However I was keen to go to Europe as I could speak some schoolgirl French and German. Nothing happened and I was told to go to Essex to relieve a doctor who was frightened by the bombing. When I stopped to get my travel warrant at the RAF station in London I had to wait ages only to be told I was going on embarkation leave and was to await orders. I never got to Essex to relieve the poor doctor. A telegram arrived instructing me to go back to the depot and get kitted out with bed, bucket, and stool and camping equipment. We then caught a boat to Ostend with a destroyer as escort. I was sent to a 1200 bed tented hospital in Ecloo. The nuns there had planted London Pride on the graves of the German soldiers which didn鈥檛 seem a very Christian thing. The patients at Ecloo were allied soldiers who had been evacuated from the battles on the Rhine. The Canadian soldiers especially enjoyed being in a British Hospital as they regarded it as the best in the world seeing as they had been in so many as they made there way back from the Rhine.

On VE day as I was the youngest member of the mess I got the short straw and became orderly officer for the whole hospital while everyone else celebrated. That night several collaborators had their heads shaved in the nearby town of Bruges.

Almost immediately after VE Day we were flown to a disused airfield near Belsen to another tented hospital to treat men imprisoned in Belsen Concentration Camp. Earlier anyone who could climb or be lifted onto the back of a lorry was taken away. Some went to Norway. However there were thousands and thousands of people too ill to move. They were starving and emaciated and suffering from typhoid, typhus and TB. They had dreadful weeping bed sores and were in a terrible condition. The internees all wore blue and white striped jackets and trousers similar to pyjamas. I haven't worn blue and white stripes since because of this memory.

Whilst we were there hundreds of patients died each night and the swimming pool had to be drained and used as a mortuary.
The patients were so used to starving they hid the food given to them in their sputum mugs.

The troops went into the local houses to collect clothing for the survivors. The local people claimed they were unaware of the atrocities being suffered by the detainees.

There were a few problems communicating with all the different nationalities. The best way for understanding the Polish patients was for them to talk to a Russian nurse in Polish and she would talk to me in German. The word used so much by the Polish was something like 鈥淏oley鈥� and it meant pain. There were some Belgian medical students who did not get on well with each other, some spoke Walloon and others French 鈥� and they ignored each other!

One day whilst on leave I went to Luneberg Airfield for a lift in an RAF plane and whilst there I saw Lord Haw Haw being taken to England for trial for treason. He was later executed.

Next I went to Hanover to a beautiful new Hospital but the Russians had got there first and looted all the equipment.

We were only allowed out of the hospital with an armed escort. Women medical officers were stopped from being trained in the use of firearms early on in the war. Something must have happened but I don鈥檛 know what. Anyway the male medical officers were allowed to be armed so we were allowed out with them. The ATS and VADS had to be escorted in groups by soldiers with rifles. One day we went to the main railway station in Hanover and were looking at the enormous boards of missing relatives, the crowds saw us and started booing. At that time the trials of the guards at Belsen were happening in Hamelin.

I went sledging in the snow in Nissen on the River Elbe and then to Hamburg where there were still piles of rubble with black crosses on top which signified they hadn鈥檛 been able to get the bodies out.

I worked in a clinic in the centre of Hamburg for a fortnight and remember a French medical officer who was dealing in the black market. He must have realised I disapproved and said I didn鈥檛 know what it was like to fix a target on a man before the firing squad.

When I returned home and spoke of the atrocities I had seen inflicted on the internees in Belsen, some people didn't believe me and questioned the truth thinking it was all war propaganda.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.