大象传媒

This story is by Ms Phyl Etty

I was requested to report to Dynevor Castle, Llandilo 12 CCS as a QATAN sister in 1940.
The journey from Sheffield was dreadful 9.00am - 12 midnight. There were many delays due to bomb scares and on arrival at Landilo station near Swansea, everything was closed down, no taxis or buses. However, the station master rang the castle and I was collected in an army truck, to be deposited into the billiard room - used as an officer's mess - where the doctors were enjoying snooker and I wasn't expected! No notice had been given of my arrival. They asked me when I last ate and as I had had nothing since Crewe - at lunch time - I was very grateful for a cup of tea accompanied by wedge-like beef sandwiches which the orderly bought and they tasted pretty good after my long journey.
I was billeted with a Welsh family called Thomas. They were duly rung up and I was taken down to stay with them. I felt terrible waking them but they were very nice and proved very kind to me during my 2 year stay.
The castle had been made into a hospital. The ballroom had 40 patients in it, mostly from the retreat of Dunkirk. It had various other rooms - stripped of furniture - to make room for offices, operating theatres and dining rooms. The food was cooked in the basement and when I was on night duty I went down to inspect the food with the Sgt and there were rats running about.
One night we had a severe accident - a staff car going from London to the HQ in Wales with a very important personage - Duncan Sands, married to Churchill's daughter. He had two drivers and they were suposed to change over after so many miles, however, he wouldn't let them change as he was in the front seat with his feet and legs extended as he wanted to sleep and not be disturbed. His driver fell asleep at the wheel and the car ran into a concrete road block. The driver was killed and Duncan Sands broke both heels and had several other injuries. We had Mrs Churchill and her daughter staying with Lord and lady Dynevor, at the castle and visiting the patient frequently.
The little ward was far from palatial, bare boards and iron bedsteads. I nursed him but he was a very ungrateful patient, disliked by all the staff, however, to our relief a special train was commandeered and he was taken to a London hospital. Many years after when I saw him in parliament I noticed how badly he walked, broken heels are excessively painful for a long time.
I was then posted to Scotland, to Drymen Castle on the banks of Loch Lomond. It was a tented hospital and our work seemed to be mostly visiting the surrounding units to do injections etc. for yellow fever, tetanus and plague, preparing the men for service abroad. We also had an officers' ward for prisoners of war. We had a yioung German who refused to believe us when we told him of our advances and how many planes we had shot down. Also we had Italy's ace pilot, Soravi who was shot down in the Med. and had several compound fractures of the thigh and leg. Those Italians were not good patients, but he recovered and got about in a wheel chair.
Then five of our sisters were posted abroad and one girl got married, which meant she couldn't go and Matron asked me to take her place - we were given 48 hours leave and I travelled overnight to Wakefield. I arrived at Leeds at 4.00am.
On returning to Scotland we were sent to Glasgow to get our tropical iniforms, so we knew we were going somewhere hot. Six weeks later we left King George V Dock in Glasgow on the troop ship AWATEA - incidentally when this ship returned from Africa they had several cases of small pox, one officer died and was buried in Scotland, so the entire crew were vaccinated and the ship fumigated before we could embark.
It was a peculiar feeling waving to the people on the dock, not knowing where we were going or whether we should return - there were many units of troops,10 sistrs + 40 padres.
We joined a convoy and felt safe when we saw the destroyers and batleship. It was a bit rough in the Bay of Biscay and I always felt better on the top deck. I could not eat much until we were in the open sea again.
As we were five sisters from Scotland we wanted to be together and so the purser put us in a four berth cabin and one of us slept on the deck on a mattress. We had boat drill several times, but one morning the alarm went at 5am - we were petrified and started to dress getting someone else's bra, putting our safety belts on before our uniform coats - quite chaotic. However, when we got to our stations we found that we had run into the ship in front of us in the convoy and there was a hole in the ship's bow but we managed to continue our journey, which was to Freetown, Sierra Leone, Africa.
The hospital was on a hill called Mount Auriel and we were taken up in ambulances to the Sister's Mess which was built on a raised wooden framework to keep out the snakes, as the black and green mambas were very poisonous.
Our dining room and sitting room were in the house which belonged to the man who abolished slavery - WILBERFORCE HOUSE - the wards were huts.
We had very few war casualties as our soldiers were out there to train the african troops. The heat was intense and humid - it was useless to put make-up on as the perspiration poured from our skin.
We had patients suffering from malaria, yellow fever and small pox; as we were the only hospital in Sierra Leone we also took every day casualties from the air force stations and King Tom naval barracks in Freetown harbour.
The mosquitoes were of the malarial carrying type and we had to be covered up after dusk, wearing white skin boots with linen tops covering our thighs and we took mepacrine daily.
We had a raining season when we wore wellingtons everywhere; Christmas was also very hot.
The entrance to Freetown harbour was very treacherous for the convoys coming through to the Far and Middle East. The subs were always waiting and we had many survivors, one raft had 8 people on it one of whom was a French diplomat who hemorrhaged from gastric ulcer and died, his wife had to push him off the raft, this encouraged the barracouta and the passengers took it in turn to hang over the edge of the raft moving their legs about all night to prevent the large fish overturning them.
Unfortunately, three of the girls had very bad bites on their buttocks and after being at sea 35 days they were rescued. Their hair was black with oil from the wrecked ship - some of the girls were Polish and they very quickly learned English.
The Diplomat's wife eventually improved and when she could get around, the governer of Freetown sent his ADC and she spent a lot of time at government house.
We had gramaphone concerts and one of our doctors was musical. His brother was Dykes-Bowon, organist at Westminster Abbey and when we were posted home he gave me the records and I put them in my tin trunk. This was in the hold of the ship on our journey back to England and when I unpacked them they were all warped - useless. The ship's heat had spoiled them.
I returned home in February looking very brown. I was then posted to a hospital near Salisbury Plain, Tidworth. We had given it over to the American Army Medical Corps and so the doctors and nurses were mostly American. This stay in England was rather short lived as we were posted to Dorset for more service abroad, We didn't know where we were sailing from but the locals always seemed to know more than us, even to the time and place. On Mauritania due to a strike on board we re-shipped to one of the Castle Liners - Duchess Bedford.
Arriving in Alexandria it was a great thrill to see all the lights after not being even allowed to smoke out on deck because of the glow from a cigarette.
We docked and went by train to Cairo to a clearing depot. The next day we were allowed off to see the sights. We went to Mina House where WC and King Farouk often dined. We saw the pyramids and had tea on houseboats on the Nile where, incidentally, the sisters at the Cairo Hospital lived.
We were then posted to our various hospitals. I went on the banks of the Suez Canal to a palce called El Kantara. It was a hutted hospital but I lived in a tent. We swam daily across the Suez Canal. Our nearest shopping place was Port Said to which we hitch-hiked quite frequently and stayed at Shepherd's hotel but this was burned down of course. Cairo was very French and quite good for shopping. El Kantara id the shopping place for the train for Palestine - this goes through the Sinai Desert and is an all night journey.
When it was almost Easter we decided to spend our leave in Jerusalem and were lucky to get a lift in a staff car as far as Haifa. We left the Suez Canal about 9am and our first stop was Gaza, which is the first small town on the Palestinian border - well known for its plains where Samson and delilah made history. The roads were strips of concrete and the only vegetaion in the desert being bushes of prickly pear and broom - the camels and goats seemed to survive on these. Palestine was more fruitful and had miles of orange groves and fields of corn. The oranges were piled up on lorries and taken to the ports and it was quite a common sight to see them stacked on the side of the road and rolling all over the palce. Grapefruit and lemons were plentiful but not as many as oranges.
Afterstopping in Gaza for a meal we proceeded to Haifa. This was a busy port with a fair amount of shipping and due to the fact it was Easter was full of pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem. We arrived early evening and were taken to a wonderful hotel half way up Mount Carmel - this had a glorious view of the harbour and the wild flowers, cyclemen, lillies, anemones and jonquils were in great profusion.
The next day we had to get a bus to Jerusalem. The Haifa bus station was a mass of Greeks, Arabs, Jews, Syrians and Cypriots all bound for the same destination (Jerusalem for Easter). We, being in uniform, were always allowed on the buses and trains first. This was not very acceptable to the many waiting in the queues and fists were raised and I'm sure swear words used as we alighted. It was here we met a very charming Armenian Fleet Air Arm Officer who was stationed down on the Dead Sea. He arranged for us to visit him there.
After our trip we returned in a jeep to Egypt, only to find we had been posted to a hospital in Gaza so I had an overnight train journey again to Palestine arriving at 4am. It was fairly easy to get to Jarusalem from here, also Bethlehem, Nazareth and Tiberious. Our padre arranged a trip tp Bethlehem on Christmas Eve for us and we sang carols by the light of lanterns in fields. We then went to Lutheran Church in Bethlehem for the midnight service. This was packed with people from all nations.
When we had days off we visited as many places as possible . We saw the room where the Last Supper was eaten, Telavive and Jaffa. In Jaffa we looked around many old places and evidently we were out of bounds and 2 military policemen had followed us. When they caught up with us they told us we could have had a knife in our backs and our money stolen - we were grateful for their help.
Convoys of troops were admitted to our hospital down by the Suez. They came from the Far East and were landed at Suez and brought by ambulance to El Kantara for treatment. The sand storms were most unpleasant and as I was a theatre sister I
had great trouble keeping the area of operation clean.
I had several Yorkshire RAMC orderlies in the theatre and they were excellent workers. WE hadn't many of the modern medicines, dressings and equipment were scarce and penicillin was in very short supply.
I developed a very bad septic nose and we were told all the penicillin had gone over with the invasion of France but as they feared infection was spreading to my brain they managed to get some from somewhere.
Some of the patients had leg injuries where the nerves of the thigh were torn- we did several repairs on these but again due to the shortage of fine gut we had a surgeon who asked: "Could we have some strands of your hair sister?" and as it was fairly long I used to take about 8 strands out and boil them securing them with a pair of forceps. I wish I knew who went home with my hair in his thigh!
Many of the troops hadn't had leave at home for 4 years - I managed to get home twice during the war but we had local leave and we went to the Lebanon.
I came home in 1946 - sailing from Port Said to Liverpool and was de-mobbed at Fulford Barracks in York but I can't rmember much about that but I KNOW I WAS PLEASED TO BE HOME

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