大象传媒

At the start of the war I was in the Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Services Reserve and was drafted to the 'St. Julian', a Weymouth-Guernsey boat, now converted to a hospital ship, in September 1939. After a few weeks in Netley Hospital preparing, we were off collecting sick from French ports to hospitals in England. Then came Dunkirk!

May 29th, 1940 was a beautiful day, calm sea and hot sunshine, perfect for a cruise. It was the birthday of Elspeth Abercrombie, my sister-in-charge so, with all the preparations completed, she and I sat on deck with some knitting. Hearing a plane we looked up, prepared to wave, it was very low and heading straight for us! Instead, we saw the bomb doors open and two bombs fall out. We moved fast for the companion way just as the wireless officer's door flew open. It hit me on the side of my head and broke my spectacles causing a small cut near my eye. It bled, of course, and I arrived below deck, where four doctors and five nurses converged on me. I had the dubious distinction of being the only (if minor) casualty on board. How long the noise and terror lasted I do not remember but the plane circled round until it had dropped all its bombs!

The St Julian was painted white with large red crosses on it and we hadn't even a catapult on board. So much for the Geneva convention!

I was later told that our Captain (Richardson) had stood on the Bridge, facing aft, giving instructions to 'side-step' the bombs as they fell. 'Down below' we all hung on the the stanchions to prevent us from being thrown from side to side by the explosions, while the little boat shuddered from the very near misses. She was not holed though, later, we discovered nine-inch holes in the deck (made by machine-gun fire) only inches from where we had been sitting!

Back in Dover several Ship's Personnel had to be put ashore, some suffering with severe shell-shocked. We then had several very young cadets as replacement nursing orderlies and seamen. They were marvellous. Luckily all six 'sisters' survived the ordeal intact.

We sailed to Dunkirk six times but were only able to load stretcher cases twice as it was often impossible to get near either 'mole'. We all felt helpless and desperately depressed on the empty trips back - so different to the elation felt when every inch of deck space was filled with terribly-wounded soldiers on the two successful trips!

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