大象传媒

Extract from Script of Broadcast "What War means to Me" on 大象传媒 North American Service 25th/26th April 1944.

Michelle Carey interviewed by Kent Stevenson.

KENT: Hallo, listeners to the B.B.C. This is Kent Stevenson, speaking from London, England, and introducing the British Broadcasting Corporation鈥檚 programme 鈥� 鈥淲hat War Means to me. As you well know, it is not always of men that we hear in battlefront news. From Italy, from Africa, from faraway [erased in ink] Bataan have come stories of the heroism of girls tending the sick and wounded 鈥� British girls and American girls serving in a great tradition. Here with us now in this B.B.C. studio is a British girl in the grey and red braided uniform of the Queen Alexandria Imperial Military Nursing Sisters. Usually called Army nurses by the British Public. I can tell you a few things about this girl. I can tell you that she鈥檚 young, she has ash-blonde hair, she鈥檚 xxxxx not very tall, she wears the two little gold shoulder stars of a British Army First Lieutenant. There鈥檚 one thing I can鈥檛 tell you about her, and she won鈥檛 tell you herself and that鈥檚 her name. Presently you鈥檒l hear the reason. Now, I鈥檒l just ask her to tell us in a few words what she feels she can about her life before she became an army nurse - - - I mean nursing Sister. She ought, of course, be addressed as sister - - It鈥檚 the rank she鈥檚 entitled to, but I shall probably keep forgetting and just call her nurse. Well - - -
M鈥︹��..: Well - - - - I was born in Guernsey, in the Channel Islands.
KENT: Guernsey.
M鈥︹��..: And lived there till I was eighteen.
KENT: Went to school there?
M鈥︹��..: yes. And then to University. [Vienna, added in Ink]
KENT: But you鈥檙e not saying which university?
M鈥︹��..: No, if you don鈥檛 mind. And then 鈥�..well鈥�..I had no particular idea as to what I wanted to be - - - I more or less had a good time and then I decided to train as a nurse 鈥� a hospital nurse. I took four years training, and was qualified in January 1939.
KENT: Just in time for the war?
M鈥︹��..: yes, but I didn鈥檛 think about war, I didn鈥檛 think war was coming. I just went on a holiday - - -
KENT: That鈥檚 called a vacation by American listeners.
M鈥︹��..: And I spent the summer of 1939 at home.
KENT: And then war came.
M鈥︹��..: And then war came and I volunteered for the Reserve in the Q.A.I.M.N.S. and was accepted. And I soon found myself in England, attached to a hospital ship.
KENT: Was it all very strange?
M鈥︹��..: Well, it was all very exciting - - - all very military - - - different from the training I鈥檇 had. You had to get used to working with men 鈥� and over men 鈥� men orderlies you know - - -
KENT: Yes - - military hospital orderlies - - -
M鈥︹��..: But there was no war excitement yet. I went home on leave Christmas 1939.
KENT: In the new uniform?
M鈥︹��..: Yes, the family thought it very snappy. And then I came back - - - We used to make one trip in two weeks over to France - - -
KENT: In this hospital ship to which you were posted?
M鈥︹��..: Yes, we brought the sick back from France鈥︹��
KENT: That was before the German break through, was it? I mean the break through in the Spring of 1940.
M鈥︹��..: Yes. On May 10th when the Netherlands were overrun, the ship was in Dieppe. And then we kept running back and forth the whole time. We got into such a state we didn鈥檛 know which country we were in. The only way we could tell was by the morning papers. If they were in French we xxxx knew we were at the French Coast. We were in France one morning and England the next.
KENT: That was really hectic.
M鈥︹��..: It was. We were picking up military casualties from Abbeville and Breste and all around. And then 鈥� one day 鈥� we were in Newhaven Harbour 鈥�
KENT: Newhaven 鈥� back in England - -
M鈥︹��..: We鈥檇 just done a full time trip. It was after dinner and we were sitting up on the deck - - and suddenly we saw dozens and dozens of little ships 鈥� all sorts and sizes 鈥� little boats 鈥� yachts 鈥� all sorts of things 鈥� coming towards the harbour. It was nine o鈥檆lock at night, and we were told we had to go to Dunkirk. We didn鈥檛 know what was happening.
KENT: Suddenly seeing these little ships - - That was an historic sight.
M鈥︹��..: I did six trips into Dunkirk. We used to sail in the afternoon and load. Then we brought all the wounded back hugging the coast to Dover under cover of darkness. And then [we鈥檇] go back to Dunkirk and then back to dover, and start all over again [we鈥檇, added in ink. dover sic]
KENT: And were you under fire from the French side?
M鈥︹��..: In Dunkirk we were literally shelled from every angle 鈥� from the rear and from above. We would drop anchor and the stretcher bearers would bring the casualties across the beach, because the railway lines couldn鈥檛 be used.
KENT: What was your reaction to being shelled for the first time 鈥� Do you remember?
M鈥︹��..: Well, at the time I didn鈥檛 mind, but I had terrible reactions afterwards. It affects people differently. Afterwards, I felt completely limp, but during the actual bombardment, we were frightfully busy. We didn鈥檛 have time to think 鈥� from the word go.
[An * added in pencil here, and the next few paragraphs as far as the next * deleted in pencil]
KENT: I believe it鈥檚 best to be busy in times of danger.
M鈥︹��..: On June 2nd, we were sent over and it took hours, because we had to make detours 鈥� and we were attacked by nine dive bombers. We were empty, though, but completely unarmed, as we were a hospital ship.
KENT: Was it plain that you were a hospital ship? [line doubtful, in the fold of the original]
M鈥︹��..: It was very plain 鈥� it was a hospital ship. The concussion of the dive bombing was pretty awful.
KENT: You weren鈥檛 hit?
M鈥︹��..: No, but we had to send out an SOS 鈥� because of the concussion. However we got back under our own steam. You see, ours was a new ship. An older ship that was sent out was dived bombed in the same way couldn鈥檛 stand up to the concussion xxx and they had to abandon ship.
*[see above]
KENT: I can imagine.
M鈥︹��..: And then once we were dive bombed while we were crossing the channel. We were not hit, but we had to send out an SOS 鈥� because of the concussion. However we got back under our own steam. Fortunately we had no patients on board. We were on our way over to France.
KENT: That was lucky.
M鈥︹��..: Our ship was built to take 248 patients, but we never came back with much less than 700. As I was one of the youngest of the staff, I was in charge of walking cases. A walking case could be anything. It was nothing to see a man with one leg amputated, and ask him when he鈥檇 had his leg off, and he would say 鈥測esterday鈥�. That was considered a walking case. It was awful. It was because there were so many casualties who were far worse, that anyone like that had to be considered a walking case.
KENT: It must have been terribly difficult to work in that overcrowded state 鈥� and always with the risk of being bombed.
M鈥︹��..: Well, you see lots of men had had their first field dressings out on three or four days before and they were just one mass of blood; so we couldn鈥檛 do such for them, except just give them morphia and food and drink and keep them warm until they were unloaded and taken to hospital. All most of them wanted was sleep. They just went into a sort of stupor of sleep.
KENT: You must have needed sleep and rest yourself after that sort of thing.
M鈥︹��..: We did, but at first, after the evacuation we were sent to one port 鈥� then another - - -
KENT: English ports, of course.
M鈥︹��..: Yes. We had to move out of one because the hospital ship made it so clear where the bay was. We weren鈥檛 the target, but we made the bay one.
KENT: Oh, yes, I see. The clear markings of your hospital ship indicated where the harbour was.
M鈥︹��..: Yes, so we had to move again. Finally, we settled down in a little west of England port.It waws the first rest we had.

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