Tracing Your Service Women Ancestors by Mary Ingham

Author:Mary Ingham [Ingham, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: NA
Publisher: Pen & Sword Books
Published: 2012-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

The National Archives

Series WO 95 holds war diaries of military hospitals abroad where medical women were employed. WO 95/4936 contains war diaries of several GH mobilized from Malta to Salonika, including mention of the medical women who accompanied them.

64 GH war diary, naming medical women ‘imprisoned’ aboard HS Llandovery Castle. (TNA WO 95/4936)

On 2 July 1917, eight medical women are listed embarking on HMT Abbassieh for duty with 62 GH. Lifebelts had to be worn all day and kept beside them at night. They were escorted by two small warships, both of which struck mines, forcing them to return to Malta. They sailed again escorted by Japanese destroyers and must have reached Salonika with some relief. While the hospital site was prepared, the medical women were ordered to wait on hospital ship Llandovery Castle. They joined the site in late July, being instructed in Army Medical Service regulations while the last hospital marquees were erected.

WO 95/4746, the war diary of 45 SH at El Arish (near the Palestine border), mentions only ‘lady doctors’ reporting for duty in January and February 1918. They are named when leaving the unit in April, having perhaps by then proved themselves worthy of individual mention.

WO 329/2324, the medal roll that includes (under Nurses 9) a section titled ‘Lady Doctors Hospital’. This is largely a misnomer. The first page does list nursing sisters at the WHC hospital, Paris, known as the Lady Doctors Hospital. The list, however, continues with medical women who served abroad with the RAMC in various capacities, giving dates and countries in which they served, including with the QMAAC in France. (Those who served solely on Malta only received the British War Medal.) The list is incomplete.

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