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BMH GibraltarHistory and information about the British Military Hospital in Gibraltar:  The British Military Hospital in Gibraltar was opened in 1901 to care for the British Forces based on Gibraltar and nearby sailors.
Gibraltar is nicknamed The Rock and BMH Gibraltar was nicknamed the Wedgewood Castle because of its blue colour which can be seen in the photo of RNH Gibraltar further below. Above is a much older photograph of BMH Gibraltar. There are more photos of BMH Gibraltar in the book Sub Cruce Candida: A Celebration of One Hundred Years of Army Nursing  .
This includes pictures of the Matron and her nursing staff.
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil War took place between 1936 to 1939. During this time BMH Gibraltar cared for troops in the conflict. This included 55 casualties from the bombed
German Battleship Deutschland which had been hit by two bombs whilst lying in anchor off Ibiza (cited in the book
Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps (Famous Regts. S) by Juliet Piggott).
BMH Gibraltar was already running at full capacity because the British Navy ship HMS Hunter had sustained casualties after hitting a mine whilst on neutrality patrol near Almeria in early May 1937 and BMH Gibraltar was also looking after some casualties from HM Hospital Ship Maine on the 15 May 1937. Most of these casualties were suffering from burns. So four QAs were flown out, by flying boat because the airstrip had not yet been built, to care for the remaining German casualties. This included Colonel Gertrude Morgan who was later awarded the German Red Cross Medal on 21 November 1938 with a certificate from Adolf Hitler, a year before World War Two. At the time of receiving this award Colonel Morgan was serving at BMH Quetta. The German Navy were so grateful for the QAIMNS for nursing their comrades that a visiting sister battleship crew gave a dance party for the QAs. The German Admiral Commanding presented the decorations to the QAs. Help Needed: Qaranc.co.uk would like to add a page about the QA lanyard but need some help. Can anyone please help with a photo of the lanyard on the uniform and a photo of just the lanyard? It would also be helpful if anyone can give some tips on how to site and fit the lanyard. Please use the e-mail address on the contact page. Thank you! Sisters In Arms: British Army Nurses Tell Their Story Sisters In Arms: British Army Nurses Tell Their Story  by Nicola Tyrer is an account of the QAs during the two World Wars. It includes first hand accounts of the Queen Alexandra nurses who were in the dressing stations, casualty clearing stations and field hospitals of Dunkirk, D Day, the fall of Singapore and many more locations where the QAIMNS served.
Buy Now.
Sisters In Arms: British Army Nurses Tell Their Story is also available as a talking book read by the actress Barbara Flynn and Sian Thomas. Buy Now. 
View More British Army Nursing Books - with free delivery available. Second World War During the Second World War survivors from attacked convoys leaving or travelling to Malta were treated at BMH Gibraltar whilst their ships were repaired in the Naval Repairs Yards. The twelve nursing sisters of the QAIMNS (Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service) were the few women on the island when the British families were evacuated in 1939 and Gibraltese women were evacuated to either Great Britain or Morocco (cited in Quiet Heroines: Nurses of the Second World War  ) by Brenda McBryde.
In between the hard ward duties caring for wounded sailors the QA's enjoyed the hospitality aboard docked ships of the H Fleet like the Ark Royal. The sight of QA's playing cards, dancing or playing deck tennis was so common that the Captain of the ship considered the QA sisters part of his team. Sadly the sisters were to witness the Ark Royal being destroyed after a run to Malta when they were watching their loved ship from a hill on Gibraltar. They rushed back to BMH Gibraltar to prepare for casualties. The most common injury that the QA's treated was burns, made more difficult to treat because this was at a time when penicillin was not yet discovered. Brenda McBryde describes a unique way that Sister Zena Potter helped the brave sailors cope with the pain of dressing removal when a cargo of champagne had been saved from a sunken Italian ship. The burns patient would be given a glass of champagne before the dressing was removed and then another once completed! Read more about nursing during the Second World War at BMH Gibraltar in in Quiet Heroines: Nurses of the Second World War
As WWII progressed a second hospital was built in Gibraltar deep inside the Rock in case the above ground hospital was destroyed by an air raid or Gibraltar was invaded via nearby Spain. Though the Spanish were neutral there was a fear that German or Italian troops would overrun Spain or be given access to the country A team of Canadian Engineers tunnelled into The Rock and created a cavern that was warmed by electric fires and filled with beds and medical and nursing equipment. The engineers had even included flushing toilets and a fully equipped operating theatre. Water was collected which had dropped from the rocks and filtered. This theatre was said to have been of better quality to the one within BMH Gibraltar because it had been equipped by the American Lend_Lease (Quiet Heroines: Nurses of the Second World War ). Home comforts for the QA's and other hospital staff included a NAAFI store, Sister's Mess, kitchen and sitting room.
In anticipation of using the underground hospital in Gibraltar the staff would exercise emergency evacuation of their patients and had this time down to seven minutes. The rubble from the underground hospital was used to build an air strip at the racecourse on Gibraltar Bay and this was used during the British and American invasion of North Africa in 1942. There is a great deal written about BMH Gibraltar in Quiet Heroines: Nurses of the Second World War by Brenda McBryde and we do recommend reading the book to read first hand accounts from nurses who served during the Second World War in other fields such as Singapore, France and Hong Kong. Other stories about the nurses who served at BMH Gibraltar include Sister Zena Potter who dated a man called Lieutenant Deakin who was nicknamed Spider and who had a vast knowledge of radar and acted as a spy. She went on some missions with him to act as a decoy and alias and she lead an extraordinary life taking her to normally inaccessible places like Tangiers and being able to meet other spies like secret agent Ian Fleming who would go on to write the James Bond books. She was accompanied in one mission with fellow QA Daphne Stevens and another man and upon their return were adversely judged by their Matron who had no knowledge of their dangerous duty to their country rather than going on trips with men. However she was deeply trusted by these undercover men and was one of only two nurses charged with caring for them when they became ill or injured. Many years later Zena Potter read the autobiography of Odette Samson who was a French Resistance heroine and recalled her visiting one of the undercover spies when he was a patient at BMH Gibraltar at the height of WWII in 1942. Zena and Lt Deakin married after the war: a respectability that would have been approved by her Matron! They had children and were in turn blessed with grandchildren. BMH Gibraltar was transferred to the Royal Navy in 1963 and became the Royal Naval Hospital Gibraltar. This article will highlight the history of the hospital when it was British Military Hospital Gibraltar. A British Army Nurse In the Korean War A newly published book about the QARANC is 
A British Army Nurse In the Korean War
by Elizabeth Jilly McNair. QA Sister McNair saw active service in Korea and Japan and this book is based on her letters home and photographs she took during her 18 months
spent nursing at the British Commonwealth General Hospital in Kure, Japan and the British Commonwealth Zone Medical Unit in Seoul, Korea.
Buy Now!
If you would like to contribute to this page, suggest changes or inclusions to this website or would like to send me a photograph then please e-mail me. The photos and pictures on this page have been kindly sent to us for inclusion on this page. If you would like to contribute photographs then please contact us. Findextrawork 
Since leaving the QA's we have done an assortment of self employed work and jobs, some which only take an hour a week, others have been full time. We
have written about these at our other website Findextrawork at
www.findextrawork.co.uk
where we share the information for free to help others with information and resources about earning more money.
Visit Findextrawork for more information.
For the official Army QARANC webpage please go to www.army.mod.uk/qaranc/index.html For the QARANC Association website please go to http://www.army.mod.uk/qaranc/qaranc_assn/index.htm |
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