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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. A QARANC wall plaque and shield is available to buy through Amazon. The QA shield is hand made and ready to hang on the wall. . Buy Now. 
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.
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. In his book A Few Deeds Short of a Hero  Robert Widders reminisces about his service at Gibraltar and tells a funny story of the apes of the Rock. One ape was trained to sit on people's shoulders and pose for photos. One day an officer decided to get the ape to sit on his head for a more humorous photograph. Unfortunately the ape decided this would be a suitable spot and time to open its bowels!
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. The Real Tenko The latest book about British Army nurses and nursing describes a dark chapter in the history of the QAs. The Real Tenko: Extraordinary True Stories of Women Prisoners of the Japanese  by Mark Felton is an account of the fall of the Far East to Japan. It comprehensively covers war atrocities performed by the Japanese troops to women stationed in places such as Singapore and Hong Kong. This included Sisters of the QAs who were stationed in hospitals such as
BMH Bowen Road Hong Kong and
BMH Singapore. Read the Qaranc.co.uk review or
Buy Now
with free delivery available.
View more British Army Nursing Books - with free delivery available. 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. For the official Army QARANC webpage please go to www.army.mod.uk/home.aspx For the QARANC Association website please go to www.army.mod.uk/army-medical-services/qaranc/9884.aspx *********************************************** Help Needed A reader of Qaranc.co.uk is researching the exhumation of Heinrich Himmler in Luneberg, Germany circa 1945-46. He thinks that two nurses from the QAIMNS attended the exhumation due to the poor state of health of Walter Schellenberg. He would like to learn if any of the nurses kept a diary of the events leading up to the exhumation or sent any personal letters home to friends or family that may have provided an insight into Walter Schellenberg and the exhumation. Please contact Qaranc.co.uk if you have any information. Qaranc.co.uk have recently learnt about two former Military Hospitals that we would like to write about. These are the British Military Hospital at Wuppertal in Germany and BMH Benghazi. If you know any information, would like to share your memories or have photographs that we can use on the site then please contact Qaranc.co.uk A reader is writing an article about the demise of the Military Hospital for the RAMC Magazine and seeks some help. There was, in Kuala Lumpur, a hospital called BMH Kinrara. He would like to know when it opened and closed, what happened to the buildings and the staff. He thinks that Kinrara closed as Terendak opened and that the staff were transferred across to 34 Company RAMC? He would also like any information about the Military Maternity Hospital, Penang. If you can help then please contact Qaranc.co.uk There is a lovely photo of three QA Midwives from the 1960s about half way down on the Royal Herbert Hospital page. If you can help with information about the Maternity Unit in Woolwich or identify the QA Officers then please contact Qaranc.co.uk The BMH Dhekelia has new photos which includes a stunning picture of the demolition of the original building and some staff photos. The contributor would like some help with the date it was demolished and would love to hear from anyone who worked with her relative. |
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