Thoroughly Adaptable Milly - Part One

THOROUGHLY ADAPTABLE MILLY

Middle Eastern Liberation Force - February 1940 to February 1944

In February 1940 Milly joined the Territorial Army Nursing Service, which later became amalgamated with the Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps (Q.A.R.A.N.C). Both of these units provided qualified nursing support at all levels and a wide variety of nursing specialists. During the war their personnel could be found anywhere in the world where Army medical Services were required. Milly was appointed to the 26th British General Hospital. The ‘sisters,’ as they were called, had officer status and at first were very self conscious about being saluted.

Milly’s war experience began in earnest on June 24, 1940, when she left Oxford by train to join the Middle East Liberation Force. She joined-up with Beryl Morgan and Katie Clegg, they were to become life long friends. The unit travelled by overnight train to Gurrock, in Scotland, where they went on board the Queen Mary ready to embark at mid-day. The Queen Mary, together with the Aquitania and the Mauritania, were to sail in convoy to Singapore, where they were destined to be refurbished as troop carriers. Accommodation was four to a cabin. On board they shared duties in the ‘ship’s hospital’ and had to take part in further training ready for the desert operations. There was very little free time.

The liners sailed down through the Bay of Biscay, passing along the east coast of Africa heading for Cape Town, stopping at Freetown (Sierra Leone) on the way.
Arriving at Table Bay, Cape Town, the Queen Mary had to then moor at Simon’s Town. The passengers were allowed to go ashore in Cape Town for the day. When they returned to the ship, they found that the Queen Mary had been moved in to deeper water. They had to be ferried out to the liner, where they then had to scramble up the sides on ropes; a nerve racking experience.

From Cape Town the convoy sailed into the Indian Ocean, bound for, Colombo (now Sri Lanka), arriving on July 29. Again they were allowed to go on shore and had the luxury of going to the Grand Orient Hotel for dinner. On their return the liner sailed into mid-ocean, so that the troops and nurses could be transhipped to the Karagola, a smaller ship than the Queen Mary, which was now headed for Singapore. They were now ready to sail up the west coast of India to Bombay. On arrival at Bombay they all transhipped again, this time to the Khedive Ismali; previously King Farouk’s honeymoon transport, this was no luxury experience as they were all crammed in with their equipment. Still in convoy they crossed the Arabian Sea. After passing the Port of Aden into the Red Sea their ship was running short of drinking water, so it left the convoy with one destroyer as escort and called at Port Sudan. Arriving there at 7 am in the morning, on August 20, Milly and her unit were allowed on shore on the promise that they would buy topees to protect themselves from the sun. Whilst in dock Milly and friends visited HMS Kingston and a submarine. They embarked again in the afternoon, when their ship had taken onboard sufficient water and re-joined the convoy. Their sea journey came to an end on August 23, when they disembarked at Port Taufiq on the Suez Canal. They had been at sea for two months.

The next part of the journey was by train from Port Said to Gaza, in Palestine. The unit was taken to an army camp at Sarafand. It was a tented hospital built by the Arabs. Everyone had to be constantly alert, as the tents would sometimes go up in flames due to spontaneous combustion in the intense heat. The staff lived in tents while bungalow type huts were built for staff accommodation. The Arabs slept in the bungalows while they were under construction. Their mattresses would be ‘alive’ with vermin and so a routine was established to de-bug the beds; every Monday the mattresses would be put outside the building, the ants would then arrive and devour the bugs. Insect life of all kinds was a constant pre-occupation, they got into the woodwork and equipment: everyone slept under mosquito nets but they were no defence against bed bugs. The Arabs had to be watched too as they would steal anything; patients’ pay books and valuables placed under their pillows would still disappear while they were sleeping. Concrete baths were built (but no showers), if you were lucky you had a sheet to put in the bath to make it more comfortable. Strangely, there was never any shortage of water and this despite having four or five baths a day when the weather was at it’s hottest.

The patients, at this time, were mostly Australian soldiers; at first malaria was rife but later diphtheria and skin conditions (aggravated by the sun and sand) needed to be treated. It was here that Beryl became ill with dysentery and had to be transferred to the 62nd General Hospital in Jerusalem, forty miles away. A week later Milly was taken ill and joined her friend in a two-bedded ward. In the meantime, the 26th General Hospital was posted to Greece. Beryl, Katy and Milly were left in Palestine as they had all been ill and were thought unfit to travel. Katy and Milly soon recovered and returned to Sarafand to join the 23rd Scottish Unit.

At one time Milly and Katy had to return to Jerusalem to nurse children who had succumbed to measles, prior to being shipped to Cairo and so had to remain until they recovered. The sisters were billeted in Allenby House, the residence of General Allenby in World War 1. Whilst in Jerusaslem, they were able to visit Beryl, who was still critically ill in hospital.

Milly’s sister Eva was in Syria about this time and she was able to come to Jerusalem on leave, where they met and went sight seeing together. Milly’s matron asked her whether she would like to be posted with her sister. “Definitely not,” was Milly’s response. (After the war, when they were together again, Eva said that her matron had offered her the same opportunity and her reply had been identical!) The nursing staff were also allowed to go to Cairo on leave, they visited the Pyramids and even rode on camels.

By February 1944, the fight for North Africa had been won and the forces of the Middle Eastern Liberation Front returned home. Milly’s return journey was much shorter and less eventful than the protracted outward bound route, sailing via the Mediterranean to England. The first part of her war was over.

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