Thoroughly Adaptable Milly - Part Two

British Liberation Army - June 1944 to May 1945

After serving in the Middle East Milly (Sheppard) was stationed in Wiltshire while waiting to be re-deployed. Her unit was then told to assembled in Luton where they stayed for 2/3 months preparing their gear as they had been told that they were to be part of the British Liberation Army. They would be going to Normandy to support the troops fighting for the liberation of Northern Europe. When the appointed time came they were transported to Eastleigh (Hants), the next day transferring to Southampton to embark on the Princess Margaret Rose. This was D-Day+6, June 12, 1944.

On reaching the French coast 14 sisters, doctors and orderlies were transferred to two lifeboats. Milly remembered feeling sea-sick. At one point their boat nearly capsized. All the women were wearing men’s uniform, complete with fly fronts, as the special material was practically water-proof and therefore more serviceable. She was carrying full kit, bedrolls etc. On the beach an army officer confronted them exclaiming, "My God, women!"

A Tommy arrived and took them to where they were to meet transport. They waited for over two hours. A three-tonner came and went along the coast picking up servicemen (and women). Then they had a puncture and had to wait for another wheel. Suddenly there were Tommies everywhere with mugs of tea - by now they were all covered with dust, this on top of being wet must have made them look more like refugees than a conquering army.

The medical team was taken to La Deliverand. The Pioneer Corps had been delayed, as there were no tents or equipment, they prepared to spend the night, dossed down in an orchard. About 10 p.m. they were moved into a convent, empty except for bedsteads and tables. The area was being shelled all the time and the windows were shattered. Sisters and orderlies put up tents, eventually going to sleep on the stretchers. The next day the Pioneer Corps arrived with more tents and equipment. The sisters were allocated three to a tent. Milly had lost her enamel washing bowl (from her kit bag), so acquired a tall biscuit tin for washing, even managing to wash her hair in it - though usually with cold water.

All the personnel were equipped with 48 hours emergency rations in cardboard boxes, comprising terrific chocolate, tea, oatmeal and toilet paper. For breakfast Milly made porridge (sometimes with tea in it), followed by hard ship's biscuits and compo tea. The biscuits were never finished.

The Director of Medical Services was aghast that they were not set-up ready for action. To give them greater protection, he ordered that slip trenches be cut under the tents; they were then lined with newspaper to stop the soil falling in. The camp was operational as a hospital with camp beds, bed rolls and oil lamps before the Battle of Caen commenced. There was German shelling about eleven every night. Milly remembers that: "I slept with my tin hat over my bottom (to prevent pelvic injuries) and my pillow over my head." As it turned out there was quite a wait until action reached Caen, so when preparations were complete they were allowed to visit places of interest, such as Bayeaux.

BATTLE OF CAEN

In the morning before battle commenced Matron sent the sisters up the hill (outside Caen) to have tea with the Observers. The planes came over early, about 5 o'clock, the sky was blue and streaked with white streamers - a wonderful sight. Milly saw the bombs falling on the city from a vantage point. She saw planes being fired on and crashing, with their parachutes drifting down. It was awful to see and very distressing. They had to get back to camp to be ready for the casualties. Clothing was cut away from the injured soldiers and wounds were dressed as the casualties arrived. The extent of some of the injuries were so great that it became a very harrowing experience and one had to remember that the bundles of humanity were all someone’s son. Some of the injured were given self heating water bottles. Others were so injured that they had to have morphine; other patients (less injured) were often depressed. When they were badly wounded and their uniform damaged, all buttons, photos, false teeth etc. were put into 'Dorothy bags' and passed on to the colonel for safe keeping. When the ward was full the patients were evacuated home. The Matron, Nan Rowlands, was only "two bricks high" and super efficient. As soon as one lot went they had to prepare for the next and so were working from 8 to 8 nonstop, is shifts, then it was a meal and bed. Captured Germans were brought in too, placed on the wards with the para-troopers, the men were treated the same and given blood if necessary. The mens’ uniform stank. After 2/3 nights the battle field was covered with blue-bottles. Milly remembers this period as the most gruelling, demanding and yet often exhilarating, part of her life.

Food supplies were low. There were tins of self-heating soup and six weeks supply of hard biscuits. Eventually bread was available for the patients. One time Milly found some Normandy butter and made some ‘butties’ for the orderlies, this was sheer luxury at the time.

After Caen, Milly and her unit moved to Bernais, each time a new camp had to be set up. In between, as the battle moved, on they had to wait for equipment to be transferred from camp to camp. There were periods of calm between bouts of intense action. On spare days they would hitch rides to see places of interest, like Rouen Cathedral.

One free day they met an officer responsible for retrieving smashed up planes, he said he was going somewhere about 40 miles from Paris. There were four sisters, two Scottish, one Irish and Milly. Two Yanks came and brought a loaf (they were still on hard biscuits), so freshly made bully-beef sandwiches were a treat. They offered them a lift and arranged to be in a certain spot for collection. They met and went to an inn and had lunch and wine. An American doctor came along and told them that he was going to Versailles, but they persuaded him to go to Paris. Arriving in Paris they were mobbed and urged to give their cigarettes away. When the sisters returned back to camp they were met by the Matron. Not wanting her nurses to be at a loose end she had organised a bridge party. Someone had left a note that Milly and her friends had gone to Paris - next day they were all 'on the carpet' and were reported to the Colonel.

The Liberating Army moved along the North of France, into Belgium and on to Courtrai, about twelve miles from Brussels. The unit travelled in three-tonners, medical officers, sisters and orderlies, all together. The lorries stopped every two hours for the men to spend 'a penny,' Milly learned to get by on half a cup of tea. For a time they were attached to a Canadian regiment, the out-riders used to hand out sandwiches as they drove by - their first real sandwiches for weeks. At Courtrai a school was taken over for a hospital, some of their patients were Polish soldiers.

In October 1944 Milly was placed in a private billet with the Misses Delporte, two Belgian sisters. For the first time since she left England she was able to get her clothes properly laundered. The sisters enjoyed having young people around and encouraged her to bring friends back to their home. On one occasion she took a group of young officers back for tea. While they were sitting around the table she noticed that one of the officers appeared embarrassed, when pressed for the reason he said that one of the sisters had spoken to him in French and told him that ‘it was quite all right to take Mary upstairs!’

They were still in Courtrai for Christmas 1944: Milly remembered collecting sugar from the orderlies to make them toffee as a Christmas treat. They went round the ward singing carols and then out into the street. Near Antwerp there was continual bombing for a couple of days. One bomb fell on a cinema full of troops and many injured.

Shortly after this they were posted to Tilburg. It was there that General Eisenhower (Allied Commander in Europe) visited their hospital and made a ‘round’ of the wards. He spoke to everyone, patients and staff. The nurses with Milly were eager to get his autograph so they waited on the hospital steps to catch him as he left. News men were gathered round, Milly asked if anyone came from Wales hoping that news would get home. It did! Not only the papers but the event was shown on Pathe News in cinemas all over the country. Incidentally, Monty had visited the field hospital in Caen, he never spoke to anyone, "a miserable old devil,” Milly recalled.

The Germans bombed Tilburg Airport on New Year's Eve. It was whilst at Tilburg that the staff were given 48 hours leave in Paris. Names were drawn out of a hat and the lucky ones were allowed to go two at a time. Milly eventually had a turn but some friends who went early on bought her back a black bra and pants set, quite a luxury.

At Neimegan the nursing staff was transferred from the Canadians to a British Unit, (the 88th) for some months. It was a casualty clearing station staffed by 14 sisters. They crossed the Rhine with the Padre but the area was still being shelled so they had to return. Milly was reprimanded having borrowed a bike from a Tommy and riding over a bridge to Arras, without permission.

It was whilst in Neimegan that she was contacted by her brother Frank, also in Holland, serving in the Welsh Guards. He kept in touch with her and when they were in Tilburg he collected her to join him and his pals to celebrate his birthday, this would have been March 1945.

The Army then moved on to Bad Sad Sufhlan, a village spa in Germany. The place had been full of mental homes prior to the military action. Whilst under German control, the patients who were able to work had been allowed to live; the rest had been put to sleep. Now as hospitals for British patients, they were staffed with German maids and orderlies, all the original furniture and equipment had been kept.

Milly remembers that at the time of the end of hostilities, their wireless was broken and they were unaware that peace had been declared. She saw the German Army in retreat - a long line of men walking with carts and horses.

From May 1945 to December 1945, Milly was posted back to Brussels as part of the British Army of the Rhine. She used to go to the YMCA for tea and scones, as she was always hungry; at that time there was nowhere else to eat. She rejoined the 23rd Scottish regiment in Lille. From Germany she and her friends would hitch-hike to Brussels and then get the train back to camp. The railway line over the River Maas collapsed the day after one of her return journeys.

Milly returned home in time for Christmas Eve, December 1945, via Manchester, where she was given money and coupons to buy her own 'demob suit.'

Recorded by neice Anne Donnelly for Milly's 92 birthday April 2002

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