Women who died serving in WW1 - Wimereux, France

We often hear about the graves of British Tommies buried in cemeteries on the Western Front in WW1 but we don't often hear about the British and Commonwealth  women who died serving in some capacity who are also buried there:  This is just one of the cemeteries in France where you will find the graves of women who died or were killed during the First World War.

LIST OF FEMALE WW1 CASUALTIES BURIED IN WIMEREUX COMMUNAL CEMETERY, PAS DE CALAIS, FRANCE - COMMONWEALTH WAR GRAVES COMMISSION

CLAYTON-SWAN, Mildred - Army Service Corps (Canteen) – Civilian

COLE, Emily Helena – Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service – Sister

DUNCAN, Isabella Lucy May – Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Nursing Service – Sister

EVANS, Margaret Ellen – Voluntary Aid Detachment

HOCKEY, Jessie Olive – Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Nursing Service – Reserve Sister – from South Africa (Cape Province)

KING, Nita Madeline – Voluntary Aid Detachment

LANCASTER, Alice Hilda – Nurse – Special Military Probationary attached to the Territorial Force Nursing Service*

PICKARD, Mrs Rubie (aged 67) – Voluntary Aid Detachment – voluntary worker in the Newspaper Department for supplying daily newspapers to British Hospitals

ST. JOHN, Barbara Esmee – Voluntary Aid Detachment

TREVELYAN, Armorel Kitty – Civilian in the Army Service Corps Canteen

WHITELY, Anna E. – Canadian Army Nursing Service – Nursing Sister from Peterborough, Ontario

WILSON, Christina Murdoch – Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Nursing Service – Sister

WILSON, Myrtle Elizabeth – Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Nursing Service – Sister – Australian from Melbourne

* The Territorial Force Nursing Service was set up in 1909 as a sister organisation to the Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Nursing Service in order to supplement the service during emergencies.  All members worked as nurses in civilian life.  In 1920 the service was re-named The Territorial Army Nursing Service (TANS) when the Territorial Force was re-named The Territorial Army.  The Territorial Force Nursing Service became the Territorial Army Branch of Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps.   Source:  www.forces-war-records.co.uk and www.cwgc.com

"No Woman's Land" - Volume 1 of Inspirational Women of the First World War now available as download

I am happy to report that "No Woman's Land" is now available as an electronic download.

For just £2 you can get a pdf copy of the book that can be read on tablets, laptops, PCs, etc.

Here is the link if you are interested:

http://www.poshupnorth.com/2015/02/now-available-no-womans-land-download.html

And here is a link to a review of the book:

http://www.bestkeptsecrets.biz/2014/12/book-review-no-womans-land-centenary.html  

Mary Riter Hamilton and the Chinese Labour Corps in WW1

As today (19th February 2015) is Chinese New Year, I would like to remember the members of The Chinese Labour Corps who worked on the Western Front during and after the First World War. Many of the workers died and are buried in France. 

In May 1919, Mary Riter Hamilton, a Canadian artist, was commissioned by the Canadian War Amputees Association to go and paint what she saw of the desolation left by the conflict. Mary lived for three years in a tin hut among the Chinese workers who cleared away the mess. Can you imagine what it must have been like to live there back then? The water table had become contaminated early on in the war and food was scarce. As local people began to return to the area, they shared their food with Mary but it obviously was not like the food you can get if you visit the area now! 

Nothing daunted, Mary painted on, in spite of being attacked by some of the members of the gangs of bounty hunters, etc that roamed the area in the immediate aftermath of the war. Her health suffered and she lost the sight of one eye.   Some of Mary's amazing paintings went on display in London and Paris.

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When she returned to Canada, Mary donated her 300+ paintings to the National Archives and never painted again. Photo: one of Mary Riter Hamilton's paintings on the Western Front. 

You can see more of Mary's WW1 work on www.collectionscanada.gc.ca and find out more about the Canadian War Amps onwww.waramps.ca

Photos:  One of Mary's paintings and her exhibition panel on display at Fleetwood Library, Lancashire, UK in November 2014.

Sarah Macnaughtan's Soup Kitchens on the Western Front in WW1

Following on from my post about Sarah on 25th January 2015, I have been reading Sarah's account of her wartime experiences in Flanders and en route to Russia.  British writer Sarah Macnaughtan was described by one of the British nurses who had volunteered to help in Flanders as being " a delicate little woman, highly strung and nervous". 

Nevertheless, Sarah who had volunteered as an orderly with the Red Cross at the outbreak of war, horrified at the plight of the Belgian and French wounded soldiers that she witnessed, set up and ran soup kitchens for them in Flanders during WW1.   I really do admire those Inspirational Women of WW1 and cannot praise them highly enough.   Many of them, like Sarah, were able to help both financially and physically.  

Today I am reading of how Sarah got a representative from Harrods to visit her to discuss the supply of horse-boxex converted into travelling kitchens:

8th November 1914 in a letter to Clementine Wearing in Edinburgh requesting her help : "I want some travelling-kitchens and have opened  the subject with Mr Burbidge of Harrods' Stores."  

Harrods apparently supplied just such a converted horse box to Millicent Sutherland (one of the Female Poets of the First World War) for her hospital in St. Malo.   These kitchens cost £15 each (which would be about £3,000 today). Sarah wanted to be able to prepare vegetables for making soup and needed "a copper for boiling the soup, a chimney, a place for fuel and a strong box to hold the vegetables whose top would serve as a table". 

The cross-Channel ferry S.S.  "Invicta" made regular Channel crossings from Admiralty Pier, Dover and carried Red Cross supplies free of charge.  It seems that "Invicta" survived the war, in spite of near misses during those hazardous journeys.  Sarah described one such escape on 2nd November 1914 : "The "Invicta" got in late because the "Hermes" had been torpedoed and they had gone to her assistance.  No doubt the torpedo was intended for the "Invicta".

After her death in 1916, Sarah's niece published her diaries under the title "My War Experiences in Two Continents" by S. Macnaughtan, edited by Betty Keays-Young and published in 1919 by John Murray, London.   This is available as a download and I urge you to read it.

Sarah McNaughton's "My War Experiences in Two Continents" is available as a download free on http://www.gutenberg.org/files/18364/18364-h/18364-h.htm

Matilda Emily Clark's "A War Nurse's Diary Sketches from a Belgian Field Hospital" is available as a download free on https://archive.org/stream/warnursesdiarysk00newy#page/n7/mode/2up

Sara Macnaughtan - writer from Scotland - and Matilda Emily Clark - a nurse from England

Two very inspirational women of the First World War are Sarah Macnaughtan, a Scottish writer, and Matilda Emily Clark, an English nurse.  Their stories are amazing - please try to find time to read them as they are available as free downloads on the Internet.

Sarah B. Macnaughtan was born in Scotland on 26th October 1864. She was the daughter of Peter Macnaughtan and his wife Julia nee Blackman who had a large family.   According to her niece, Betty Salmon (nee Keays-Young) who was married to Lionel Salmon and who edited her war diaries after her death, Sarah was generous, witty, energetic, vivacious, charming and very religious.  Sarah had many interests from music, literature, art, shooting, big game hunting, riding, travel - she went to Canada, South America, South Africa, the Middle East and India - and 'adventure of every kind'. "As a girl she was unpunctual."  She was ambitious and clever but devoted to her family.  Her father, elder brother and a sister are mentioned in the summing up by Sarah's niece. 

Sarah was a writer, her first work being published in 1898.  When her parents died, Sarah left Scotland and moved to Kent.  She joined the Suffragettes, worked with the poor in London's East End, was a Red Cross volunteer during the Second Boer War and helped those who were suffering during the Balkan War.

At the age of 50, Sarah Macnaughtan volunteered with the Red Cross and went to Belgium on 20th September 1914 with Mabel St. Clair Stobart's Group, arriving in Antwerp on 22nd September.

On 10th October as the Germans drew ever closer after the fall of Antwerp, Mrs Stobart took her group back to England and Sarah joined Dr. Hector Monro's Flying Ambulance Unit.

"This evening Dr. Hector Munro came in from Ghent with his oddly-dressed ladies, and at first one was inclined to call them masqueraders in their knickerbockers and puttees and caps, but I believe they have done excellent work. It is a queer side of war to see young, pretty English girls in khaki and thick boots, coming in from the trenches, where they have been picking up wounded men within a hundred yards of the enemy's lines, and carrying them away on stretchers. Wonderful little Walküres in knickerbockers, I lift my hat to you!

Dr. Munro asked me to come on to his convoy, and I gladly did so: he sent home a lady whose nerves were gone, and I was put in her place."   We know that May Sinclair was sent back to England suffering from Shell Shock after six weeks in Belgium as Dr. Munro's Personal Assistant.

A few days later, Monro's Ambulance Unit reached Furnes and Sarah Macnaughtan was mentioned in British nurse Matilda Emily Clark's  "A War Nurse's Diary Sketches from A Belgian Field Hospital".  In October 1914 in a makeshift hospital in a Roman Catholic College in Furnes:  "In our ward there was a little elderly lady who quietly offered her services, and as she looked capable I sent her to clear away the evening meal and wipe down the tables.  She never bothered me again but quietly busied herself setting things in order.  Soon two big oil-lamps relieved the darkness and some large scissors that we had longer for lay to hand to rip the men's clothes off them.  The unassuming little helper had been out to buy them.  A few days after, when we had time to breathe, we were introduced.  It was Miss McNaughton, the writer of "A Lame Dog's Diary" and other books.

She was a delicate little woman, highly strung and nervous."  After helping the nurses out in the ward for several days, Miss McNaughton "procured a tiny room at the station and ran a soup-kitchen for the wounded.   Now, this sounds a homely and commonplace sort of occupation, but when you realise the circumstances you will know what courage it required." (pp. 31 - 33) 

The story of the English nurse's experiences as a nurse during the early days of the war is absolutely amazing.  She was at the fall of Antwerp and travelled in buses with some of the wounded British Martines. At one stage, she was obliged to return to London as it was felt unsafe for British civilians to remain in Belgium.  However, she was soon back in Belgium then France to continue nursing the wounded - both military and civilian.

Sarah died in London on 24th June 1916 exhausted after working as a volunteer orderly with the Red Cross in Belgium and Russia from the early days of the war. She was buried in Chart Sutton, a small village south of Maidstone in Kent.  Sarah's war diary was dedicated to all who fought in the conflict and in particular her own nephews - Captain Lionel Salmon, 1st Bn. the Welch Regiment, Captain Helier Percival, M.C., 9th Bn. the Welch Regiment, Captain Alan Young, 2nd Bn. the Welch Regiment,

Captain Colin Macnaughtan, 2nd Dragoon Guards and Lieutenant Richard Young, 9th Bn. the Welch Regiment.

Sarah McNaughton's "My War Experiences in Two Continents" is available as a download free on http://www.gutenberg.org/files/18364/18364-h/18364-h.htm

Matilda Emily Clark's "A War Nurse's Diary Sketches from a Belgian Field Hospital" is available as a download free on https://archive.org/stream/warnursesdiarysk00newy#page/n7/mode/2up

Sources:  

http://www.scarletfinders.co.uk

http://www.findmypast.co.uk

Sarah Macnaughtan's and the war nurse's books via the Internet.

and on Wikipedia

The photo is of Miss Sarah Macnaughton during WW1 from "A War Nurse's Diary" page 32

If anyone has any information about the nurse who wrote !A War Nurse's Diary Sketches from a Belgian Field Hospital" I would love to hear from them.

Amelia Earhart (1897 - 1937) - American pilot and writer - VAD in WW1

Amelia Mary Earhard was born in Atchison, Kansas, the elder of two daughters born to a German American - Samuel “Edwin” Stanton Earhart, a lawyer – and his wife “Amy” Otis Earhart, whose father was a Federal Judge. 

When she was ten years old, Amelia’s father tried to take his daughters for a ride in an aircraft but they declined.  Amelia kept a scrapbook with press cuttings of women who had successful careers in a world dominated by men.

Educated at home initially, Amelia enrolled in Ogontz School in Rydal, Pennsylvania but during the Christmas holidays in 1917 she visited her sister Grace Muriel in Toronto and saw some of the wounded Canadian soldiers returning from the war in Europe.  Amelia immediately volunteered to join the Voluntary Aid Detachment and after initial training from the Red Cross worked at the Spadina Mlitary Hospital in Toronto.

In November 1918 Amelia became ill with Spanish Flu and had to convalesce for a year before regaining her health.  During that time she lived in Massachusetts at her sister’s home where she read poetry, learnt to play the Banjo and studied mechanical engineering.

Amelia went to live with her parents in California in 1921 and during a visit to an airfield she had a ten minute flight in an aircraft which made her determined to learn to fly.   Her teacher was Netta Snook, the American woman pioneer aviator.

Following the solo flight of Charles Lindberg across the Atlantic in 1927, Amy Phipps Guest wanted to try a similar solo flight but needed an experienced woman pilot to join her team.  Amelia was invited to go along as a passenger with the responsibility for keeping the flight log.  That flight propelled Amelia into the limelight and from then on, she continued to build on her flying experiences and also began promoting the emerging commercial air travel industry, becoming Vice President of National Airways.  In 1928, she was the first woman to fly solo across North America and back.

Amelia married George P. Putnam in 1931 and in 1932 she flew solo across the Atlantic.   In 1935 she became the first person to fly solo from Honolulu to Caifornia.  

After a fire in their home, George and Amelia moved to California and George became the head of the board of Paramount Pictures in Hollywood.

Amelia began planning a solo flight around the world in 1936 and in 1937, after a false start, accompanied by her navigator Fred Noonan, who was a Master Mariner as well as being an experienced flight navigator, she took off on 1st June from Oakland, heading initially for Miami.   They reached Lae in New Guinea on 29^th June 1937.   They set off on 2^nd July at midnight to fly across the Pacific Ocean, heading for Howland Island but they never arrived.  In spite of extensive searches no traces of the aircraft or of Amelia and Fred were found until a British pilot – Gerald Gallagher – found a skeleton in 1940 on the island.  Gallagher was convinced that it was Amelia.  The remains were sent to Fiji but were lost.

Until recently, there were many theories about the plane’s disappearance but the discovery of a metal panel on an uninhabited Pacific Island could provide a valuable clue to what happened.   The 3ft square metal panel was found in 1991 by a group of American aviation enthusiasts who recently made an exciting discovery.  Amelia’s aircraft was apparently modified before take off and an aluminium panel was fitted over a fuselage window.  Members of the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery have matched the dimensions of the panel to the window on Earhart’s plane. Members of the Group plan to return to the island in 2015 to continue their search.

Sources:  Wikipedia and “The Times”, Friday, October 31^st 2014 pp 36 – 37.

Photo of Amelia Earhart in her VAD uniform - Google Images

Neta Snook(1896 - 1991) - American woman pilot

Neta Snook Southern was born on 14^th February 1896 in Illinois, America.   Neta’s interest in machinery began with her father’s encouragement to learn about the workings of his cars and how to drive them.   When her family moved to Iowa in 1915, Neta went to the State College to study mechanical drawing and farm machinery repair.   She wanted to learn to fly but her application to join the Curtiss Aviation School was turned down because, at that time, women were not admitted, so Netta joined the Davenport Flying School in Iowa.

During the First World War, civilian flights were banned in America and Neta worked for a time at the British Air Ministry in Elmira, New York, inspecting and testing aircraft before they were sent to the war zones of Europe.

IN 1920, Neta went to work as a flying instructor at the Kinner Airfield in Los Angeles, where she became the first woman to run a commercial airfield.

In 1921, Amelia Earhart and her father visited the airfield and, after a flight which inspired Amelia they asked Neta to teach Amelia to fly, which is how their friendship began.   Neta gave up flying to marry and have a family but after her famous pupil’s disappearance in 1937, she took up lecturing and wrote and published her autobiography.   In 1977 Neta flew a replica plane of Charles Lindberg’s “Spirit of St. Louis and in 1981 she was acclaimed as the oldest woman pilot in America.   Neta died on 23^rd March 1991 at her home on a ranch in California.