Ambulance drivers

[harriet quimby]

How close were women ambulance drivers to front line action or artillery shelling on the Western Front? Also does anyone know if any women drivers were killed or injured and in what circumstances?

[Jim Strawbridge]

Off the top of my head I can't think of any female ambulance drivers who died near the front line. But Betty Stevenson, of the YMCA, was a driver who was sheltering under a hedge when splinters off a bomb killed her on the 30th May 1918.

[RobL]

Not ambulance, or on the western front which is probably what information you're after, but a memoir of a WAAC on a course in Ireland, was told by another WAAC who was a driver that rebels had a habit of tying wire across a road to decapitate anyone in a motor vehicle - no idea if it actually killed anyone in a motor vehicle, male or female

[Jennyford]

For a good idea of what an ambulance driver's work was like, try reading 'Not so Quiet... Stepdaughters of War' by Helen Zenna Smith (Evadne Price). It's a novel, but it was based on the diaries of Winifred Young, an ambulance driver at the Front. Young allowed Price to use her diaries on the condition that she produced a story that was faithful to them. It's a remarkable book, intended to be a companion to 'All Quiet on the Western Front', which had appeared the year before, in 1929.

[SiegeGunner]

Commander Henry Halahan RN, OC Royal Naval Siege Guns (see my avatar), wrote the following letter of recommendation to Prince Alexander of Teck, head of the British Military Mission in Belgium, which ultimately led to Lady Dorothie Feilding becoming the first British woman to receive the MM:

"....As neither a Medical Officer nor an ambulance were provided, arrangements were made with the Chief of the Munro Ambulance Corps to provide a doctor and ambulance as required by me .... Dr Henry Jellett volunteered for the duty with us and he, with an Ambulance has attended on us on every occasion of firing from February 1915 to March 1916 when a Naval Surgeon was appointed. Recently I have been furnished with a Naval motor ambulance and this marks the final severance with the Munro Corps. Lady Dorothie Feilding as a member of this Corps has driven the Munro Motor Ambulance and attended our wounded during the whole of the aforementioned period. Dr Jellet's services have already been recognised and I venture to submit that Lady Dorothie Feilding should in like manner be rewarded. The circumstances are peculiar in that, this being an isolated Unit, no Medical organisation existed for clearing casualties other than this voluntary one and owing to indifferent means of communication etc, it was necessary for the Ambulance to be in close touch with the guns when in action. Lady Dorothie Feilding was thus frequently exposed to risks which probably no other woman has undergone. She has always displayed a devotion to duty and contempt of danger which has been a source of admiration to all. I speak only of her work with the Naval Siege Guns, but your Serene Highness is also aware of her devoted services to the Belgian Army and to the French - notably to the Brigade des Marins."