H.M.H.S. Kalyan in North Russia, 1918-1919 – Names of Nurses?

[alf mcm]

On 27/12/2022 at 10:19, KizmeRD said:

Matron Helena Hartigan’s medal card…

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/D6083034

MB

edit - see also (includes a photo)....

http://anurseatthefront.org.uk/names-mentioned-in-the-diaries/other-people/medical-colleagues/helena-hartigan/

 

MB,

  Thanks for posting the photo of Helena Hartigan.

Regards,

Alf McM

[alf mcm]

ZeZe,

  Thanks for putting all the nurses details together. I am sure number 14 will turn up eventually.

Regards,

Alf McM

[ZeZe]

Hi Alf,

Was checking Q.A.I.M.N.S.R. Staff Nurse Sarah ANDERSON (WO 399/137) for her service on ‘Aquitania’.

She also served on H.M.H.S. Kalyan, embarked 19.10.18; returned 10.06.19. The confidential report mentioned on the cover (page 6) appears to have been weeded out.

regards ZeZe

[alf mcm]

Thanks a lot ZeZe, thats number 14 accounted for.

Regards,

Alf McM

[ZeZe]

Hi Alf,

Looking for another nurse on the NA MIC’s I noticed one of the other five names on the page – SMITH (Now Pennington), Blanche Attwood Barkerville – served HS Neuralia so thought I’d check out her file (WO 399/7661). 

On being posted she enthusiastically shopped for ‘the necessary kit’ for life on board a hospital ship, spending three months salary on a stove, thick coat, gum boots etc. etc. etc. With the war coming to a close her spell on Neuralia was only for three weeks so she rather naively wrote to The Matron-in-Chief asking if a reimbursement was possible. She received a curt reply and was regarded as trouble.

Blanche’s letter dated 07.01.1919 also says …..‘I hear that you are requiring volunteers for Russia, if so I am quite willing to go.’

I had not considered that the nurse’s who sailed on Kalyan and Braemar Castle may all have been volunteers (their files just say ‘posted to Kalyan’), though it makes sense considering the conditions and time they were going to spend trapped in the ice through the winter. Do you know if the nurses volunteered for the North Russia posting?

Regards ZeZe

[alf mcm]

ZeZe,

  Blanche's letter is interesting, I wonder what made her think she had to buy her own stove?

  I know that QARNNS nurses would would request to serve on Hospital ships, and sometimes had to wait many months to get a posting. There always seems to have been a waiting list, but no doubt they would have been ordered to serve on a hospital ship if there were not enough volunteers. I think the same would apply for the Army.

  We know that Helena Hartigan was requested {ordered!} to serve on the Kalyan, but I think there would be enough Army nurses volunteering to complete the nursing staff.

 Regards,

Alf McM

[ZeZe]

Hi

As the Helena Hartigan’s NA Nurse Record appears to be lost here are a few details of her Q.A.I.M.N.S. service taken from the Selection Committee for promotion to Matron, dated 1^st February 1926.

I’m not sure if the ‘Order of Queen Elizabeth’ is mis-typed and should be ‘Elisabeth’. A Belgium decoration.

Source WO 399/6077 (Johanna Murphy) p.30

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C10798897

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Elisabeth_Medal

regards ZeZe