WWI Nurses as POWs

[Dr Melanie Oppenheimer]

Hi there,

Does anyone know the story of the British Red Cross Society medical team (including men and women) who were captured by the Austrians in Serbia in 1915? They were held as POWs for about 5 months, before being released in Switzerland in 1916. I'm following up Australian nurse Ethel Gillingham who was part of the team. She later nursed with the BRCS in Egypt towards the end of the war. I have part of a diary style document written by Ethel after the war explaining her wartime exploits. She later returned home to Colac in Australia.

I'm looking for any information and especially a picture of Ethel Gillingham from WWI.

Any assistance or ideas gratefully received!

Best wishes,

Melanie

[Jim Strawbridge]

I am guessing that Ethel Gillingham was part of the Scottish Women's Hospital team under Elsie Inglis. However I appreciate that the dates are a year out.

In October 1916 Elsie Inglis brought the hospital containing 300 beds up to the Dobrudja firing line and her staff collected the wounded, from the front, using their own vehicles. With the Austrian army making inroads to the north the women were encouraged to move south. However some patients could not be moved and a number, including Elsie Inglis, elected to remain at Krushevatz thereby hoping to ensure the safety of the wounded. The units were allowed, by the occupying forces, to continue their work. Repatriation took place through U.S.diplomatic pressure and Elsie Inglis was returned to England via Vienna and Zurich, by train across France to Le Havre then ferry to Southampton.

If I am correct you may find it easier to research the Scottish Women's Hospital and Elsie Inglis for their movements are well recorded.

[Dr Melanie Oppenheimer]

I am guessing that Ethel Gillingham was part of the Scottish Women's Hospital team under Elsie Inglis. However I appreciate that the dates are a year out.

In October 1916 Elsie Inglis brought the hospital containing 300 beds up to the Dobrudja firing line and her staff collected the wounded, from the front, using their own vehicles. With the Austrian army making inroads to the north the women were encouraged to move south. However some patients could not be moved and a number, including Elsie Inglis, elected to remain at Krushevatz thereby hoping to ensure the safety of the wounded. The units were allowed, by the occupying forces, to continue their work. Repatriation took place through U.S.diplomatic pressure and Elsie Inglis was returned to England via Vienna and Zurich, by train across France to Le Havre then ferry to Southampton.

If I am correct you may find it easier to research the Scottish Women's Hospital and Elsie Inglis for their movements are well recorded.

Thanks very much, that is most useful. I'll go and look for the SWH and Elsie Inglis as a way to track Ethel Gillingham. It hadn't occurred to me to do that.

But from what I can make out, Ethel wasn't with the SWH. There was was a BRCS unit at Vratchka (which Ethel was with) - I think Monica Kripper mentions it, but when they were captured in November 1915, they were put together with the others from the SWH which included Inglis, and remained together until freed in 1916. All of them, including Elsie Inglis returned home so the dates do correspond.

Once again, many thanks!

[Rickus]

Hi Melanie,

I guess it too late (since you have published your book on Australian women in WW1) but I could I could supply photo, journal etc to do with Ethel Gillingham's 'adventures' in Serbia 1915.

Ethel served with the British Red Cross at Vrnjačka Banja (or Vrnjatchka Banja as she spelt it) Serbia. Ethel, an Australian, was my grandmother.

Indeed in a letter she wrote after her Serbian experience Ethel describes how after being captured in November 1915 and transferred to Krusevac in January they were joined by "the remaining members of two private units "The Scottish Women" and "The Wounded Allies Relief" " to make a group of 40 who were to be released via Vienna and Zurich (in what family folklore said was part of a prisoner of war swap for a a high ranking German officer).

Regards,

Rickus

[Heid the Ba]

Were these nurses prisoners of war in terms of the Geneva Conventions? My understanding is that they were not, and could not be exchanged, they had to be released as soon as this was practicable.

[Doc2]

Were these nurses prisoners of war in terms of the Geneva Conventions? My understanding is that they were not, and could not be exchanged, they had to be released as soon as this was practicable.

Technically, medical personnel (including nurses) can never be made POWs. Instead, they are "retained personnel". For all practical purposes, they are the same as POWs, with a few additional (on paper) rights and privileges. Historically, they have generally been treated the same as other POWs. You are right that they are supposed to be released when their services are no longer needed for providing care for POWs and other retained personnel, but that is in practice an exception rather than the rule. Doc

[RoseFields]

Hello Melanie and Rickus,

Your information exchange intrigued me as I'm researching the war service of several nursing and medical personnel who passed through the same scene in Serbia at the time of Ethel Gillingham's posting. The details seem complicated by the number of different aid units on the scene at the time and I'm trying to straighten out a few facts on who was where, with whom, and when. Would you be so kind to tell me if Gillingham's records make reference to a Matron Kate (Katie) Mildred Moore, Dr. Graham Aspland or Sister Emily Simmonds. Matron Moore went to Serbia as matron of a group of BRCS nurses in May 1915 (aboard Sir Thomas Lipton's yacht!)--a Miss E. Gillingham is listed among 11 nurses in her party. (The list appears as an announcement in the "British Journal of Nursing", May 8 1915, p. 386-7) Matron Moore returned to London in July 1915 for undocumented reasons. Dr. Aspland was among the staff of the Wounded Allies Hospital held as POWs and Simmonds was an American-trained nurse (British by birth) serving with an unidentified BRCS unit reportedly held prisoner by "Austrian soldiers". I'm trying to pin down some of their details and would be grateful if you've heard of these three.

Regards,

Marjorie

[mandy hall]

Marjorie

You may have come across this book I have just finished reading Women in the War Zone by Anne Powell. Emily Simmonds is mentioned in the account of Flora Sandes at The Serbian Military Hospital, Valjevo, Serbia.

Mandy

[Rickus]

Hi Marjorie,

I am afraid my Ethel Gillingham's essay on her Serbian experiences mentions few names and certainly not the three you seek. Those who she mentions is her "O.C. Doctor (Major) Banks" and a Mr Elles. The National Archives has some sort of record for "Dr Alfred Banks, in charge of British Red Cross unit at Vrnjatchka Banja, Serbia" and "Hospital units captured in Serbia: request to US ambassador to ask for release of those in Austrian and Bulgarian hands" which might prove fruitful.

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalog...ethod=5&j=1

Ethel's reflective essay credits Mr Elles as putting out a fire in the moving rail cattle truck journey from Belgrade to Vienna (early in the repatriation journey) when the flame from a soldiers lantern made contact with leaked benzene so the clothes and belongings of the "Russian lady" (who acted as an interpretor and was married to a doctor) took alight.

Generally I have found that available details on the Military Reserve Hospital at Vrnjatchka Banja concentrate on the 'Berry Mission' or 'the Royal Free Hospital Unit' as organized by Dr James Berry, a "private unit" in Ethel's parlance. What was also at Vrnjatchka Banja was a British Red Cross Hospital. Cecil Howard says in May 1915 the Berry Mission had about 26 members and the BRX hospital was run by a Captain Bennett. Howard alludes to the division of labour between the hospitals and how the members of the BRX had been transported there by Liptons yacht

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/...9639C946496D6CF

Melanie Oppenheimer wrote a book 'Australian Women and War' c.2008 and gives a long paragraph to Ethel Gillingham. Melanie writes "In May 1915, with a group of twelve trained nurses,four Voluntary Aids (VAs), a doctor and four male orderlies, Ethel left London for Vrnjatchka Banja in Serbia, where they were replacing the staff at a BRCS hospital. The unit reached their destination by travelling by train through France and the boat via Malta, Athens and Salonika, and finally by road." I guess we know who owned the boat. The group's departure date tallies with your British Journal of Nursing reference.

When evacuated to Krusavatz and finally organized to be repatriated to England in Ethel's words "The remaining members of two private units "The Scottish Women" and "The Wounded Allies Relief" were to go with us - in all we were about forty." Berry lists

http://www.archive.org/stream/storyofredcr...ge/290/mode/2up

in an appendix the names of 25 of his organization who made this journey. Ethel mentions the 22 women who lived in a spartan room at Krusavatz for a fortnight before departing and the others were to join as mentioned. The figures do not appear to add up! I am wandering if there were several train trips. In another letter written by Ethel many years later, she mentions how she was back in England sometime in February 1916. Dr Berry did not leave Krusavatz until Feb 18 and reached England in March. Berry appears to have passed through Krusavatz relatively quickly and his group had well organized provisions as against Ethel's descriptions.

I am hoping for more sources of information and which may reveal your three names. Melanie's book cites the Victorian Branch of the Australian Red Cross Archives Section as having a file on Ethel (I am following this up) and secondly I noticed a reference on the Great War Forum which may index all the English doctors and nurses in WW1 Serbia: 'For Courage and Humanity - Za hrabrost i humanost' written in 2007 by Slavica Popovic-Filipovic

If anyone finds more relevant information on Ethel's BRX unit I'd appreciate it!

Incidently I visited Vrnjacka Banja last year. The town erected a memorial at one extreme end of the town next to a covered spa in 1985 in memory of First World War doctors and nurses who helped there. A brass plate on the monument reads in English and Serbian:

"In memory of the humanity of the British women - doctors and nurses who treated Serbian soldiers and the people of Vrnjacka Banja in the hospitals here in 1915.

From the people of Vrnjacka Banja October 1985"

Regards,

Richard

Poscript:

Silly me, Monica Krippner in 'The Quality of Mercy' mentions how there were various train journey repatriations from Krusevac, that for example Dr Inglis's SWH group left for Vienna a week before Dr Berry left Vrnjacka Banja.

[RoseFields]

Dear Richard and Melanie,

Thank you very much for considering my question. I had already pinned down some of the story elements you mention and appreciate the additional links and discussion. It does seem quite complicated by the number of units on the scene. I'm poking around the stories of several units and I can concur that they don't quite add up in terms of names, numbers and place. It was certainly a very dangerously fluid situation.

My main interest right now was merely to try to accurately place the travels of Moore, Aspland and Simmonds in order to fill our their biographical profiles for another story unrelated to Serbia. But the Serbia story is really compelling and deserves a full narrative. Richard, thanks for describing your recent visit and the discovery of the memorial plaque. I'd like to visit that region, too, someday.

I'll keep my eyes open for Ethel.

Thanks again,

Marjorie

[Rickus]

On 11/04/2010 at 05:03, RoseFields said:

Dear Richard and Melanie,

Thank you very much for considering my question. I had already pinned down some of the story elements you mention and appreciate the additional links and discussion. It does seem quite complicated by the number of units on the scene. I'm poking around the stories of several units and I can concur that they don't quite add up in terms of names, numbers and place. It was certainly a very dangerously fluid situation.

My main interest right now was merely to try to accurately place the travels of Moore, Aspland and Simmonds in order to fill our their biographical profiles for another story unrelated to Serbia. But the Serbia story is really compelling and deserves a full narrative. Richard, thanks for describing your recent visit and the discovery of the memorial plaque. I'd like to visit that region, too, someday.

I'll keep my eyes open for Ethel.

Thanks again,

Marjorie

Hi Marjorie, are you still after details on "Moore, Aspland and Simmonds"?

[DavidOwen]

Tagging @RoseFields

[RoseFields]

Thanks for contacting me. No longer working on these details.

Marjorie