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| WWII RAF recruitment poster for the WAAF |
In a 2008 Daily Mail article on
three war-time ‘Flying Nightingales’, Lilian Bancroft, Elsie Beer and Joan Crane,
are brief descriptions of their experiences as WAAF Nursing Orderlies in World
War II. They and other ‘Nightingales’ looked after the seriously wounded being
airlifted in C-47 ‘Dakota’ aircraft from the ever-moving front lines after the
D-Day invasion.
I featured one ‘Nightingale’ flight of an unknown WAAF
Orderly from a log book entry found on the RAF Museum web site in my ebook In a
Moon’s Course, despite the fact it was not an Air Transport
Auxiliary flight. I was moved to do so because,
like the pilots of the ATA, it was about courage in the air in World War II rather than courage
in combat. These women had to deal with
sights, sounds and situations that would have many of us in shock, unable to
react.
Corporal Lydia Alford (see image) is reported to have made the first flight as a WAAF medical orderly after D-Day on 13 June 1944. By the end of the war she and nursing staff like her had looked after many thousand air evacuations of badly-wounded soldiers and airmen, 24 at a time, Dakota flight by Dakota flight. For some Nightingales, although uninjured physically in the war, the constant caring for these wounded men took its toll. In Jake Simpkin's article Lydia’s niece said that after the war her aunt returned to nursing at the South Hants Hospital but increasingly suffered from health problems probably as a result of her war-time experiences, and spent many years in care.
Corporal Lydia Alford (see image) is reported to have made the first flight as a WAAF medical orderly after D-Day on 13 June 1944. By the end of the war she and nursing staff like her had looked after many thousand air evacuations of badly-wounded soldiers and airmen, 24 at a time, Dakota flight by Dakota flight. For some Nightingales, although uninjured physically in the war, the constant caring for these wounded men took its toll. In Jake Simpkin's article Lydia’s niece said that after the war her aunt returned to nursing at the South Hants Hospital but increasingly suffered from health problems probably as a result of her war-time experiences, and spent many years in care.
Several years ago a colleague mentioned to me that her
husband, a firefighter, had attended a fire in which he dealt with the recovery
of a dead infant. He was immediately taken
off active duty and sent for trauma counselling; no bravura, not optional, no
dismissive attitude that everything was OK – it wasn’t. Generally – but not always it seems – we deal
more honestly with these situations these days.
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