Page 34 - The Gazette Autumn 2024

34 The Gazette QARANC Association
THE QARANC AT 75
The Cold War years
QARANC nurse training in the 1990s
BMH Rinteln 1985
In the 1970s, further military hospitals closed, including Tidworth Military Hospital, Queen Alexandra’s Hospital at Milbank, and the Royal Victoria Hospital at Netley. Despite the changes at home and abroad there was still great enthusiasm for the work of the QARANC from the former colonies. In 1962 the QARANC welcomed its first Gurkha recruits who were subsequently posted to duties at Hindhead.
Whilst not directly involved during the conflict itself, 14 QARANC Officers and Servicewomen nevertheless found themselves as part of post war contingent that headed to the Falkland Islands as part of Op CORPORATE in June 1982 aboard TEV Rangatira. The plan was for QARANC nurses to
Following the end of World War Two, Britain divested itself of its empire. With former colonies gaining independence, the size of the army, and in consequence that of the QARANC, shrank both at home and abroad. British army nurses were still deployed to areas of conflict through the 1950s, for example to South Korea after the republic was invaded by the North Korean Army on 25 June 1950, and at various hospitals in West Germany as part of the British Army on the Rhine.
As decolonisation advanced into the 1960s, many military hospitals abroad closed, such as the historically significant BMH Singapore shortly after Singapore declared its independence. The decade also saw changes at home, with the Depot and Training Centre’s relocation from the barracks at Hindhead to a purpose-built training centre in Aldershot, at the Royal Pavilion.
The rise in conflict during The Troubles in Northern Ireland saw an increased presence at the military wing of Musgrave Park in Belfast with a number of QARANC nurses relocated to assist due to the rise in violence, making it one of the most active units in the British Army at the time.
Despite the changes
at home
and abroad there was still great enthusiasm for the
work of the QARANC from the former colonies