Page 30 - QARANC Vol 14 No 10 2015

28 QARANC THE GAZETTE
In this hospital, one of the first people I met was Sister Williams from Llanwrytdd Wells, daughter of Mr Williams the Pharmacist/Chemist. It was wonderful to be in the Holy land, for here one feels the Gospel comes alive. Some of the Holy places disappointed me for they were so commercialised. A Roman Catholic Padre took another sister and me around the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Whilst there we chatted to a sergeant Douglas Brown, the now expert on church affairs, and often heard these days on the radio. He married my companion.
I was in Jerusalem for about a month and so visited many places, Via Dobrosa, (the way of the cross), The Garden of Gethsemane, The Temple Mosque of Vanai, the Wailing Wall, Mount of Olives Church of all Nations, Bethlehem, the Dead Sea, and Jericho, to name but a few.
From Jerusalem I was posted to the 53rd BGH in Haifa. It was a very busy hospital as convoys of sick and wounded passed through on route from other hospitals. Sometimes the convoys were large. They were a mixed batch of British, Aussies, Kiwis, South African, Indians and often POWs. The organisation was excellent, and we soon had them admitted to our wards. Attached to each patient was a medicard, so we could see at a glance what treatment was needed. The chief attraction in Haifa is the Carmel Range of mountains which rises immediately behind the town. The word Carmel means “God’s Vineyard”. It was on this mountain that Elijah’s victory over the false prophet took place. A statue of Elijah stands on the summit, in the grounds of the Carmelite Monastery of Stella Maria. I was in Haifa for about four months, and in January 1943 I was posted to the 91st BGH, a new Tented Hospital of 1,200 beds. A large number of our patients were Polish, many of them young boys and suffering from dysentery, typhus and malaria. Unfortunately it was the rainy season and for weeks we worked in gumboots and Gas capes. Night duty was no joy, for one sister was responsible for 240 patients, 40 in each tent. It wasn’t pleasant wandering from ward to ward with only a hurricane lamp to light one’s way and jackals coming around the tents at night in search of food. The noise they made was so eerie.
Night duty in the Spring was another matter. It was so beautiful watching the dawn break and
filling our nostrils with the scent of orange
blossom. We were surrounded by orange
groves. Springtime in the Holy Land is one of my most precious memories. The variety of wild flowers was amazing, and so colourful. My favourite was the red anemone (the lily of the field). At this time our wards were a blaze of colour, and how the Tommies appreciated it, especially those who had come down from the Western Dessert. A few of us were lucky enough to be posted temporarily to the 32nd BGH in Nazareth, and so were able to do quite
a lot of sight seeing in our off duty time. Nazareth to me really brought the Bible story to life. The small white flat roofed houses close together amid vineyards and olive groves, the crowded Arab world of small shopkeepers (so many of them carpenters), boys mounted on heavily laden donkeys in the narrow streets. The steep main street descends to Mary’s well,
whose waters have been drawn by women since life was first lived here. From Nazareth it was a short journey to Galilee, 700 feet below sea level. Above it towered Mount Herman with its snow capped tip, which shone like a precious stone.
Whilst in Palestine I had several periods of leave. For one I flew in a Boston Bomber from Lydda to Cairo, thus my first view of the Pyramids was from the air. I spent one interesting week in Cairo and then travelled on to Alexandria -more history to absorb.
From Kifa Bilu, our unit moved south to Gaza and took over an Australian Hutted Hospital. Gaza was in Bible times one of the chief cities of the Philistines. It was to us, a drab Arab town, but the beach was wonderful with lovely golden sands. Here our unit split up into two 600 bedded hospitals, the one I joined being the 89th, formed to go to the Isle of Cos, but alas Gerry got there first. We went instead to Sarafand, and then to Alexandria and on to Tripoli in North Africa. Tripoli was originally, and still is to a certain extent, the Mediterranean Caravan Centre of North Africa. Here the Arabs gather together at the old market place and buy up all hides and skins, ostrich feathers, and anything of value for the people of Nigeria. They form a convoy of camels and move across the desolate burning wastes to Kano in Northern Nigeria, some 2,000 miles across the greatest and hottest dessert in the world. Tripoli is the capital of Libya. The new city is a magnificent example of Italian architecture. The buildings nearly all have balconies on each floor. They are white and mostly of concrete and steel structure. The administration buildings in the Piazza, banks are posted with impressive looking Grecian pillars. Some of the buildings were severely damaged. It is one of the hottest cities on earth and temperatures of over 1300f have been recorded. At the time we were there the harbour was littered with the wrecks of many vessels, including a hospital ship. Ten sisters, including myself, did little nursing in Tripoli, instead we joined the 48th BGH and were in transit in one of three hotels - the Del’Mehani. We spent a lot of our time sight seeing or bathing from one of the lovely beaches nearby.
We were soon off on the Oxfordshire Hospital ship bound for Naples, and then on to a Military hospital. This was the time of the Battle of Monte Cassino. The casualties were the
worst of the war. I was attached to a Maxillo Facial and Neurological unit. One of the surgeons was
Mr Cox; his mother lived in Llandrindod for many years.
Soon the day came that Rome fell and we the 48th had the thrill of being the first Hospital to enter
the city. We went in convoy and it took us 17 hours, a journey that in normal times would take about 4 hours. En route we passed
through Monte Cassino at sunset, an impressive but unbelievably sad sight with devastation all around. The roadside was marked with many graves, some with roughly made
crosses and occasionally a steel helmet. Even today, when I hear the words of Binyon “At the going down
of the sun and in the morning We Will Remember Them”, that picture passes before my eyes. We passed
the Coliseum at midnight- it was a light
Mount Carmel, 1942