Page 64 - QARANC Spring 2024

64 The Gazette QARANC Association
Remembering WW1 Nurse Nellie Spindler at Ypres
Staff Nurse Nellie Spindler may be
less well known than famous war time nurses, but no less heroic. After visiting her final resting place in Ypres, Capt Stephen Worsley was inspired to share her story with Gazette readers.
On 25 January 2024, Entry Officer Course 69 including 62 phase 2 officers, five permanent staff and two guides deployed on Ex BRANDOEK SERPENT for a battlefield study tour, focussing on the operational patient care pathway of World War One.
We visited various Commonwealth War Graves around the Ypres Salient, including Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery where lone female Staff Nurse Nellie Spindler lays at rest with some 10,000 soldiers. She is also one of only two Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service (QAIMNS) buried in Belgium.
Nine QARANC officers were part of this collective and since we are celebrating 75 years of the Corps, it felt appropriate to celebrate Nellie Spindler and the progression of our nursing Corps with the changes in society. Nellie is not as widely known as other female nurses such as Florence Nightengale or Edith Cavill. That inspired me to pen this to help build our knowledge of key figures from our Corps history.
Nellie was born on 10 August 1891 in Wakefield, where a blue plaque was put up on 15th November
Known to be
highly caring
and patriotic,
2017 to remember her service and sacrifice. She trained as a nurse at Township Infirmary in Leeds from 1912-1915, at a time when women didn’t have the vote (until 1918) and nursing was going through a radical change in the class standing of nurses.
At the time of the training at City Fever Hospital, Nellie was registered as a domestic servant instead of a student nurse, due to “living in” and doing duties to help fund training. Known to be highly caring and patriotic, she either lied or made a mistake on her application to join the QAIMNS, as the minimum age for application to the military for females was 25 rather than the [18] for males.
Fortunately, the Army accepted her application and 10 November 1915 she was successfully accepted into the QAIMNS.
she either
lied or made An exemplar of the values and standards,
a mistake
on her application to join the QAIMNS, as the minimum age for application to the military for females was 25
demonstrating selfless commitment and compassion Staff Nurse Spindler worked at Whittington Military Hospital from November 1915 to May 1917 after which she deployed to France and then in July 1917 to Belgium.
Sadly, during the 3rd battle of Ypres (battle of Passchendaele) on the morning of the 21 August 1917 the 44th Casualty Clearing Station (CCS) Brandhoek came under incessant shelling due to the uncommon laydown of the facility being so close to the front line. That day Staff Nurse Spindler, showing compassion, had switched beds with another nurse who was scared to sleep in her tent to allow some reprieve from the stress. However, at 11:00 a shell landed in the tent fatally wounding Staff Nurse Spindler and despite the hard work by her colleagues she died in the arms of Sister M Wood.
Due to the moving of the 44th CCS to Lijssenthoek near Poperinge, Nellie was buried with military honours in a full military funeral in Belgium’s second biggest commonwealth commission cemetery. The funeral was attended by Director of Medical Services of the Army, Gen Hubert Gough, and three other Generals, along with, 100 other officers, demonstrating the respect and popularity of Staff Nurse Nellie Spindler.
With today’s society in a state of polarisation, the geopolitical area becoming more unstable and the