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Hello. Welcome to the August edition. There was no newsletter for July as I was away from base because of a family bereavement. This edition has two articles by Keith, one on nurses in Salonika and another on family remembrance. Caroline has an article on POW camps in Wales. We have another WWI medical extract from the British Medical Journal.

Trevor

The Programme for 2015

Aug 1st: Harbinder Singh – Sikhs in the Great War

Sept 5th: Michael Steadman – Manchester Pals

Oct 3rd:  Andrew Tonge – 1914 Race to the Sea

Nov 7th: Marietta Crichton-Stuart – Alice in Wonderland and her Lost Boys

Dec 5th:  Branch Social

Last month’s speaker

Last month’s speaker was Chris John who talked about German tanks at Villers-Brettoneux

SCOTTISH WOMEN’S HOSPITAL

Part Two

Keith Walker

Further to my article on the Scottish Women’s Hospital in Salonika. I looked at the Lembet Road Military Cemetery Salonika. As well as Katharine Mary Harley, there are five other nurses buried there. Four belonged to the Scottish Women’s Hospital and one was with the Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve.

One nurse of particular interest was from Wrexham. I have listed the nurses from the date of their death.

From the Lembet Road cemetery, this time from the Russian section, of a nurse –Anna Bukashinovna

Mary Annie de Burgh Burt

Scottish Women’s Hospital

Very little is known of her early life. We know she was born in 1874 in London. At the time of her death her home address was 49 Norfolk Square, Hyde Park, London. In 1916 this house was used as a hospital, so we can guess she was working as a nurse before she joined the Scottish Women’s Hospital. She enrolled in October 1915. At first she went to Troyes in France. She was then redeployed to Macedonia. The Scottish Women’s Hospital took over a disused factory in the town of Ghevgelia (today in the Republic of Macedonia) where they worked until the retreat of the Serbian Army forced them to move to Salonika in Greece. The hospital was under canvas. It was said that it was badly drained and in an unsuitable place. Soon disease broke out and she succumbed to dysentery. She died on the 7th April 1916. She was 42 years old.

Jessie Ritchie

Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve (QAIMSR)

Jessie Ritchie was born in 1864 in Cargill Perthshire to Alexander and Amelia Ritchie. They lived at 8 North Street. She trained as a nurse at the Royal Infirmary Dundee. Sometime after she was trained, she moved to London to work at the Nurses Cooperative which was based at Cavendish Square. It was in London she enlisted in the QAIMSR.

She served in the Boer War and was Matron of the Orange River Refugee Camp (concentration camp) in 1902. Here she met General Smuts when he disbanded his commandos on the 2nd June 1902, and invited him to tea.

On the 11th August 1914, she went with the BEF to France. She served in France until November 1915 when she joined the Mediterranean Force.

She sailed to Egypt where she spent a little time before being transferred to Salonika. In Salonika she was a sister in the 21st Stationary Hospital. The working conditions were not good and Sister Jessie Ritchie died of dysentery after a three week illness on the 13th August 1916.

The Matron of the hospital wrote at the time “she has been one of my best and most loyal workers, devoted to her work and her patients”.

She was 52 years old. She is also commemorated on the Wolfill Village Memorial Hall, Perthshire.

Alice Annie Guy

Scottish Women’s Hospital

Very little is known of Ms Guy. She was born in Newport South Wales in 1879. Her father Daniel was a farmer and together with her mother Sarah she lived at Claremont Farm, Malpas, Newport. We do not know where she did her training as a nurse. On the 24th July 1916 she joined the Scottish Women’s Hospital.

Alice was sent to Salonika to join her unit which was in a hospital all under canvas. The heat was a problem, together with the working conditions which were very poor. There were 300 patients, most were suffering with dysentery or malaria. Alice soon fell ill. She died on the 21st August 1916. She was 37 years old. The head of the hospital said “she had been there less than a week when she died”. She served less than one month.

Olive Smith

Scottish Women’s Hospital

Olive Smith was born in 1880 in Haltwhistle, Northumberland. After her studies at Durham College and Oesterbergs College in Dartford, she became a physical training instructor. She first worked teaching gymnastics at Glasgow female prison, and also taught teachers at Glasgow Centre. She lived at 30 Woodcraft Ave Glasgow at that time.

At the start of the war, we find Olive working in Malta and it was from there she volunteered in 1916 to join the Scottish Women’s Hospital as a masseuse. On the 3rd August 1916 she left Southampton on board the Dunluce Castle with her unit “The American Unit” so called due to the large donations of money from America for Salonika. The journey was fraught with danger as the nurses lived in fear of mines, submarines and Zeppelins.

On arrival in Salonika the unit was sent to support the 2nd Serbian Army. She worked at Lake Ostrova. The hospital was all under canvas and the working conditions very hard. Cases of malaria, gas gangrene and amputations of all sorts were a common sight. They had hundreds of casualties and disease soon broke out amongst the patients and staff. Olive became unwell just weeks after her arrival. The heat and the volume of work must have worn the staff down.

She died on the 7th October 1916 of malaria just 56 days after she got off the ship. Olive was a very fit 36 years old when she arrived. It just shows how bad the conditions they had to endure.

Florence Missouri Caton

Scottish Women’s Hospital

Florence was born on board her father’s ship “Missouri” hence her name. She was born just off the coast of Cuba in 1876. Her father Captain John Henry Caton was an American citizen, and her mother Elizabeth was Welsh. Florence was brought up in her parents’ home, 1 Bryn Draw Terrace in Wrexham. This terrace is still there and is described as “Bryn Draw a small development of four houses with sizeable front gardens, is located off the North Eastern side of Chapel Street. Built in the 19th century they are a good example of a superior small terrace house”. The literal translationof Bryn Draw is “Yonder Hill”.

Florence was the eldest of three children. She was educated locally and in 1901 she was working as a nurse in the Hospital for Infectious Diseases in Pendleton Salford. In 1911, she was at Ladywell Sanatorium in Salford.

In 1915, she joined the Scottish Women’s Hospital and on the 10th September 1915 she set sail for Salonika. She spent some time working at the hospital in Valjevo (today in western Serbia) until it was overrun by the Austrian Army. Florence became a prisoner of war. She was repatriated through the Swiss authorities and arrived home in February 1916.

She returned to Salonika in June 1916. She joined the “American Unit” at the 4th Serbian Hospital in Salonika.

A re-creation of the Stamford military hospital at Dunham Massey

In July 1917 she was taken ill, and on the 15th July 1917 she died following an operation for appendicitis. She was 41 years old.

What came as a surprise is the age of these nurses, but of no surprise was their dedication and commitment to their patients. They are the unsung heroes of the war.

Reference and acknowledgments

1. CWGC

2. Friends of Wrexham museum

3. “The women of Royoumont Abbey” Eileen Crofton pub Tuckwell press 1999

4. “The Encyclopaedia of Wrexham.”W. Alister Williams pub Bridge Books 2001

POW Camps In Wales

Caroline Adams

It is difficult to come up with a comprehensive list of the number and sites of POW camps in Britain. As with other WW1 records, not all have survived and those that are available list only the sites active at the date the list was made. New sites were opened as numbers of POWs increased.

In late 1916, the government decreed that POWs could undertake work in the community and from then on, work camps were used. These would have varied with time depending on the local requirement for labour. After November 1918, some of the now redundant military training camps were used to house POWs. The references below, however, give an overall picture of the POW system in Wales.

At least three of the main military hospitals in Wales looked after POW wounded: 3rd Western General Hospital Cardiff, Kinmel Park Military Hospital and Newport Hospital.

There was an officers’ camp at Dyfryn Aled between 1915 and 1918 with a capacity of about 100 men. This was in a Georgian country house near Llansannan. Inmates included Wolf von Tirpitz, son of the Secretary of State of the German Imperial Naval Office. He was allowed to buy a violin to continue his music practice.

At least two escape attempts from Dyfryn Aled were initially successful. In April 1915, two German officers remained at large for a week before being recaptured near Harlech. In August 1915, three more escaped with the intention of joining a submarine off the Great Orme. Although U-38 was off the coast of the Great Orme at the time, they did not manage to rendezvous and the three were recaptured. In 1916, a tunnel was discovered by guards at Dyfryn Aled almost reaching to the perimeter.

The largest camp in Wales appears to have been Frongoch. This opened in 1915 and operated at least until 1919 and could hold more than 2000 prisoners. Originally housing German POWs, they were moved out in 1916 to accommodate 1800 Irish internees after the Easter Rising. These had been released by late December 1916 and the camp was refilled with Germans in 1917.

Frongoch camp was in two sections: the South Camp in the buildings of a disused distillery and the North Camp in wooden huts in an adjoining field. A few Germans remained when the first Irish arrived and warned that the South Camp was oppressively hot and badly ventilated in summer and the North Camp appalling cold in winter. The Irish called them Purgatory and Siberia. From the description of camp conditions in Lyn Ebenezer’s book, Frongoch was not a pleasant place to stay.

After the return of German and Austrian POWs in 1917, Frongoch supplied men to work camps all over Wales. Many of these provided farm labour. After an agreement was reached with the quarry workers union, POWs worked in the quarries around Penmaenmawr from early 1918 and after the Armistice, many work parties were involved in returning training camps and practice trenches to a state fit for agriculture. One was based at the interestingly named the Horse Repository in Welshpool.

Below is a list of the sites of at least some of the work camps organised from Frongoch. Near the border, there were also a few work camps administered from Shrewsbury.

  • Aberglasney, Carmarthen. Agric. group attached to Brecon Agric. Depot
  • Aber Llowlyn House, Llanfarain, Cardigan. Agric. group attached to Brecon Agric. Depot
  • Brecon. Agric. Depot
  • Brynkir Hall, Dolbenmaen, Gwynedd. Agric. work camp
  • Caersws, Montgomery. Agric. group attached to Kerry Newtown Agric. Depot
  • Carmarthen Agric. Depot
  • Ciliau Aeron, Cardigan. Agric. group attached to Carmarthen Agric. Depot
  • Crickhowell. Working camp
  • Deganwy. (This was previously a training camp and POWs worked on infilling the training trenches, etc)
  • Drim Wood, Narbeth, Pembroke. Working camp
  • Grogwynion House, Llanafon. Agric. group attached to Brecon Agric. Depot
  • Haverfordwest. Working camp
  • The Hermitage, Crickhowell. Working camp
  • The Horse Repository, Welshpool. Agric. group attached to Kerry Newtown Agric. Depot
  • Kemey’s Hotel, Rhoose. Working camp
  • Kerry Newtown Agric. Depot
  • Kingsbridge Camp, Beaumaris, Anglesea. (This was previously a training camp and 50 POWs worked on infilling training trenches, etc)
  • Lampeter. Agric. group attached to Carmarthen Agric. Depot
  • Lime Farm, Llandebie, Carmarthen. Agric. group attached to Brecon Agric. Depot
  • Llanengan, Gwynedd
  • Llanerchymedd, Anglesea. Agric. group attached to Penmaenmawr Agric. Depot
  • Machynlleth. Agric. group attached to Tywyn* Agric. Depot
  • Malltraeth Marsh, Llangaffo. Work camp. (Worked on draining Malltraeth Marsh and, during harvesting, agriculture.)
  • Neptune Hall, Tywyn*, Merioneth. Agric. Depot
  • Penarth, Glamorgan. Working camp
  • Penmaenmawr. Working camp. (This was for quarry work)
  • Penyalt Hall, Llanbadr. Agric. Group attached to Tywyn* Agric . Depot
  • Port Talbot. Working camp
  • Trawsfynydd. Working camp
  • Tregunter Park, Talgarth. Agric. group attached to Brecon Agric. Depot
  • *The Prisoner of War Information Bureau spells this “Towyn”, but Towyn is not in Meirionnydd, so I assume it should be Tywyn.
  • References:
  • First World War Military Sites, Military Landscapes. Gwynedd Archaeological Trust
  • Places of Internment, Wales, 1919. Prisoner of War Information Bureau
  • Prisoners of War and Internees (Great Britain), Panikos Panayi. 1914-1918 On Line International Encyclopaedia of the First World War
  • Fron-Goch Camp 1916 and the Birth of the IRA. Lyn Ebenezer
  • 1914-1918.invasion.com>forums
  • bbc.co.uk World War One at Home
  • Lost Love
  • Keith Walker
  • I know this is not “our” War but it proves how long love lasts, and how the soldiers who went to war are never forgotten.
  • A few months ago the chairman of the Broughton District History Group was asked by a member of the public if he could help him to identify for his aunty where a soldier commemorated on the Broughton Memorial Gates was buried. The chairman passed the information on to me and asked if I could research the soldier and help this family find their loved one.
  • The soldier’s name was Llewellyn Williams. He lived at Wrexham Road, Brynteg, Nr Wrexham. He died in the Second World War. After a bit of research with the CWGC etc, it became clear that Llewellyn Williams was killed at the battle of Arnhem (17th September to 26th September 1944) on 22nd September 1944.
  • Private Llewellyn Williams s/n 4201105 was in the 5th battalion Wiltshire Regiment, an infantry battalion. I could not find any information on his early life or when he enlisted in the army, but his service with the 5th Wiltshire Regiment after D-Day was quite eventful.
  • The 5th Wiltshire Regiment landed on 24th June 1944 at Arromanches where they disembarked at the mulberry harbour. They fought in the three major battles after D-Day, that is operation Epsom, 25th June to 6th July, operation Goodwood, 4th July to 23rd July, and they then took part in the battle of Mont Pincon the highest point in Normandy the third battle (operation Blue Coat). They played a part in the breakout through France until August, when they were taken out of the line for some R and R.
  • At the beginning of September, the 4th battalion Wiltshire Regiment was commanded by Lt.Col W.G Roberts. It was in the 129th brigade which was part of the 43rd Wessex Division under Major General Ivor Thomas. The 43rd Wessex was one of the 5 Divisions that made up 30 Corps which was to be the ground attack force in operation Market Garden. During the operation, the 4th Wiltshire Regiment were part of the relief force which tried to reach the paratroops of the US 82nd and 101st divisions at Nijmegen. The 129th Brigade crossed the river Waal, but was held up by strong German artillery and tank defences south of the town of Elst. It was during this attack on the 22nd and 23rd of September that Private Llewellyn Williams was killed. He is commemorated on the Groesbeek Memorial which is situated east of Nijmegen, as one of the missing. There are 1,000 names of the missing on this memorial.
  • When I gave this information to the member of the public on the location of the Memorial I asked if any member of his family had a photograph of this man I was amazed to find he was not a member of their family, but his aunty “held a candle for him”. His aunty is now well into her eighties and has never married. I wondered if he was her first and only love, or did she love him from a distance. I could not ask those questions. But it made me realise how long some of the women who waved their loved ones off to war suffered so much when they did not return. This lady has been wondering for 61 years where he was. She was one of so many left wondering.
  • Reference and Acknowledgements.
  • C.W.G.C
  • A tour of the Arnhem Battlefields. John Waddy, Pub. Leo Cooper 1999
  • Note – I have deliberately not named the family involved so as to protect their privacy.
  • From the annals of the British Medical Journal of 1915
  • Trevor Adams trevormcmadams@gmail.com