GREY AND SCARLET
  • Home
  • About
  • New Photos
  • War Hospitals
    • LONDON War Hospitals >
      • 2nd London General Hospital.St Mark's College, 552 King's Road, Chelsea >
        • Nursing Staff 2nd London Hospital
      • 3rd London General Hospital (LGH) Wandsworth. London SW >
        • Female staff list - 3rd LGH Wandsworth during Oct 1915-Sept 1916 >
          • A letter from Eleanor C. Barton Principal Matron >
            • Medical Staff at time of Mobilization
      • 5th London General Hospital TF. (St Thomas's Hospital) Lambeth. London SE
      • Queen Mary's Convalescent Hospital. Roehampton. SW15. Dover House Auxiliary Hospital. Roehampton Gifford House Auxiliary Hospital. Roehampton
      • Royal Herbert Hospital Shooters Hill Woolwich
    • HOME COUNTIES War Hospitals >
      • Queen Victoria Hospital. East Grinstead. West Sussesx.
      • Napsbury War Hospital. St. Albans. Hertfordshire
      • Colchester Military Hospital Essex. >
        • Nursing Staff Colchester Military Hospital
      • Queen Mary's Hospital. Frognal Avenue. Sidcup. Kent >
        • Nursing Staff Queen Mary's Sidcup
      • Reading War Hospital >
        • Nursing Staff - Reading War Hospital
    • HAMPSHIRE War Hospitals >
      • The Cambridge Military Hospital. Aldershot. Hampshire >
        • Nursing Staff - CMH Aldershot
      • The Connaught Hospital. Aldershot. Hampshire >
        • Nursing Staff - Connaught Hospital
      • The Royal Victoria Military Hospital. NETLEY. Southampton. Hampshire >
        • Nursing Staff R V Hospital Netley
        • Recent visit to Netley
    • Beaufort War Hospital, Fishponds, Bristol >
      • Nursing Staff Beaufort War Hospital
    • Bath War Hospital Combe Park, Somerset.
    • 1st Eastern General Hospital, Cambridge >
      • Nursing Staff List - 1st Eastern General Cambridge
    • WEST MIDLANDS War Hospitals >
      • 1st Southern General Hospital. Selly Oak. Birmingham. (University of Birmingham) ​& 2/1st General Hospital. Dudley Road. Birmingham. (annex to the 1st Southern) >
        • Nursing Staff List - West Midlands
      • Moor Green House Military Hospital. (4th Auxiliary) ​Moseley. (Attached to the 1st Southern General, Birmingham)
    • 5th Northern general Hospital. Leicester >
      • Nursing Staff - 5th Northern Hospital
    • Stepping Hill Military Hospital. Stockport >
      • Nursing Staff Stepping Military Hospital
    • Ist Durham General Hospital. Newcastle
    • France War Hospitals >
      • No 3 British General Hospital. Le Treport
      • No8 General Hospital. 147 Avenue de Marechal. Bois-Guillaume ROUEN. France.
      • The British Women's Hospital, Paris. Dr Garrett-Anderson & Dr Flora Murray
    • New Zealand Hospitals, Nurses and Wounded
    • Canadian Hospitals and Nurses
    • Australian Nurses and Wounded
  • Nurses
  • My Collection
  • Uniforms
    • British Red Cross Society Voluntary Aid Detachment
    • St Johns Voluntary Aid Detachment
    • QAIMNS
    • QAIMNS(T)
  • Related Articles
    • A letter from Eleanor C. Barton Principal Matron
    • The origin of The 3rd London general Hospital. Wandsworth
    • Four London Hospitals
    • Anna Coleman Ladd
    • Nurse Dunford
  • Links
  • Contact
  • Untitled

NURSE DUNFORD
British Nurse's days tending wounded in town that was taken and recaptured many times.
Article from The Daily Mirror 1914

Picture

Nurse Dunford was several times in turn a German Nurse a French Red Cross Nurse. Finally, she escaped into Switzerland and now she wears the Netley (Queen Victoria Hospital, Netley. Southampton) badge and is only awaiting equipment to offer herself for service with the British Expeditionary Force.
She has such a frail little body, one wonders how much strength of mind is possible in so weak a frame. But she has the proper British spirit and is a Cockney to boot.

"I was captured and told I was a prisoner directly as war broke out. I had taken an invalid lady from London to Germany and she left me in Mulhausen (North East France) and went to Berlin saying that I should have a better chance of getting away from Germany if I stayed in Alsace"

TOWN CLEARED WITH BAYONETS

"Over 300 wounded Germans were brought onto our little base hospital on the first day of fighting, the Friday night. The Germans evacuated the town in the early hours of Saturday morning and the French came in and I became a French Red Cross Nurse. Fighting was terrible in the next few days. The French were driven out and I once again became a German. Once again the French took the town at the point of the bayonet and for five more days I was a French nurse"
The French had to leave to go to help in the fighting near Metz. I did not know what I was for three days and then the Germans came back and up to the time of my escape I was a German. In our hospital there were two German sisters and myself - and a trained nurse attached to the North Eastern Hospital. We never had less than fifty badly wounded soldiers. It was a base hospital and we only kept cases until they could be moved. French wounded were kept apart from the Germans but they were not badly treated. I was hardly allowed to go neat the Germans, particularly the officers"

"There was story of the local inhabitants firing on the Germans and one night in the poorer part of the town all the women and children were ordered onto the streets and were kept there all night by guards with fixed bayonets. They were told by a German officer that they were all going to be shot in an hour. Instant shrieks from the women could be heard and the officer told them to stop screaming or they would be shot now. In the village of Reidesheim eight catholic priests were shot in retaliation for the locals firing on the Germans" 

"When the French took the town a second time several houses on the line of advance were marked with the Red Cross but the Germans used them to fire from. They have also fired on their own base hospitals, killing a German nurse and a wounded soldier"

"One evening I was sent to attend to a convulsing baby belonging to an Alsace family. There was no doctor available and I did the best I could. Fortunately it pulled through. I visited the family on several occasions and the mother asked if I wanted to try and escape with her and her baby. I was willing and went with her in a Red Cross Van to Basel. They kept me for five hours on the Swiss frontier saying my certificates were forged. I was eventually allowed to pass after the Mother said her baby would die without attention"

Miss Dunford said that the German Red Cross vans were fitted with machine guns and then taken into the action. Also the German ambulance men were armed. "I asked one why he carried a pistol and he said it was to finish off wounded horses"

"I could only bring a few trinkets and my papers with me and have lost my nursing equipment. As soon as I get fixed up I want to go to France or Belgium with a British ambulance"

So this frail little women is once again going to do great work among her own people.



Please feel free to contact me at helen@greyandscarlet.com