Ref: XXX - WW2 Fist Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY/ PRVS) Great Coat Owned by a Female SOE Captain Operative.
First Aid Nursing Yeomanry - SOE Operative
(Princess Royal's Volunteer Corps (PRVS))
WW2 FANY Uniform Owned by SOE Operative. This uniform was owned by a female Captain who was recruited into the SOE, we have her uniforms from both the ATS and FANY.
1907-1914
The Corps’ founder was Edward Baker, a Warrant Officer in the 21st Lancers, who was wounded during his period of service with Lord Kitchener’s army in the Battle of Omdurman in 1898. Lying there nursing his left shinbone, where he’d been shot, he thought that it would be wonderful if a group of women were able to administer first aid on the battlefield to the men before they were removed from there to the casualty clearing stations. However, he had to wait until September 1907 to put his dream into action and to found and establish the Corps.
Recruitment drives were held in the early years, with the emphasis always on attracting young women who could already ride and who owned their own horses. However, by 1911 the Corps was being led by Grace Ashley-Smith, a feisty, no-nonsense Scottish woman, and Lilian Franklin, who became the first Commanding Officer, always known as ‘Boss’. They helped to introduce a more practical uniform and tougher and more serious training.
Early camps consisted of mainly riding and First Aid (hence the yeomanry connections and inclusion of word Yeomanry in the Corps name). A major step forward came with the Annual Camp in 1913 being held at Pirbright, which lasted two whole weeks, and which saw the Brigade of Guards taking them under their wing, beginning a connection which continues to this day.
When the First World War broke out in 1914, the FANY quickly followed up on their military contacts, but to no avail - everyone refused to take them. Grace Ashley-Smith was on board ship bound for South Africa to visit relatives when war was declared – she immediately turned back and set sail for home. One of the fellow voyagers was the Belgian Minister for the Colonies – and he decided that if the British would not have them, the Belgians would. Back in the UK, Grace Ashley-Smith acquired an ambulance and returned with six FANYs – they crossed to Calais on 27th October 1914 to drive ambulances for the Belgians and the French. This date marks the official start of the FANYs’ wartime service, and is still the date nearest to which we hold the annual Corps Reunion.
On 29th October, they took over a dirty and decayed convent school opposite the Church of Notre Dame, called Lamarck Hospital. The wounded were being brought in before the FANYs had even had time to unpack. The conditions they had to contend with, even without the shellfire, were fairly arduous. The vehicles were of the kind now only seen on the London to Brighton run, with rudimentary screens or none, uncertain engines, and tyres depressingly prone to punctures.
The wartime FANY Gazettes recount the primitive conditions in which they cheerfully lived and worked; Zeppelin bombing raids; supply trips to the Front; evacuating the wounded under fire; facing death and disease with equanimity; battles with bureaucracy. One describes how in the second chlorine gas attack in May 1915, they doused their sanitary towels in eau de cologne and held them over the faces of the British soldiers, because the men didn’t have respirators in that early stage of the war.
The FANY also performed other duties as required, setting up regimental aid posts, motor kitchens and even a mobile bath vehicle. This had been brought over by FANYs Marion and Hope Gamwell, and was called James - and offered the luxury of a hot bath to 40 men per hour. A Convalescent Home for Belgian sick and wounded, Camp du Ruchard, was set up in the Loire which ran until June 1917.
The FANY ran Lamarck until October 1916, mainly driving the wounded from casualty clearing stations to Lamarck and other hospitals, and doing anything else required of them – their experiences here started the tradition of versatility for which we are still known today. Later in 1915 a Convoy was formed at the Hopital de Passge in Calais, which became known as the Belgian Convoy. The FANYs were enrolled into the Belgian Army. These FANYs were the first into Belgium after the Armistice in November 1918. FANY competence was finally officially recognised by the British when the War Office asked them to work for the British – sixteen FANY ambulance drivers duly replaced the BRCS men on 1st January 1916. Surgeon-General Woodhouse uttered the immortal words which sums up what we have been ever since - impossible to categorise: “they’re neither fish nor fowl, but damned fine red herring”. The Corps Gazette mentions how one girl, Pat Waddell, lost a leg when hit by a train while driving an ambulance, yet returned to duty months later with an artificial leg.
In January 1918 a second British Convoy was formed at St Omer. It was a joint FANY/VAD unit and for bravery under fire on 18th May 1918 became the most decorated women’s unit of the war, 16 Military Medal and 3 Croix de Guerre. In January 1918 a group of FANYs was sent to drive for the Michelham Convalescent Home in the south of France. They served there until 1919.
In 1916, the FANY started to work officially for the French Army through the Société de Secours aux Blessés Militaires SSBM. They agreed to take over a small hospital at Port a Binson, near Rheims, the FANY to supply drivers and nursing staff which required a vigorous whirl of fundraising. It was run until January 1918. Further ambulance convoys were based at Amiens, Chalons-sur-Marne, Bar le Duc, Chateau-Thierry, Epernay, Sézanne, In September 1918 what was to become known as The Last Convoy left London. It arrived in Nancy just after the Armistice where the FANYs transported the thousands of returning refugees. FANYs from other convoys were variously assigned to duty in Strasbourg, Compiegne, Brussels, and Cologne. In all, during the First World War FANYs were awarded 17 Military Medals; 27 Croix de Guerre; one Legion d’Honneur, and 11 Mentions in Despatches.