Title:THE QUEEN ALEXANDRA'S IMPERIAL MILITARY NURSING SERVICE IN NORMANDY [Allocated Title]
Film Number:A70 53-2
Other titles:
Summary: Having landed in Normandy on D+9, women serving with the Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service (QAIMNS) set up camp at No 79 General Hospital outside Bayeux.
Description: A battle casualty is taken out of an improvised operating theatre after surgery surrounded by RAMC orderlies, with nurses in attendance. Members of the 53-strong QAIMNS detachment at the general hospital are seen unpacking bed linen, erecting tents with the help of pioneers and medical orderlies and collecting blankets and sleeping bags for their own use. The matron in charge announces the orders of the day to her nurses. Two sisters chat to a padre captain. Nurses lay out their sleeping bags and blankets in a trench, a precaution against night-time air raids - before turning in, receive their weekly cigarette and sweet ration and draw water from a hand-pump. Nurses joke with pioneers (off screen) while they wash their mess tins. Two girls jump off the tailgate of a lorry carrying stores for the hospital. Nursing sisters read newspapers and smoke cigarettes after having lunch.
Production Details: Directorate of Public Relations, War Office (Production sponsor)
Army Film and Photographic Unit (Production company)
Carpenter, L (Production individual)
Personalities, Units and Organisations:
Keywords: Number 79 General hospital, Bayeux, Calvados, France (geography)