Queen Alexandra Imperial Military Nursing Service (QAIMNS)

A Brief History of QAIMNS, 1902-1946

British Military Nursing pre-QAIMNS:

In 1854, Sidney Herbert, the then Secretary of State for War decided to establish an all female nursing unit that would be tasked with the care of injured soldiers fighting in the Crimean War. Up to then the care of the wounded had been almost non existent. The initial contingent of 39 nurses to arrive in the Crimea was lead by Florence Nightingale.

          In 1881 the Army Nursing Service was formed and dedicated military hospitals were set up throughout Britain and her colonies, including one located at the Curragh in Ireland. Nurses saw active service wherever British forces were stationed and were the first known white women to travel up the Nile during the Sudan war of 1883. The nurses shared in the hardships of the common soldier and as a testament to this fact 23 nurses would succumb to disease during the war.

The birth of QAIMNS

          On the 27^th March 1902 the (ANS) was replaced by the Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Nursing Service. Their first President was Queen Alexandra herself and she chose their motto “Sub-Crucia Candida” (Under the White Cross). She also chose their insignia, the White Cross, taken from the flag of Denmark, her homeland. Queen Alexandra would remain the President of QAIMNS until her death in 1925.

World War One

          At the outset of World War One the QAIMNS numbered a mere 297 nurses but by 1918 that figure had jumped to 10,404. They saw active service in every theatre of the conflict. Initially the nurses had to be single; aged over 25 and of a high social status but the bloody nature of the war soon made this policy of enrolment unrealistic. Soon large influxes of nurses from all class backgrounds were swelling the ranks of the QAIMNS and the QAIMNS Reserve.

The conflict saw many new developments in medical treatment such as triage assessment and casualty evacuation .For the nurses in the field and in the hospitals back in Britain it also meant having to deal with the terrible injuries caused by a host of new weapons of war. Chemical damage from Chlorine gas and Shell Shock were now wide spread. Nurses were also asked to treat casualties in active war zones a fact born out by deaths of almost 200 members of the army nursing service during the war. After the war 14 QAIMNS nurses were sent to Russia as part of the allies disastrous attempt to intervene in the Bolshevik Revolution. During the Great Influenza Epidemic of 1918 they were called upon to care for the ever-growing numbers of sick soldiers and civilians in a post war Europe struggling to cope with the after affects of the war let alone such a lethal disease.

World War Two

At the start of the Second World War the service had 640 regular members and this rapidly increased to around 12,000 by 1945; this included the QAIMNS reserves who were once more called upon to do their bit for King and country.

Around 1,300 nurses saw active service in France during the opening months of the conflict. Many would find themselves on the beaches of Dunkirk and then aboard the ships that braved endless enemy attacks to bring the British Army home. QAIMNS nurses served in Greece and Crete, the Western desert, Sicily and Italy and they would be on the beaches again in 1944 during the D-Day landings. It was in the Far Eastern campaigns that the true courage of the QAIMNS nurses would be tested to the very limits. When Hong Kong fell to the Japanese on Christmas day 1941 and Singapore was captured in 1942, the nurses found themselves caught up in the atrocities committed by the victorious enemy. 31 QAIMNS died at the hands of the Japanese along with many indigenous nurses, wounded soldiers and civilians, yet at the wars end the survivors still treated enemy casualties despite their experiences.



In all 236 QAIMNS were killed in World War Two with around half of these lost at sea, amongst them were the 26 that perished aboard the SS Ceramic, when it was torpedoed by a German U-boat on 6^th December 1942. QAIMNS nurses followed the advancing allied armies through France, Belgium, Holland and into Germany itself and were there when the Nazi death camps were liberated, where they carried on treating those in need of their services. The war brought major changes in the role nurses would play in combat and one was that they took on the responsibilities for the training and supervision of male RAMC personnel.



After the war

In 1949, the QAIMNS became a formal, regular British Army Corps and were renamed the Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army nursing Corps (QARANC).