Themes

The Navy's People

• Naval Lives

  • Edward Pitcairn Jones

  • William Waller

  • Loftus William Jones

  • JT Cull

  • A C Green

  • Philip Needell

  • Astle Scott Littlejohns

  • EJF Records

  • Clifford Simkin

  • Frank Clements

  • Margaret Hodgson

  • Charles Sheppard

  • 'Buster' Crabb

  • Sir Frank Twiss

  • Jeff Tall

  • Phil Macquaid

  • Julia Massey

  • Nick Vaux

  • Wayland Austin

• In Focus: Women in the Navy

• In Focus: Recreation and Time off

• In Focus: Discipline and Punishment

Learning

• How To: Understand Naval Medals

Julia Massey

Article highlights

• The career of a Naval nurse who served in the Falklands War

• Early career

• Preparing for service in the South Atlantic

• Nursing aboard a hospital ship

• After the Falklands

Early career

Julia Massey joined the Royal Navy as part of the Queen Alexandra Royal Naval Nursing Service in July 1968. To learn more about the QARNNS , follow the link

Her career began at the Royal Naval Hospital at Haslar, where she worked for a year. She then transferred to Malta in 1969, working at RNH Bighi. The hospital at Bighi closed in July 1970 and the staff moved to the Royal Naval Hospital at M'Tarfa. Massey only stayed there a few months before moving to the Joint Services Families Clinic in Floriana.

Massey returned to Britain in January 1972. She had been due to return anyway, but during this period Dom Mintoff, the Prime Minister of Malta, oversaw the expulsion of British Service personnel from Malta.

Massey went to work at the Royal Naval Hospital in Plymouth in April 1972, where she was a ward sister on the women's medical ward. She moved to the Royal Naval sick quarters at HMS Pembroke, Chatham in March 1974. HMS Pembroke was the cook and stewards' school for the Royal Navy.

Massey followed this with a period of service from July 1975 onwards in Hong Kong. She worked at the family clinic at HMS Tamar, then called the Hong Kong Island Group Practice.

QARNNS Tropical Mess Dress (RNM)

She returned to RNH Haslar in September 1976, again working as a ward sister. She then attended the Royal College of Nursing in September 1977, in order to take a six month course to become a clinical teacher. She returned to the School of Nursing at Haslar afterwards.

Massey received a promotion to the position of Superintending Nursing Officer in January 1979. Her next appointment was as a ward sister at RNH Plymouth three years later.