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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

Nursing aboard a hospital ship

The SS Uganda remained in the Total Exclusion Zone for about a week once reaching the South Atlantic, before heading towards the Falklands. Julia remembers:

'We were then told one night - it was Tannoyed that the ship had just received instructions to go right down to the Falklands, and I do remember that night very well, walking on the deck, how sort of still and calm it was. And I don't know the whole sort of smell of having been in the ocean for all these days, everything suddenly seemed to change and that really was it, we were off.'

The first casualties came aboard soon after this. Helicopters carried the patients onboard and then Royal Marine bandsmen moved them using stretchers.

Massey predominantly worked in the area in which patients with shrapnel, gunshot and blast wounds were treated. There was a lot of concern with such open wounds about the risk of infection.

Nursing staff carried on twenty four hours a day, with Massey working in a constant rota of shifts that lasted four hours at a time. Life revolved around working, sleeping and eating.

Listen to Captain Massey speak about her first experiences with patients in the Falklands -

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The role of a hospital ship changed for the first time during this conflict. Hospital ships had been primarily the carriers of the wounded prior to this point.

Nursing onboard them had generally consisted of making the patients comfortable, redoing dressings, feeding and watering them, with some necessary emergency treatment.

However the surgical teams in the Falklands performed not only initial surgery but also secondary surgery. Nurses treated casualties brought from field hospitals or even just lifted from the battlefield.

The staff on SS Uganda treated about 730 patients throughout the conflict, 159 of whom were Argentinean. The medical staff treated Argentinean patients alongside British troops for short periods of time. The Argentineans then transferred over to their own hospital ships. Massey remarks that:

'As nurses one is there to nurse the sick, and of course we are there under the Geneva Convention and that is a requirement that you nurse the enemy. And, of course, the soldiers and sailors of ours in the ward, they're also aware of the Geneva Convention and the fact that we do look after the enemy. So it was really no problem for them either, so there was no animosity towards them [the Argentineans] as individuals.'

Uganda decommissioned once the Argentineans surrendered and the medical team, including Massey, headed home soon afterwards. The hospital was no longer operable during the voyage home and the ship carried Gurkha troops returning from the Falklands.

Listen to Captain Massey recount what she learned from nursing in the Falklands -

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