Oral History Gallery

Incidents and case studies at sea 3 - Treatment of Argentinean POWs, 1982

Julia Massey

Service: 1968 - 1996

Rate: Captain

Julia joined the QARNNS (Queen Alexandra Royal Naval Nursing Service) in 1968 and worked at Royal Naval Hospital Haslar, a number of medical facilities in Malta, RNH Plymouth, HMS Pembroke and RNH Hong Kong. In 1982, she was part of the nursing team embarked on SS Uganda for the Falklands War and during the Gulf War she was responsible for allocating nurses to RFA Argus. In 1994 she was involved with the Defence Cost Studies Report which led to the closure of the RN Hospitals, the establishment of tri-service training and the reduction of the QARNNS by nearly a half.

Hear about Julia's experiences of treating POWs during the Falklands War.

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Extract Text (Duration 1.02)

I think 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 really was no problem for them either, so there was no animosity towards them as individuals, and also, you know, we have to remember that there may well have been British casualties on an Argentine hospital ship. As it happened there weren't any at all, but it was a possibility and one would expect that they would have been treated in the same way. So the Argentinean patients were treated just like the British patients, they had the same treatments, the same food and everything else, and they could well see this happening in the ward around them.