Were there nurses stationed at Bude, Cornwall, UK during WW2?
Upvote:3
Don't know if your still writing but my mom was a nursing student who lived in Bude and trained and worked in Redruth during WW2. My dad was an American soldier stationed in bude. He went to Normandy and through France...was shot in the 'Bulge, went back to hospital in Stratton, I believe. My mom was his nurse. She came to Washington state in 1947 and they were married. The rest is history.
Upvote:11
I can answer your tangential question: bicycles were heavily used throughout the UK during WWII. There were no gasoline rations available to civilians, except for doctors and others with a strong need for them for public service, and car ownership was very much rarer than in the modern day anyway. It would be quite normal for a nurse who didn't have accommodation at her workplace to lodge nearby and travel by bicycle.
Upvote:16
There does not appear to be any evidence that there was ever a hospital in Bude, but there are two other possibilities for your nurse.
There has long been a hospital in Stratton which (according to Google) is just 1.8 miles (2.9 km) away by road. According to the pdf Stratton Conservation Area Appraisal, Stratton Hospital was in place before 1926 and probably long before that as a 'Hospital Road' is mentioned in 1863.
Also, there was Winsford Cottage Hospital at Halwill Junction, 17.5 miles / 28.16 km from Bude. This was operational from 1898 until its closure in 1998.
Although RAF Cleave was a small airfield which (as John Dallamn mentions in his comment) was not a combat airfield, there was an American military presence in the area for a while. This People's War site has an account of one Raymond Edgar Jacquett, who was a 14-year-old boy in 1941:
In 1941 when the Americans joined the war there were thousands of American soldiers and all their equipment and as a 14 years old boy it was a good time. Everything came form Okehampton to Bude by train.
The autobiography / biography Rudder: From Leader to Legend has several pages on US rangers in Bude, and provides some details on the locals which you may find useful.
There is map of the buildings / features of RAF Cleave here. No sign of a medical facility, though many of the buildings aren't labelled. You might be able to find out more on RAF Cleave from Devon and Cornwall Airfields in the Second World War by Graham Smith, but it can't be viewed online unfortunately.
Also, Bude was one of places that children were evacuated to during WWII, as well as students from Bristol. Nurses would undoubtedly have been needed so it seems perfectly feasible for a young woman to go from London to the area around Bude at the time.
On the use of bicycles, the British Cycling website has this account from one Edward Ashpole, a teenager during the war:
World War Two made the bicycle the vehicle for personal transport in Britain. The young and old could wobble along our roads in those days with no danger from speeding cars...
People cycled to work, often long distances. Unless you were running the war effort in a big way you had no petrol ration.
On the life of nurse during World War II, you may find this WWII Nursing and Medicine page useful as it has a long list of articles relating nurses' experiences.
More post
- 📝 Was it common practice in Victorian London or other Western European cities to name locations as places where fictional characters lived and acted?
- 📝 Who started trams in Delhi?
- 📝 How big was the Golden Horde?
- 📝 WWII - documents on turn around point in German Foreign strategy - "stop we are not going to pass Finland to USSR"
- 📝 In the British empire, what was the difference between a Governor General and a Viceroy?
- 📝 Is there evidence of people moving east to Europe?
- 📝 When Hitler started WW2, did he realize that if he lost he would die?
- 📝 Medieval Saharan Caravan Navigation
- 📝 How did Tunisia's revolution (and Arab Spring) begin?
- 📝 Is there a civilization that never believed in God in the ancient times?
- 📝 Have the Arabs ever conquered Kayseri?
- 📝 Has a CIWS system ever shot down a missile in combat?
- 📝 Have breasts been proudly and publicly uncovered, in any culture, without general disapproval?
- 📝 How was it possible for the Ukrainian SSR to be one of the founding members of the UN if it was basically a Province of the USSR?
- 📝 How does Nigeria stay together?
- 📝 What is the difference between the union free state and the territories controlled by the federal government?
- 📝 Exactly when was the country of Andorra founded?
- 📝 What knowledge may have been lost at the Library of Alexandria?
- 📝 Examples of Romans repeating early stages of the cursus honorum
- 📝 Why has the khopesh never been used since ancient Egypt?
- 📝 How accurately could ancient astronomers find latitude and longitude?
- 📝 What were the ethnic backgrounds of the slaves in Ancient Greece?
- 📝 Why do the British Queen's Guard and the Danish Royal Guard Company look so similar?
- 📝 Has Britain's 1940 invasion of Iceland been downplayed by historians?
- 📝 What other pairs of wars have had a ~25 year interval?
- 📝 Did any nation have a demonstrable qualitative advantage in their soldiers of the 18th century, and how did they achieve this?
- 📝 How did member states of the Holy Roman Empire justify only including part of their land inside it?
- 📝 German Government branches during World War 2
- 📝 What is the definition, usage, and etymology of “Sandy ware”?
- 📝 What is this 17th century Swiss coin?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 Were there nurses stationed at Bude, Cornwall, UK during WW2?
- 📝 Were there any war movies made during WW2 that were well regarded by front-line American soldiers?
- 📝 Why were there no internment camps for German-American citizens in USA during WW2?
- 📝 Were there U.S. weapon restrictions during 19th century?
- 📝 Were there any travel restrictions during the Black Death pandemic?
- 📝 Were there any high-ranking female soldiers during the Middle ages?
- 📝 Why was there lack of food during WW2 in the UK?
- 📝 Was there a Japanese equivalent of the Gestapo during WW2
- 📝 Were there any political checks on the U.S. executive during their covert support of the military junta of Pinochet?
- 📝 Percentage of the draft pool that were conscripted during WW2 and Vietnam
- 📝 Were there any naval engagements during the Mongol invasions of Japan?
- 📝 Were B-17s (rather than B-29s) ever used to bomb mainland Japanese territory during WW2 (at least before the capture of Okinawa)?
- 📝 Why were there so many suffect consuls during the Principate?
- 📝 Why were there so many Japanese Prime Ministers before and during WW2?
- 📝 Were there opium dens in Russia during the 19th century?
- 📝 Were there any abolitionists imprisoned for being critical of the Congress or the President during the American Civil War?
- 📝 Were there restrictions on German refugees entering the US during World War II?
- 📝 Were there any pro-Native American groups during the Indian Wars?
- 📝 During World War II, were there any parts of the Japanese overseas empire that was capable of local re-supply?
- 📝 Were there any British traitors during the American revolutionary war?
- 📝 Were aerial dogfights during WW2 and WW1 typically very one-sided?
- 📝 How many ministerial deferments were there during WWII for the United States?
- 📝 Were there many foreigners fighting during the American civil war?
- 📝 Is there any way to get a list of Germans who were interned in American camps during WWII?
- 📝 Were there examples from Renaissance period of a relationship of erotic nature between a teacher and a student or during transmission of knowledge?
- 📝 Why were some German and Japanese cities bombed more than others during WW2? Is there a scientific consensus?
- 📝 Were there any tests or prerequisites for Blacks and Indians to be admitted to the University of Cape Town during Apartheid?
- 📝 Were there women who were against giving women the right to vote?
- 📝 When did the allies find out about the killing of Jews during WW2
- 📝 Why were ships-of-the line not supposed to open fire on frigates during fleet actions?