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The 1914 Star medal roll for nurses was compiled in August 1918, but no ribbons issued until after the end of the war, though it's not unusual to see photos of nurses wearing the ribbon while still in France, though some of those were serving until 1920.  And the first date I can see in the nurses' SWB Roll is 5th October 1916, though because of the multitude of different units it's a bit piecemeal.

There's been some interesting research going on recently, and yet to be published, which concludes that although a handful of nurses 'qualified' for the Clasp to the 1914 Star these were later found 'ineligible' - for no good reason it seems.  They were invariably on early ambulance trains which came under enemy fire. Not rare to see Clasps with nurses' medal groups of course,  and it's an area which is much discussed and disagreed with.

Sue

The main problem here is taking anything about the nurses portrayed on 'The Crimson Field' as accurate. A programme that can't be bothered to get the most simple details right is hardly going to bother about medals. As has already been pointed out the Indian Nursing Service was entirely separate to QAIMNS prior to 1926 and quite impossible for a QAIMNS Matron to have the India General Service Medal.  Presumably the ribbon was displayed to give some credence to Grace Carter speaking fluent Punjabi though there's some discussion even then about what she was speaking and what she was meant to speak. Surprising though she wasn't wearing ribbons of the Queen's/King's South Africa Medal which would have been very likely.

And yes, I've been told dozens of times that 'it's a drama not a documentary'.  Flagship drama by the BBC for the Centenary, so inaccurate that it never earned the expected further series and was dropped. Luckily.

Each county had similar numbering and if a '2' is given, then that probably refers to Devon/2 VAD which was Streatham Hall Hospital, Exeter.  It seems more likely than Sussex/2 which was in Eastbourne.

At a time where there were no antibiotics, influenza, pneumonia and other chest infections caused many deaths throughout the UK every year.  The majority of women whose names are on UK war memorials died during the war of illness or disease and are included as giving their services during wartime.

Sue

It will be the first two links here, according to date - click on 'details'

http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/browse/r/h/391bb35d47214cb499fc30b323fe0ed2

Sue

Over the past couple of years The National Archives have been making all First World War unit war diaries available online, and have now got round to including medical units in France and Flanders. They are supplied as copies of original document and are not transcriptions, so some are not that easy to read.  They vary in content but are simply a day to day account of the basic running of the units, so unlikely to supply much of use to anyone searching for individuals.  A number of them give details of deaths in the form of name, number, unit and cause of death. Some of the diaries are rather good on detail for the early months of the war, but most fairly soon become simply a list of admissions, discharges and comings and goings of medical officers.

The reference to 'convalescent hospitals' should actually read 'convalescent camps' - the units in France where men were sent to recuperate if they were not so seriously ill or wounded that they needed to return to the United Kingdom. All these military hospitals are those that were run under the control of the War Office.  They are in no way connected with any other auxiliary, convalescent or VAD hospital under the control of the British Red Cross Society and Order of St. John. Surviving records for those are very rare and if they exist are likely to be held in local or County archives in the UK.

With reference to the St. Louis Unit, they took over No.12 General Hospital, Rouen, from the British in the summer of 1917, and that war diary can be found under it's original British title and is available for download from TNA even for the period after the Americans took over.

Sue