From today's Daily Mirror:
Pilgrims at grave of nurse who died for patients
NURSES interned in Hong Kong have visited the grave in a monastery garden of their colleague, Miss Irene Brenda Morgan, of Leeds, who was killed in action.
Her name heads the War Office casualty list published today.
Miss Morgan was one of eleven members of Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service who stayed with their patients when Hong Kong fell,
All swore they would take their own lives rather than be outraged by the Japanese infidels, and all carried loaded revolvers. Brenda Morgan died like a heroine. Shepherding her patients to safety from bombs, she was killed by a shell just outside her Quarters.
Her home is at Wayside, Horsforth, near Leeds.
Last November her only brother, Lieutenant Brian Morgan, R.A., was killed.
Source:
Daily Mirror, January 27, 1943, page 2
Note:
This is an interesting and rather puzzling story. As far as I know, after some doubt as to their civilian status, the military nurses were sent into Stanley in the summer of 1942. I’m not aware of any other cases of internees being allowed out to visit graves even of family members, and I’m not sure how the paper would have found out about it if it had happened. Either the family or the War Office seem to be the source of the story. My guess is that it came originally from an escaper and that the visit took place before the nurses were sent to Stanley.
For other accounts of the death of Brenda Morgan see: http://gwulo.com/node/10235
Comments
re: Daily Mirror report of visit to Miss Morgan's grave
Notes from Barbara Anslow:
I can't claim to have known everything that went on in the camp, but have no memories of nurses allowed out to visit Sister Morgan's grave. Most of the VADs (which may have included the Q.A.s) came into Stanley on Aug 10th 1942, (a few including my younger sister had come in a few weeks earlier), so it's possible that the pilgrimage of the nurses took place before they were interned, but that doesnt tie up with the Daily Mirror report of 27.1.1943
70 YEARS AGO WAR TIME DIARIES NURSES
Good evening Barbara
Brian Edgar & I are equaly bewildered by the newspaper reports regarding nurse Morgans story.
Your thoughts about our conclusions would be greatly appreciated if you could make the time.(70 years ago war time diaries nurses)
Yours i appreciation .
Gary Liddell
Miss Morgan
(Moved here from another thread.)
Gary:
I have a photo taken by myself of nurse Morgans headstone at Stanley last year. It reads
IRENE BRENDA MORGAN
SISTER
14th DECEMBER 1941 AGE 27
I doubt if nurses were running around with sie arms & thoughts of suicide(jockey club & St Stephens)
Brian:
Interesting she's buried at Stanley - or is that a post-war memorial? If it's the actual grave that would explain how other nurses had seen it.
I'm sure you're right about the revolvers. I wonder if the reporter simply invented that to make the story more graphic.
Gary:
when you reach the top of the steps at the cemetry nurse Morgans grave & headstone are in the first row facing you to the left next to capt D.FORD G.C. of the Royal Scots.
The only other mention of nurses at the cemetry would be the memorial to nurses Begg Buxton & Smith of St Stephens infamy.
Just noticed a passage in
Just noticed a passage in Phyllis Harrop's Hong Kong Incident which clarifies a few things.
On January 13, 1942 she goes to Rosary Hill Military Hospital - 'normally...aa Spanish Dominican Monastery, but (it) had been requisitioned as an emergency hospital':
Whilst I was there I was taken to see the grave of my friend Brenda Morgan, with whom I had arranged to spend the Christmas holidays. She had been killed when the hospital was shelled and had been buried in the Monastery Garden. Her fiance, another of our would-be Christmas party, had also been killed.
page 112