Dorothy Lawrence

Sister Dorothy Lawrence served with the Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service (QAs) across three continents during the war. She began in North Africa, nursing casualties from the Battle of El Alamein in field hospitals that were sometimes within range of enemy artillery. She then transferred to Burma, where conditions were even more challenging — tropical diseases killed more soldiers than combat, and nurses worked around the clock treating malaria, dysentery, and battle wounds in jungle clearing stations. After VJ Day, she helped care for liberated prisoners of war from Japanese camps, an experience she described as the most harrowing of her service. She settled in Leeds after the war and trained a generation of NHS nurses.