The Norman Gooding Collection

A fine Second War A.R.R.C. group of six attributed to Sister Hilda Cryne, Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve, who saved the lives of men suffering from smallpox in Algiers

Royal Red Cross, 2nd Class (A.R.R.C.), G.VI.R. 1st issue, silver and enamel, reverse dated ‘1943’, on lady’s bow riband; 1939-45 Star; Africa Star; Italy Star; Defence and War Medals 1939-45, very fine and better (6) £400-£500

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Norman Gooding Collection.

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A.R.R.C. London Gazette 16 September 1943.

The original recommendation by the Officer Commanding, No. 94 General Hospital, states: ‘During February and March 1943, a number of cases of severe Smallpox were treated in this wing. Only one of the small Nursing Officer staff could be spared for nursing these cases, and Miss Cryne immediately volunteered for this duty. She, assisted by four nursing orderlies, nursed and cared for the patients in the most devoted and unselfish manner - working in tents in cold and very wet weather and under most trying conditions. To her unremitting care some of the worst cases undoubtedly owe their lives. It is a very great pleasure to recommend that an award be made to this Nursing Officer in recognition of, and in appreciation of her most valuable work and outstanding devotion to duty.’

Hilda Cryne lived in Crosby, Lincolnshire, and took her nursing studies at St. Andrew’s Hospital in Bow from 1938 to 1941. Commissioned into Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve as Sister on 7 October 1942, she sailed for North Africa and was taken on the strength of No. 94 General Hospital on 21 December 1942. Remarkably, she was recommended for the A.R.R.C. less than six months after joining the service, a feat commensurate with the high degree of risk associated with the smallpox contagion.

A letter which accompanies the lot from the recipient’s brother to the present vendor, dated 12 July 1993, adds: ‘She served in both the Italian and African campaigns. She was blown up in an ambulance in Italy and as a result suffered spinal injuries which confined her to a hospital bed for 3 months... The medal (A.R.R.C.) was presented to her in Rhodesia by the Queen Mother, then the wife of the late King George VI.’

Sold with the original Buckingham Palace named enclose to Miss Hilda Cryne, A.R.R.C., two letters from the recipient’s brother, and copied research including a coloured photograph of her.