Over the past twenty eight years we have had every book imaginable about the fighting of the Falklands War. Now, at last, here comes one from a very different point of view. In 1982, Nicci Pugh served as a Senior Nursing Officer in Queen Alexandra’s Royal Naval Nursing Service (QARNNS) on board the Her Majesty’s Hospital Ship Uganda, and she has written a fascinating account of what happened on board. 

SS Uganda was a P&O cruise ship specialising in school tours in the Mediterranean. Within a week in April 1982 she was converted into a hospital ship in Gibraltar with 90 tons of stores flown out from UK and was scrubbed from top to bottom to make her clean – a lesson modern hospitals could well learn!

As a Hospital Ship, Uganda could not receive military information and had to work from a designated Red Cross Box. The ship’s personnel therefore had to rely on the BBC World Service for news of what was happening. This sense of isolation permeates the book. Most famously, personnel were not told where any minefields had been laid (military information) and so managed to steam clear through one when entering Port Stanley at the end of the fighting! The hospital ship Uganda was in a bubble of its own, and the staff on board fought their battles in the operating theatre, burns unit, ICU and wards rather than on Mount Tumbledown or at Goose Green. But the battles were there nonetheless. As a simple example, many of the equipment items sent out from UK had wheels on them and tended to move with the ship’s motion – not ideal. Supplies of blood were likely to be a problem as blood has a shelf life of 35 days, and so most supplies had to come from within the Task Force. However, donors need 48 hours to recover from giving blood, and once the troops had landed donor sessions would be impossible. 415 pints were taken before troops landed and Uganda used 298 – one patient receiving over 50. The fact is that all of these battles were won and only three patients, of the 730 admitted, died, a remarkable record, matched only by Commander Rick Jolly’s Advance Dressing Station(ADS) at Ajax Bay. Incidentally, 150 hospital ship patients were Argentinian and they were dealt with just the same as anybody else.

However, the book is more than just a story of how the hospital ship Uganda was operated. Throughout, Nicci Pugh has used the testimony of nurses, crew and patients to make the story more personal. Whether it is the recollections of the RN CPO Medical Technician Mark Trasler, or a fellow QARNNS nurse Head Naval Nurse (HNN) Maggie Freer, illustrating how they overcame problems, or the memories of a patient, they are all vivid and moving. Amongst the best are those of former patient Lance Corporal Denzil Connick (3 Para) whose memories start with being wounded on Mount Longdon, and who has vivid recollection of his time on board. Throughout there are pictures, usually taken by the author herself, even if (to nit pick) some are repeated.* 

The last part of the book tells the story of SS Uganda after she was returned to P&O and was later sold for scrap, and then the story of how Nicci Pugh became involved with The South Atlantic Medal Association (SAMA82), organizing a reunion in April 2008 for all those who had served on board the hospital ship Uganda as staff, crew or patient, held on board P&O’s MV Aurora. Nicci Pugh has written a most moving book which rounds off our knowledge of the Falklands War. The professionalism and superb competence of our fighting troops was more than matched by that of their nursing and medical staff, and this book shows it to the full.