Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

The unique and important 1936 ‘Palestine’ Military Division O.B.E., Second War R.R.C. and Second Award Bar group of ten awarded Chief Principal Matron W. M. Coulthurst, Princess Mary's Royal Air Force Nursing Service

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, O.B.E. (Military) Officer’s 2nd type, breast badge; Royal Red Cross, 1st Class (R.R.C.), G.VI.R. 1st issue, silver-gilt, gold, and enamel, reverse dated ‘1942’, with Second Award Bar, reverse dated ‘1945’; General Service 1918-62, 1 clasp, Palestine (Matron W. M. Coulthurst. P.M.R.A.F.N.S.); 1939-45 Star; Africa Star; Burma Star; Defence and War Medals 1939-45; Jubilee 1935, mounted as originally worn by Spink & Son Ltd, St. James, generally good very fine (10) £3,000-£4,000

O.B.E. London Gazette 11 May 1937:

‘In recognition of valuable services rendered in the field in connection with the operations in Palestine during the period April - October 1936.’

R.R.C. London Gazette 1 January 1942. The original recommendation states:

‘Miss Coulthurst opened the R.A.F. Hospital, Littleport, at the outbreak of war with speed and efficiency. She was posted to Torquay in April 1940, and has since maintained a high standard of efficiency.’

R.R.C. Second Award Bar London Gazette 14 June 1945. The original recommendation states:

‘Operational Commands 1 August 1944 - 31 January 1945 - Middle East. This lady was appointed Chief Principal Matron in March, 1944 and since then she has visited all hospitals and units where personnel of P.M.R.A.F.N.S. are serving in the Mediterranean, Middle East, India, Iraq and Aden. She has dealt with many problems in the most tactful and understanding manner and has been a great help to the Matrons in opening up new general hospitals in India. Miss Coulthurst has been a tower of strength to the Nursing Service in overseas commands.’

Of a total of 100 R.R.C. and Bars issued, only 4 have been awarded to members of Princess Mary’s Royal Air Force Nursing Service, and the award to Miss Coulthurst was the first. Moreover, her O.B.E. (Military) was the first ever operational award to a member of the P.M.R.A.F.N.S. - the sprinkling of earlier awards having been associated with the New Year and Birthday Honours Lists.

Approximately 39 General Service Medals with clasp ‘Palestine’ were awarded to P.M.R.A.F.N.S.

Winifred Maud Coulthurst was born in Salford in 1887, and was appointed Sister in the Royal Air Force Nursing Service in May 1920, advancing to Senior Sister in the P.M.R.A.F.N.S. in January 1930. Coulthurst was promoted to Matron in January 1932, and Chief Principal Matron (the equivalent rank of Group Captain) in March 1944. She served in Basrah, Iraq; Aden in 1929 and in Palestine in 1936 before her initial posting of the Second War at Littleport and the Torquay Palace Hotel Convalescent Hospital. The following detail is given of her time at the latter in Sky Wards, A History of the Princess Mary’s Royal Air Force Nursing Service by Mary Mackie:

‘The Officer’s Convalescent Hospital now flourished near Torquay, in the former Palace Hotel at Babbacombe. By the end of 1939 it had achieved its full capacity of 249 equipped beds and, after minor alterations, four bedrooms on the second floor had become an operating theatre. Patients recuperating in cosy rooms holding two or three beds, rather than in crowded wards, found the hospital a pleasant spot....

Matron W. M. Coulthurst led a nursing team of twenty-one members of the P.M.R.A.F.N.S. - four senior sisters, ten junior sisters and some VAD nurses - plus a number of nursing orderlies. Other staff included R.A.F. doctors and dentists, administration and supporting personnel, and about eighty civilian ancillary workers, most of whom were former hotel employees. Altogether, Torquay gave employment to around 200 people....

The hospital became known for its lively and optimistic atmosphere. BBC correspondent Macdonald Hastings, writing in London Calling, the overseas journal of the BBC, in October 1941, describes it as being like a country club, but with incomparable amenities: ‘wooded grounds with velvet lawns, tropical trees, luxurious flower beds... golf course, tennis courts, squash courts, swimming pool, archery butts, and gymnasium.’

Against this idyllic backdrop:

‘Disaster struck on the bitterly cold, wet morning of 25 October 1942. A Sunday morning, around 1100hrs.

Most of the patients were in their rooms, shaving, dressing or reading Sunday papers. Domestic staff tidied up, kitchen hands prepared Sunday lunch, and nurses readied themselves for doctors’ rounds. Fred Payne, gowned and masked, was assisting in the operating theatre. Fluffy Ogilvie was on the first floor... As Fluffy and the MO went into the patients’ room, ‘we both saw, through the large windows, German planes, with their Swastikas clearly visible. There was no time to be brave or heroic, we dived under the bed...’

After preliminary machine-gun strafing, the enemy dropped high-explosive 500 kilo bombs. The first scored a direct hit on the east wing. The second landed in the road, its blast shattering windows, doors and partitions in the west wing and severely damaging the operating theatre. Lamps over the operating table fell on to the unconscious patient and a door flew across the room and knocked out Fred Payne.

The floor where Fluffy Ogilvie had taken cover lost its door and windows. Rain and cold air rushed in, but all four patients, plus doctor and nurse, had survived. The latter pair dashed out into the hall to find ‘dust and rubble everywhere and, where there had been a further room, just one big gaping hole... The first body we came to was that of ‘Tinkle’ Bell. I saw her hand and arm sticking out beneath the heavy masonry. I also saw... two bodies which seemed to be hanging from the girder. The bomb had gone through all the floors down to the basement...’

Two platoons of the local home guard had been carrying out exercises close by. Two of their number died in the attack but the rest came to help, along with local air raid precaution volunteers... Through the rubble and dust, shivering against the cold winds that swept through shattered windows and gaping holes in brickwork, men carried laden stretchers to where doctors and nurses made rapid diagnoses, applied dressings and splints, and administered what drugs they could; amid such chaos and destruction they could offer little more than first aid....

Nineteen people died, one was missing, another forty-five suffered injury. Had it not been a Sunday, casualties would have been even worse because many patients would have been in the basement gymnasium and its milk bar, which had been flattened.’

After Torquay, and advancing to Chief Principal Matron, Coulthurst say extensive overseas postings for the remainder of the war. Chief Principal Matron Coulthurst retired in January 1947. In later life she resided at Limehurst St Margaret’s Road, Altrincham, Cheshire, and died at the Royal Infirmary Manchester in April 1950.

Sold with the following related items and documents: Riband bar; named Buckingham Palace enclosure for R.R.C. Second Award Bar; Air Ministry letter of appreciation on the occasion of recipient’s retirement, signed by Philip Noel-Baker, then Secretary of State for Air, dated 16 January 1947; newspaper cuttings and photographic image of recipient; with copied research.

The lady in the photograph in the catalogue is not Chief Principal Matron Coulthurst.