This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this site you agree to accept cookies.
If you enjoy this siteplease consider making a donation.
Site Home
WW2 Home
Add Stories
WW2 Search
Library
Help & FAQs
WW2 Features
Airfields
Allied Army
Allied Air Forces
Allied Navy
Axis Forces
Home Front
Battles
Prisoners of War
Allied Ships
Women at War
Those Who Served
Day-by-Day
Library
The Great War
Submissions
Add Stories
Time Capsule
TWMP on Facebook
Childrens Bookshop
FAQ's
Help & FAQs
Glossary
Volunteering
Contact us
News
Bookshop
About
100438Lt. Amy Evalyn Keats
Queen Alexandra Imperial Military Nursing Service Hospital Ship Karoa
from:Oakley, Hampshire, England
My mother joined the QA's [Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service, now known as the QARANC ] and arrived in India 21st March 1944. After a time serving in on-shore hospitals she joined the Hospital Ship "Karoa" and participated in the evacuation of wounded soldiers from the Burma Campaigns. The "Karoa" would sail between Madras, Chittagong and Calcutta collecting the wounded out of Chittagong. She remembers spotting 2 periscopes of submarines in the Bay of Bengal but they never fired on the "Karoa" so perhaps it was the Allies or the enemy respecting the Geneva convention. She made good friends of two other Sisters on board the "Karoa"and each had charge of a level of the Ship. There were four levels: Officers on top deck; British Other Ranks on the next level down; Indian soldiers on the next level; West Africans on the next level and East Africans on the lowest level. My mother was Sister-in-charge of the Officers' Ward; her friend Jane, Sister-in-charge of the Indian Ward and Joyce, Sister-in-charge of the West African ward. They each remember the visit of Lord Louis Mountbatten and would pass the message on to each other to be ready as he descended to inspect the Wards! These three Sisters kept up a friendship all their lives. My mother married a British Officer at the end of the War and went to Australia. Joyce returned to Suffolk, England and Jane married and went to live in Canada. The three corresponded over all the years. Eventually Joyce came out to Australia to visit her son who was married and based in Sydney. She was intending to visit her WW2 friend Amy in Melbourne but unfortunately my mother died only a few days before they ever re-connected. Joyce met my father and asked if she could have something of my mother's, an ashtray in the form of a brass shoe. The story went that she and my mother had bought one each in a bazaar in India and had pledged to meet on the steps of St Paul's cathedral after the War with their brass shoes! Chance had dictated otherwise and so the story closes here.
Related Content:
Can you help us to add to our records?
The names and stories on this website have been submitted by their relatives and friends. If your relations are not listed please add their names so that others can read about them
Did you or your relatives live through the Second World War? Do you have any photos, newspaper clippings, postcards or letters from that period? Have you researched the names on your local or war memorial? Were you or your relative evacuated? Did an air raid affect your area?
If so please let us know.
Help us to build a database of information on those who served both at home and abroad so that future generations may learn of their sacrifice.
Celebrate your own Family History
Celebrate by honouring members of your family who served in the Secomd World War both in the forces and at home. We love to hear about the soldiers, but also remember the many who served in support roles, nurses, doctors, land army, muntions workers etc.
Please use our Family History resources to find out more about your relatives. Then please send in a short article, with a photo if possible, so that they can be remembered on these pages.
The free section of the Wartime Memories Project website is run by volunteers. We have been helping people find out more about their relatives wartime experiences since 1999 by recording and preserving recollections, documents, photographs and small items.
The website is paid for out of our own pockets, library subscriptions and from donations made by visitors. The popularity of the site means that it is far exceeding available resources and we currently have a huge backlog of submissions.
If you are enjoying the site, please consider making a donation, however small to help with the costs of keeping the site running.
Hosted by:
Copyright MCMXCIX - MMXXIV
- All Rights Reserved
We do not permit the use of any content from this website for the training of LLMs or for use in Generative AI, it also may not be scraped for the purpose of creating other websites.