It was bright moonlight good bombing light and once we had to stop and put out our lights as a Fascist aeroplane flew over. They usually come swooping down with guns firing at cars, especially ambulances. Finally we arrived at a town among the hills about 12.30 p.m. Here there is a hospital of about 100 beds in a former convent They expect an attack tonight.
In these words New Zealand nurse Dorothy Morris described her journey to a Republican medical unit of the Spanish civil war in early 1937. This book is based on the vivid, detailed and evocative letters she sent from Spain and other European countries. They have been supplemented by wide-ranging research to record a life of outstanding professional dedication, resourcefulness and courage.
Dorothy Aroha Morris (19041998) volunteered to serve with Sir George Youngs University Ambulance Unit, and worked at an International Brigades base hospital and as head nurse to a renowned Catalan surgeon. She then headed a Quaker-funded childrens hospital in Murcia, southern Spain. As Francos forces advanced, she fled to France and directed Quaker relief services for tens of thousands of Spanish refugees. Nurse Morris spent the Second World War in London munitions factories, as welfare supervisor to their all-female workforces. She then joined the newly formed UN Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, working in the Middle East and Germany with those who had been displaced and made homeless and destitute as a result of the war.
Dorothy Morriss remarkable and pioneering work in the fields of military medicine for civilian casualties, and large-scale humanitarian relief projects is told in this book for the first time.
Front: Dorothy Morris with a patient of her childrens hospital in Murcia, southern Spain, 1938. Back: Dorothy Morris (right), her Irish colleague Mary Elmes and their driver Juan stand next to their delivery van, Perpignan, 1939.
Mark Derby is a New Zealand writer and historian. His books include Kiwi Compaeros New Zealand and the Spanish Civil War (2009). A Spanish translation, Compaeros Kiwis Nueva Zealanda y la Guerra Civil Espaol, appeared in 2011.
The Caada Blanch / Sussex Academic Studies on Contemporary Spain
General Editor: Professor Paul Preston, London School of Economics
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Germ Bel, Disdain, Distrust, and Dissolution: The Surge of Support for Independence in Catalonia.
Carl-Henrik Bjerstrm, Josep Renau and the Politics of Culture in Republican Spain, 19311939: Re-imagining the Nation.
Kathryn Crameri, Goodbye, Spain?: The Question of Independence for Catalonia
Mark Derby, Petals and Bullets: Dorothy Morris A New Zealand Nurse in the Spanish Civil War.
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Francisco Espinosa-Maestre, Shoot the Messenger?: Spanish Democracy and the Crimes of Francoism From the Pact of Silence to the Trial of Baltasar Garzn.
Soledad Fox, Constancia de la Mora in War and Exile: International Voice for the Spanish Republic.
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Helen Graham, The War and its Shadow: Spains Civil War in Europes Long Twentieth Century.
Angela Jackson, For us it was Heaven: The Passion, Grief and Fortitude of Patience Darton From the Spanish Civil War to Maos China.
Gabriel Jackson, Juan Negrn: Physiologist, Socialist, and Spanish Republican War Leader.
Xavier Moreno Juli, The Blue Division: Spanish Blood in Russia, 19411945.
Sid Lowe, Catholicism, War and the Foundation of Francoism: The Juventud de Accin Popular in Spain, 19311939.
David Lethbridge, Norman Bethune in Spain: Commitment, Crisis, and Conspiracy.
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Martin Minchom, Spains Martyred Cities: From the Battle of Madrid to Picassos Guernica.
Olivia Muoz-Rojas, Ashes and Granite: Destruction and Reconstruction in the Spanish Civil War and Its Aftermath.
Linda Palfreeman, SALUD!: British Volunteers in the Republican Medical Service during the Spanish Civil War, 19361939.
Linda Palfreeman, Aristocrats, Adventurers and Ambulances: British Medical Units in the Spanish Civil War.
Linda Palfreeman, Spain Bleeds: The Development of Battlefield Blood Transfusion during the Civil War.
Cristina Palomares, The Quest for Survival after Franco: Moderate Francoism and the Slow Journey to the Polls, 19641977.
David Wingeate Pike, France Divided: The French and the Civil War in Spain.
Hugh Purcell with Phyll Smith, The Last English Revolutionary: Tom Wintringham, 18981949.
Isabelle Rohr, The Spanish Right and the Jews, 18981945: Antisemitism and Opportunism.
Gareth Stockey, Gibraltar: A Dagger in the Spine of Spain?
Ramon Tremosa-i-Balcells, Catalonia An Emerging Economy: The Most Cost-Effective Ports in the Mediterranean Sea.
Maria Thomas, The Faith and the Fury: Popular Anticlerical Violence and Iconoclasm in Spain, 19311936.
Dacia Viejo-Rose, Reconstructing Spain: Cultural Heritage and Memory after Civil War.
Richard Wigg, Churchill and Spain: The Survival of the Franco Regime, 19401945.
To Roberta Bobbie Taylor,
a living embodiment of the principles
and spirit of Dorothy Morris
Copyright Mark Derby, 2015.
Published in the Sussex Academic e-Library, 2015.
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