Is she the only woman?

[BennytheBall]

I was talking to a member of our local ramblers society and he said that he thinks his great aunt who he attended her funeral last week in Exeter claims that she was the only woman to be awarded the Burma Star medal as she was in Burma during the 2nd WW serving as a welfare officer in the Red Cross Her name was Beryl Anne Jerret born 03041922 - died 03102013, her married name was McConnville can anyone find out if this is true or not? Many Thanks BennytheBall

[dcdl12976]

Not sure about the only one mate please read this
One of few women to hold Burma Star 11:34am Friday 21st November 2008

A WARTIME nurse is part of a very select group of women still alive today to have been awarded the Burma Star medal.
Winnie Roberts, aged 92, now lives in Pershore and was one of a small number of British nurses who treated injured soldiers in the Far East during the war with Japan.
Many of her friends and colleagues have now passed away and she believes she is the only woman in the area to have the medal as the number of women in Burma at the time were ‘few and far between’.
But it comes as no surprise that Winnie is still going strong; what more would you expect from a woman who had stared down the barrel of an enemy soldier’s gun without flinching?
She originally trained as a nurse in Chesterfield where the matron had been a nurse in the First World War. After coming towards the end of the training programme she was asked if she would like to join the reserves and agreed to do so in 1936.
Winnie was only six months into her career when she was sent off to India to the city of Puna near Bombay. After her time in Puna she moved on to Dhaka in Bangladesh.
She said: “We were asked if we wanted to take part in active service and I was happy to do that, so soon we were treating soldiers who had been injured in battle and were suffering from various illnesses.
“In fact we had to treat far more people with illnesses such as malaria and gangrene than with wounds.
“Dhaka is the capital of Bangladesh now but in that time it was only one long street with a few shops on either side. Everywhere we went we had to have an armed guard with us as the locals were quite hostile towards us at first and saw us as interlopers.”
Winnie said that the Japanese were ruthless fighters and she witnessed several acts of brutality. On one occasion she says she came within inches of losing her life when enemy soldiers lined up a number of nurses and shot them. But Winnie was not hit and dived into a nearby trench to avoid any follow-up bullets and miraculously survived her terrifying ordeal.
“Another time a group of around nine or 10 Australian nurses were taken to a beach on one of the nearby islands and made to wade out into the water where they were shot and killed.
“They also captured a hospital in Hong Kong and killed a number of the people working there and some of the patients.”
Despite the bloodshed, Winnie says she wouldn’t change her time in the Far East for a second and has no regrets about going out there to serve. “We had a job to do and we did it. We had a good social life and the soldiers would do anything for you like build a shower and bathroom and buy you dinner every evening. We never had to pay.”
On her return from the conflict, Winnie received her Burma Star and remains humble about the work she did there, saying she never expected to get a medal.
Her return also coincided with that of her school sweetheart Bert. They had met in Barrow-in-Furness where Winnie was born and he had trained to become a chemist before joining the Army to fight in the war.
Recalling her meeting with Bert after many years apart, she said: “My sister Dorothy invited me to her tennis club but I was more interested in swimming so I turned her down originally.
“I changed my mind later and went to the club. The first face I saw was Bert’s and we were so happy to be reunited.”
Winnie married Bert, a Dunkirk veteran and in his later years a member of Fladbury Royal British Legion, in 1940. He died four years ago, aged 90.
The conflict in the Far East ended with the Japanese surrender on August 15 1945, now known as VJ Day.

[Clive Hughes]

Burma Star qualifications for Army personnel (and Navy ashore, and non-operational RAF) included service in any part of Burma 11th December 1941 and 2nd September 1945, as well as in the Indian provinces of Assam and Bengal between 1st May 1942 and 2nd September 1945. Service in China and Malaya between 16th February 1942 and 2nd September 1945 also counted.

The nursing branches of all three services in those areas could be held to qualify.

Clive

[BennytheBall]

found out she also served in Darjarleng 1945 and Ciaro 1947 whats medals would she have been awarded if any apart from the Burma Star? Many Thanks