Before the Ceremony

Normandy vet to get France's top honour

Kay Blundell, Kapiti

Creeping around on her knees in dark tents at night tending to wounded soldiers with bombs exploding around her — the memories are still fresh 62 years later for French Legion of Honour recipient Phyllis Jason-Smith.

Mrs Jason-Smith, 87, of Paraparaumu, will be awarded the French Government's highest military honour this month for her service as a nursing sister during the Battle of Normandy during World War II.

France's ambassador to New Zealand, Jean-Michel Marlaud, said her unfailing courage and selfless actions as nursing sister in the Queen Alexandra service, stationed close to the battles of Caen and Falaise, working in extremely challenging conditions, had earned her France's highest decoration.

I thin the real reason I'm getting the award is because I'm the only woman member of the Normandy Veterans Association, she joked.

At the time of the Normandy landings in June 1944, she was serving as a nursing sister with the British General Hospital. When we first arrived in Arromanches to establish a 600-bed hospital in Normandy the first response from the men was, The war must be over — the girls have arrived.

They found themselves working in tents without time to put up the beds. It was a case of nursing the wounded on stretchers on the ground — no electricity or running water — we used hurricane lamps at night.

As there was no off-duty time, they worked till exhausted and then collapsed on camp beds in a huge tent that accommodated all the nirses.

Penicillin had just become available and the nurses carried tablets in phials in their pockets. We mixed them with water and injected them — it was very painful for the soldiers.

In the chest and abdominal word the nurses did not have time to undress patients for surgery — they just cut the necessary hole in the clothing before operations.

From France the nurses were moved to Ghent in Belgium, where they took over a monastery. It was said that the brothers had to move out to let the sisters in. We didn't particularly like living there — people had been buried alive in the basement.

After their stint in Ghent the nurses went to treat the many casualties suffered by the British during the crossing of the Rhine. As Soon as the war ended she was sent to Belsen concentration camp to work for seven seeks — the longest anyone was allowed to stay there. It was so hard — there were 40,000 starving people, drab surroundings and gas chambers all around us. The smell was shocking — dirt, gas, and death all mingled up together.

Food parcels kept arriving so we could feed the children — it was great. Repatriating people was difficult. Trying to reunite families to evacuate them together was difficult with such huge numbers. Fiances lied to be evacuated with their loved ones and dealing with a wide rage of mid-European dialects did not help.

Originally from Ireland, Mrs Jason-Smith met her future husband during the war and was posted with him to Osnabruck, Germany, where they spent their last army days together. After moving to England, where they had two children they emigrated to New Zealand, where two more children completed the family.

When the war ended my Husband and I vowed to put the past behind us and start again, she said. But the nightmares would not go away. For the past 60 year, on occasion, I have woken dreaming of bombs exploding all around me and knowing there was something I should have done.

Her husband died suddenly in his 40s, leaving her to raise the children alone.

Despite her poor eyesight, she enjoys indoor bowls at the retirement village where she now lives. They're very good. They let me play first because then I can see the white ball.