A British Army Nurse in the Korean War: Shadows of the Far Forgotten

Jilly McNair saw 18 months active service as a Queen Alexandra's nurse in Japan and Korea during the Korean War. During her time as a nurse in the conflict she wrote a large number of letters home to her parents, letters now held by the Imperial War Museum. This is her account of that extraordinary time, based on her letters and illustrated with photographs and drawings she did while stationed there. This very personal book covers the highs and lows of nursing sick and wounded in the British Commonwealth General Hospital as one of around 80 European women in the garrison in Kure, Japan; and life in the small 100-bedded British Commonwealth Zone Medical Unit in Seoul, Korea. The Korean War has become something of a 'forgotten war', as, focused on recovering from World War Two, many failed to realise the sacrifices made by UN forces and the Korean population. Certainly little has been written about it by women, so this is an important first-hand account by a young British woman in active service during the Korean War.