Naval Nursing Sister Nicci Pugh, Queen Alexandra’s Royal Naval Nursing Service (QARNNS)

Nicci Pugh was a QARNNS nursing sister aboard Her Majesty’s Hospital Ship Uganda which arrived off the Falklands on 11 May. At Gibraltar, the ship had been hastily converted from a P&O educational cruise ship. Uganda received its first casualties, from HMS Sheffield, on 12 May. Many of Uganda’s subsequent patients, of whom 20 per cent were Argentinian, came from the Ajax Bay Casualty Evacuation Station. Pugh, one of 40 QARNNS Nursing Officers and Naval Nurses on Uganda, was a Senior Nursing Officer and Theatre Sister. She ran one of the three teams in the operating theatres, which mostly worked with two teams on, one team off. Between them the teams performed more than 500 operations.