Elsie Knocker

Elsie Knocker, MM, OStJ (29 July 1884 – 26 April 1978) was a British nurse and ambulance driver in World War I who, together with her friend Mairi Chisholm, won numerous medals for bravery and for saving the lives of thousands of soldiers on the Western Front in Belgium. Dubbed "The Madonnas of Pervyse" by the press, the two became the most photographed women of the war.

When war was declared in 1914, Knocker wrote to her friend and fellow motorcycle fanatic, Mairi Chisholm, that there was "work to be done", and suggested they go to London to become dispatch riders for the Women's Emergency Corps. When Chisholm was chosen to join Hector Munro’s Flying Ambulance Corps she was able to convince Munro to accept Knocker as well seeing as she had some training as a nurse, was an excellent mechanic and chauffeur, and spoke both French and German.

n the early evening of 25 September 1914, Knocker, Chisholm and the other volunteers (which included Dorothie Feilding and May Sinclair) followed Dr. Munro down the gang-plank of the S.S. Princess Clementine at Ostend, West Flanders. Whilst visiting the town of Nazareth (8 miles south-west of Ghent where the corps was initially quartered) Knocker was witness to the aftermath of a massacre when she came across 26 Belgian military policemen who had been shot and mutilated by the Germans. At the end of October, the corps relocated to Furnesin unoccupied Belgium, near Dunkirk, where the women worked tirelessly picking up wounded soldiers mid-way from the front and bringing them back to their field hospital at the rear. Knocker and Chisholm soon came to the conclusion that they could save more lives by treating the wounded directly on the front lines.

In November, the two decided to leave the corps and set up their own dressing station five miles east in a town named Pervyse, north of Ypres, just one hundred yards from the trenches. Here, in a vacant cellar which they named the "Poste de Secours Anglais" ("British First Aid Post"), the two would spend the next three and a half years aiding the wounded in the Belgian sector. Knocker gave most of the medical attention, while Chisholm transported the injured, often in terrible conditions and under fire, to a base hospital 15 miles away. No longer affiliated with the Belgian Red Cross, they were forced to raise their own funds. With donations they arranged for the cellar to be reinforced with concrete and even have a steel door fitted, supplied by Harrods. Through sheer perseverance Knocker was able to arrange for the two of them to be officially seconded to the Belgian garrison stationed there. Equipped with cameras, both women photographed not only each other but also much of the suffering around them. In January 1915, they were rewarded for their courageous work on the front lines when they were both decorated by King Albert I of Belgium with the Order of Léopold II, Knights Cross (with palm).

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See - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-28609597 and http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01sf5jq (Video)