Flora Sandes

Flora Sandes was a British woman who served as a member of the Royal Serbian Army in World War I. She was the only British woman officially to serve as a soldier in that war. Initially a St. John Ambulance volunteer, she travelled to the Kingdom of Serbia, where she was welcomed and formally enrolled in the Serbian army. She was subsequently promoted to the rank of Sergeant major, and, after the war, to Captain. She was decorated with seven medals.

Flora Sandes was born on 22 January 1876 in Nether Poppleton, Yorkshire, the youngest daughter of an Irish family. Her father was Samuel Dickson Sandes (1822–1914), the former rector of Whitchurch, County Cork, and her mother was Sophia Julia (née Besnard). When she was nine years old, the family moved to Marlesford, Suffolk; and later to Thornton Heath, near Croydon, Surrey. As a child she was educated by governesses. She enjoyed riding and shooting and said that she wished she had been born a boy. She learned to drive, and drove an old French racing car. She took a job as a secretary.

Sandes nonetheless joined a St. John Ambulance unit raised by American nurse Mabel Grouitch, and on 12 August 1914 left England for Serbia with a group of 36 women to try to aid the humanitarian crises there. They arrived at the town of Kragujevac which was the base for the Serbian forces fighting against the Austro-Hungarian offensive. Sandes joined the Serbian Red Cross and worked in an ambulance for the Serbian Army's 2nd Infantry Regiment. In 1914 she went riding with a Serbian soldier who, impressed with her equestrian skills, told her she was wasted as a nurse and should enlist as a soldier; she told Dr Isabel Emslie, "I've always wished to be a soldier and to fight.

In 1915 Sandes struggled persistently to get to the front (despite the efforts of people such as the British Consul, who instructed her to return to safety), eventually joining the ambulance of the Second Regiment at the Babuna Pass. During the Great Retreat through Albania, all the other ambulance staff fled or were killed. Sandes could no longer make herself useful as a nurse and was enrolled as a private by General Miloš Vasić. She quickly advanced to the rank of Corporal. She recounted later that to formalize the change she removed her Red Cross badge and replaced it with the brass regimental figures from Colonel Milich's epaulettes. In 1916, during the Serbian advance on Bitola (Monastir), Sandes was seriously wounded by a grenade in hand to hand combat. She subsequently received the highest decoration of the Serbian Military, the Order of the Karađorđe's Star. At the same time, she was promoted to the rank of Sergeant major.

In May 1927, Sandes married Yuri Yudenitch, a former Russian White Army general officer. The couple lived for a time in France, but afterwards returned to Serbia (which had become part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia), and settled in Belgrade. Among other jobs, Sandes drove Belgrade's first taxicab. Also in 1927, she published a second autobiography. She lectured extensively on her wartime experiences in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, France, Canada and the United States. She wore her military uniform while delivering her lectures.

When during World War II Germany launched its attack on Yugoslavia in April 1941, Sandes and Yudenitch were recalled to military service, but the invasion was over before they could take up any military duties. They were briefly interned by the Germans, before being released on parole. Yudenitch fell ill, was removed to hospital, and died there in September 1941.

Sandes subsequently returned to England. She spent the last years of her life in Suffolk, living at Lower Hacheston near Wickham Market. She died at the East Suffolk and Ipswich Hospital on 24 November 1956. she was cremated at Ipswich Crematorium and her ashes scattered in the Garden of Remembrance. In St Andrew's Church in Marlesford a memorial plaque on the south wall in the choir stalls is dedicated to her.