November 23. Medical mother’s war service after her son’s death. Roll of Honour

Hugo Bell Fisher left RBAI and went to QUB Faculty of Science 1914 – 15. He intended to read medicine. A member of the Officer Training Corps, he received a commission with the Royal Munster Fusiliers in 1915. He was wounded and captured during the Battle of Passchendaele – the Third Battle of Ypres. A year later he died of wounds in a German Field hospital. His mother Elizabeth Gould Bell was the first female medical graduate and woman doctor in Ulster. She was widowed in 1901. She was a supporter of the women’s suffrage movement. Following he son’s death she worked in Malta’s Military Hospital, where soldiers and sailors wounded in the eastern Mediterranean were treated. 12 entries in today’s Roll reflect very hard times for the Inniskillings in the Munich Trench in 1916, and likewise 25 entries for the Royal Irish Rifles at Cambrai in 1917. Two Naval Reserve officers are lost in HMS Rawalpindi in 1939. 1943 and 1944 entries reflect the growing cost of war for the RAF. Photo – Cairo War Memorial Cemetery.