19 FEBRUARY 2005, Page 20

Nurses in the desert

From Mark Menhinick

Sir: I have not read the book Max Hastings writes about in his article ‘Forgotten Heroes’ (5 February), though I shall, but I would be surprised if ‘E.M. Quaimins, Western Desert 1943’ were not in fact ‘E.M., QAIMNS’. The acronym stands for Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service, known as the QAs, of which my mother was a member, also in the Western Desert in 1943.

Mark Menhinick Rome