Willingly into the Fray comprises the personal stories of sixty-five individual nurses, their voices preserved and their words, often fraught with emotion and mired in distress at what they have seen, endured and railed against, carefully retained. Many of these stories are told for the first time, particularly those of the recent campaigns, peacekeeping operations, disaster relief and humanitarian missions.
These are men and women who, like those before them, often worked in the most primitive conditions, as one nurse remarked tellingly, ‘with TLC and little more’. It is typical of Australian Army nurses to proceed ‘willingly into the fray’, often with little warning, but always with courage, determination and a strong sense of humour.
In the hundred or so years since the first intrepid Boer War nurses set out, Australian Army nurses have forged a proud and enviable reputation. They are justifiably renowned for their determination to provide quality medical care despite extreme privation, perilous circumstances, and a lack of the most rudimentary medical equipment. If this is the reputation they can forge in the face of such adversity, then we have much to look forward to over the next one hundred years.
Willingly into the Fray provides a rare opportunity for the reader, to take a personal journey through the lives of Army nurses from the early days of 1899 to modern times, and to experience the vast changes in society that accompanied those hundred or so years.
"We sat up all night. What were we going to do? We were at their mercy. There was nobody to protect us ... I was presented with a piece of paper which I was ordered to sign. It said: ‘I am willing to entertain the Japanese officers.’ I said, ‘No.’ " - Jessie Blanch, Palembang Prisoner-of-War Camp, 1942
"The injuries we treated ranged from gunshot wounds, grenade, claymore mines, rocket and mine injuries ... burns from phosphorous grenades and accidents with chemicals were fairly common. Many of the wounds were life-threatening and also, in many cases, quite horrific. As if to add to our trauma, the room that housed those boys who had been killed in action was attached to the theatre building." - Jan McCarthy, Vietnam, 1968
Contents:
Foreword
Introduction
Acknowledgements
List of Illustrations
List of Maps
Chronology
The Boer War
- The Birth of Australian Army Nursing: Ellen Julie (Nellie) Gould
- Boer War Nurse: Martha Sarah Bidmead
- Australia's First Nursing Casualty: Frances (Fanny) Hines
World War I
- Gallipoli Landing: Lydia Kate King
- Just Hoping to Make a DIfference: Grace Wilson
- A Nurse of Disctinction: Evelyn Conyers
- Cairo to Boulogne: Edith Dean Williams
World War II
- Survival at Sea: Ellen Savage
- Leaping Lena: Lorna Laffer
- Off to War on the "Queen Mary': Grace Dyer, Dulcie Thompson, Helen Baker
- The Nursing SIsters of Rabaul: Daisy Keast
- 17 Mile: Joan Crouch
- Three Years as a White Coolie: Jessie Blanch
- Return to Banga Island: Judith SPence
The Korean War
- Lamp Ladies; Dita McCarthy
- My Korea: Betty Crocker
The Malayan Emergency
- What is Was All About: Helen Adamson
- Tropical Nursing at Kamunting: Nell Espie
- My Time at Terendak: Patricia Keech
The Vietnam War
- Starched Veils, Seamed Stockings and Respirators: Maureen Patch
- Among the and Dunes at Vung Ta: Nell Espie
- Tidal Waves and Trauma Nursing: Jan McCarthy
Gulf War I
- A Sense of Comfort: Diana Kumnick, Nick Masotti, Wendy Taylor
- My Kurdistan Experience: Karen Bayliss, Graham Wecker
Cambodia
- Bandits in Battambang: Norma Hinchcliffe, Lew MacLeod
- The Face of Cambodia: Anne Blundell
Somalia
- The Challenge that is Somalia: Jo Cook, Dave Werda
Rwanda
- Out of Africa: Beverley Wright
- Intensive Care Nursing Rwanda-Style: Annette Owttrim
- Rwanda, Gods and Ghosts: Lorna Todd
- Surgery with My Steyr: Peter Durant, Robyn Wilkin, Rodney Readon
- 'In the Service of Peace': Jo Harding
Bougaiunville
- Smiling at the Outsiders: Eraine Van Heemst, Cath Fisher
- 'Bel Isi' on Bougainville: Natalie Irvine, Larry Sargeant, Dominic Wade
- A Good Gut Fee>ing: Nick Duff, Kath Gunman
- Touching the Spirit: Julie Finucane
East Timor
- Beyond the Dili Dustbowl: Vicki Smith, Peta Durant-Law, Vera Oliver, Sue Neumann
- The Importance of Preparedness: Hilary Dixon
- Recollections of East Timor: Kerry Clifford, Jo-anne Hem, Angela Devlin
- Dili Days: Helen Murphy, Linda Rae
Gulf War II
- Caring Despite the Circumstances: Gary Steer
- Tears for an Unknown Soldier: Debra Robilliard
- Reflections: The People and the Memories: Kim Sullivan
- Pilgrim Nurses: Gary Steer
Banda Aceh
- Unspeakable Devastation: Paul Krohn, Kate Almond
- Banda Aceh Experience: Elizabeth Christie, Sur Taggart, Kylie Osborn
- Paying Homage to the Goddess of MercyL Very Oliver
Glossary
Index
