Australian Nurses Receive The Military Medal...(1917).
So what kind of roles did women play at the front in World War 1 ? Trove, the database at the National Library of Australia contains many articles about the kind of services being provided by women at the front and on the home front during World War 1.
Many of those articles are about individual women, some of them untrained but many of them trained to be nurses and doctors from Australia and other parts of Europe who were extremely courageous doing what ever they could to help the men fighting at the front.
In 1917, the Weekly Times from Melbourne reported that several nurses including Sister Alice Ross King and Sister C. Deacon from Perth had received the Military Medal which was awarded to nurses who had displayed courage and bravery under fire.
The article is from Trove, the database of the National Library of Australia. No copyright infringement intended.
Weekly Times, 6 October 1917.
NURSES DISPLAY BRAVERY WORKING UNDER FIRE
In August news reached Australia that Sister Rachel Pratt, a Victorian, had been wounded by the enemy.
Further significant evidence indicating that the military nurses are closely sharing the dangers of the soldiers whom they tend was furnished last week by the cabled news that Sister A. Ross King (Melbourne), Staff Nurse M. J. Derrer (Brisbane), Sister C. Deacon (Perth), and Sister D. W. Cawood (New South Wales) had been awarded the Military Medal.
The award of the Military Medal to a nurse is unusual, and is only made when she has displayed bravery under actual fire. The usual method of recognising an army nurse's services is to decorate her with the Royal Red Cross.
Sister Alice Ross King is a trainee of the Alfred Hospital, and was born in Ballarat. She left Australia with the first military nursing unit, and came back on a hospital ship in August, 1915, leaving for active service the same month.
For some time she was attached to No. 1 Australian General Hospital, France. Last June, with three other nurses, while on her way to a casualty station, she was hung up in Flanders. She reached her destination later, and in July wrote some interesting letters of her experiences to a Melbourne friend.
The following extracts give some idea of how this nurse probably has won recognition.
"We had a hard hit from a bomb last week. Fritz gave us three—one fell just outside a pneumonia tent, blowing the whole show to pieces. It was ghastly. There were 18 casualties. Had it arrived two minutes later it would have got me, too.
"It is strange how some places seem fated to be hit. This tent had been perforated in several places during the afternoon from a bursting shell. One piece of shell, weighing 10lb., fell with-in six inches of a patient's head. This boy was killed later by the bomb. We are about 20 minutes' walk from the firing line."
Sister King was attached to the Alfred Hospital. Other positions she has held in the nursing profession include: Sister and also night superintendent at the Austin Hospital, matron at Dr. Henry O'Hara's private hospital. She is noted for her nursing skill, strength of character and big-hearted sympathies.
Sister Alice Ross-King from Wikipedia
