The Other Anzacs (56 page)
Last night I was talking to some of the boys about it and I gathered this, that if the doggie does go overboard the OC will soon follow it. The boys (they say) keep a guard of twelve to fourteen over it night and day, and I can see they are determined to take it to Australia. They tell me the doggie’s history and I do admire our boys’ sentiment. A soldier brought it from Australia as a pet, and it was with him until he was killed in France. The boy’s mate then looked after it and vowed that if he lived he would take the doggie back with him and give it to the boy’s mother. So from France it went to England, and in the camp at Weymouth it became a great pet. The boy taught it to run into a kit bag without a murmur until it was let out, and that’s how this little thing came on board—in a kit bag. I don’t know how the OC got to know of it being here, but unfortunately he does.
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Anne talked to the commanding officer, but her pleading for the dog was unsuccessful. He told her it would be impossible to let the dog land in Australia because it was strictly against the law and he would be fined £50. Anne offered to take up a collection, confident that she would soon raise such an amount. ‘Just then I caught a look from one of the officers sitting opposite, and later on he said, “Sister, the dog is all right, don’t you worry over it”. Then with a wink he whispered, “It’s officially dead”.’
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When she landed in Melbourne, Anne heard the following remark: ‘Mother, see that little doggie running about, I saw it jump out of one of the soldiers’ kit bags.’
Annie Shadforth returned to Australia in October 1919 and caught up with her childhood friend from Ballarat, John Hughes, who arrived back from the war in December 1918. They married in 1924. Their grandson, Des Ryan, suspects from his research into the family history that they had ‘quite a remarkable wartime love story’. There were at least four occasions when their paths could have crossed: at Heliopolis in early 1916; at Rouen hospital in May 1917, when John was being treated for shell shock; at Rouen in July 1918, after he was gassed; and again at Rouen in August, after he was shot in the arm. The period July–August 1918 provided more occasions to catch up, possibly while Annie was treating John in hospital. It seems too coincidental that she took leave in London in October 1918 while he was convalescing.
Annie died in 1948, aged sixty, and John in 1969, aged seventy-eight. His war memories turned into demons, and he spent his declining years as an alcoholic in a nursing home in Geelong. ‘He would go missing and be found drunk among the wool stores near Corio Bay. For all the trouble he must have caused, the woman who ran the nursing home never sent a bill to the family. She understood, ’ Des Ryan said.
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Elsie Grant returned to Queensland, married and had four children. Posttraumatic stress, complicated by undiagnosed post-natal depression, coupled with the loss of her brother Allan finally overwhelmed her. In September 1927, as the tenth anniversary of his death approached, she suicided.
In February 1919 Alice Ross King returned to Australia on the transport
City of York
. Not in the mood to begin a new diary, she nonetheless found things she wanted to record. She jotted down her thoughts on bits of paper on the ship and continued to do so after she arrived home. Alice had wanted to take leave and sightsee in England, but was denied permission. Senior nurses like herself were needed back in Australia to organise repatriation hospitals, she was told. ‘I don’t care anyhow, ’ Alice wrote, in her despondent mood.
She was put in charge of the ship’s hospital, and it pleased her that there was not much sickness on board. This meant she only had to roster herself on for two hours a day. It was ‘a generally happy crowd’, but that happiness was not something she was always in a mood to share. ‘If only Harry could be here!’ she lamented. After she landed in Australia, Alice visited Harry Moffitt’s mother. She needed to share her grief.
But she grieved anew when she heard that her friend Topsy Tyson had died in April 1919, at the age of twenty-eight. According to military records, she died of a cerebral haemorrhage, although Alice believed it was a consequence of Spanish flu. Topsy was buried at Sutton Veny in Wiltshire. There was a touch of bitterness in Alice’s sorrow. ‘The English sent her off to an infectious hospital and she was away from us. If they had only returned her to her unit we would have specialled her.’
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On the voyage Alice had become friends with the ship’s medical officer, Major Sydney Appleford. He had been posted overseas in 1916 and served in Egypt and France as an MO. Alice thought he was ‘not bad’. He was ‘engaged to a girl in Geelong and feels he doesn’t want to marry her’. Sydney called off the engagement to his Geelong fiancée because he felt she would never be able to understand what he had experienced in the war.
In August 1919, Alice and Sydney married. They were both war weary and, wanting a quiet life, settled at Lang Lang, in Gippsland, Victoria, where Sydney ran a medical practice with Alice’s help. They raised four children. In the late 1930s, as the threat of war loomed again, Alice began training young women as members of Voluntary Aid Detachments. When war began, both she and Sydney joined up. Sydney was an Army medical officer, eventually becoming a lieutenant-colonel, and Alice was assistant controller of the Voluntary Aid Detachments in Victoria, with the rank of Major.
Alice was responsible for some 1900 servicewomen, 300 of whom were sent overseas. She played a leading role in organising appeals and raising funds for the Red Cross and other causes. In May 1949, the International Red Cross awarded her the Florence Nightingale Medal—bestowed only every second year on no more than thirty-six women from all countries with a Red Cross organisation. The citation read: ‘No one who came in contact with Major Appleford could fail to recognise her as a leader of women. Her sense of duty, her sterling solidity of character, her humanity, sincerity, and kindliness of heart set for others a very high example.’ Alice resigned from the Army in 1950 and returned to helping Sydney in his practice until his death in 1958. Following her death in 1968, the Australian Army Medical Women’s Service established the Alice Appleford Memorial Award, presented annually to a member of the Royal Australian Army Nursing Corps. In March 2008, her work and service were recognised when her name was added to the Victorian Women’s Honour Roll.
Alice led a full and accomplished life, both professionally and personally in a loving relationship. However, there was a part of her that stored a private grief for Harry Moffitt. Each year on the anniversary of his death, she would spend the day quietly, retiring to her bedroom for a time. After her death her children discovered a shoebox under the bed in which she kept her most personal possessions. Inside was Harry’s last letter.
AUSTRALIAN WORLD WAR I
NURSES HONOUR ROLL
NAME
PLACE OF BIRTH
CAUSE OF DEATH/DATE
BURIED
AGE (where known)
BICKNELL, Louisa Annie, Sister
Abbotsford, Vic
Septic infection, 25 Jun. 1915
Cairo, Egypt
35
BLAKE, Enid, QAIMNS Sister
Sans Souci, NSW
Drowned, Hospital Ship
Glenart Castle
26 Feb. 1917
CLARE, Emily, Sister
Footscray, Vic
Influenza, 17 Oct. 1918
Deolali, India
28
DICKINSON, Ruby, Sister
Forbes, NSW
Influenza, 23 Jun. 1918
Harefield, Middlesex
32
GOODMAN, Pearl, Sister
Millthorpe, NSW
Influenza, 8 Mar. 1919
Sydney, NSW
34
HENNESSY, May, Sister
Castlemaine, Vic
Malaria/dysentery, 9 Apr. 1919
Bendigo, Vic
25
HOBBES, Narelle, Matron
Brewarrina Hospital
Cancer, 10 May 1918
At sea
39
KNOX, Hilda Mary, Sister
Benalla, Vic
Cerebral disease, 17 Feb. 1917
Rouen, France
33
MCPHAIL, Irene, Staff Nurse
Echuca, Vic
TB, 4 Aug. 1920
Brighton General Cemetery, Vic
27
MILES-WALKER, Jean, Matron
Tasmania
Influenza, 30 Oct. 1918
Sutton Veny Churchyard, UK
39
MOORHOUSE, Edith Ann, Sister
Undera, Vic
Influenza, 24 Nov. 1918
Lille Southern Cemetery, France
33
MORETON, Letetia Gladys, Sister
Brim, Vic
Enteric, 11 Nov. 1916
Quetta Govt Cemetery, India
26
MOWBRAY, Norma Violet, Staff Nurse
St George, Qld
Influenza, 21 Jan. 1916
Cairo War Memorial Cemetery, Egypt
32
MUNRO, Gertrude Evelyn, Sister
Ballarat, Vic
Influenza, 10 Sep. 1918
Mikra British Cemetery, Salonika, Greece
36
NUGENT, Lily, Staff Nurse
Wagga Wagga, NSW
Phthisis, 21 Feb. 1918
St Vincent’s Hospital, NSW
O’GRADY, Amy Veda, Sister
Castlemaine, Vic
Cholera, 12 Aug. 1916
Bombay, India
41
O’KANE, Rosa, Sister
Charters Towers, Qld
Influenza, 21 Dec. 1918
Woodmans Point, WA
27
PORTER, Katherine Lawrence, Sister
Milton, NSW
Influenza, 16 Jul. 1919
Waverley Cemetery, NSW
34
POWER, Kathleen, Sister
Ireland, enlisted Cairo
Cholera, 13 Aug. 1918
Bombay (Sewri) Cemetery, India
28
RIDGWAY, Doris Alice, Sister
Salters Springs, SA
Influenza, 6 Jan. 1919
Woodmans Point, WA
27
ROTHERY, Elizabeth, Sister
Whitehaven, UK
Pneumonia, 15 Jun. 1918
Beechworth, Vic
33
STAFFORD, Mary Florence, Sister
Nyngan, NSW
Leukaemia, 20 Mar. 1919
Adelaide, SA
26
THOMPSON, Ada Mildred, Sister
Dubbo, NSW
Influenza, 1 Jan. 1919
Western Australia
33
TYSON, Fanny Isobel Catherine, Sister
Balranald, NSW
Cerebral, 20 Apr. 1919
Sutton Veny Churchyard, UK
28
WATSON, Beatrice Middleton, Sister
Elsternwick, Vic
Cerebral, 2 Jun. 1916
Ismalia War Memorial Cemetery, Egypt
34
WILLIAMS, Blodwyn Elizabeth, Sister
Ballarat, Vic
Pneumonia, 24 May. 1920
Caulfield/ Ballarat Cemetery, Vic
38
WILLIAMS, Hilda Grace, Sister
Victoria
Influenza, 4 Jan. 1919
Quarantine Station, Woodmans Point, WA
26
WILSON, Myrtle, Sister, QAIMNS
Queensland
23 Dec. 1915
Wimereux Cemetery, France
38
NEW ZEALAND WORLD WAR I
NURSES HONOUR ROLL
NAME
PLACE OF BIRTH
CAUSE OF DEATH/DATE
BURIED
AGE (where known)
BROWN, Marion Sinclair, Staff Nurse*
Riverton
Drowned, 23 Oct. 1915
Mikra Memorial, Greece
CLARK, Isabel, Staff Nurse*
Oamaru
Drowned, 23 Oct. 1915
Mikra Memorial, Greece
30
COOKE, Ella, Staff Nurse
French Red Cross and QAIMNSR
Accidentally killed on active service, 8 Sep. 1917
Alexandria (Hadra) War Memorial Cemetery, Egypt
30
FOX, Catherine Anne, Staff Nurse*
Dunedin
Drowned, 23 Oct. 1915
Mikra Memorial, Greece
GORMAN, Mary, Staff Nurse*
Waimate
Drowned, 23 Oct. 1915
Mikra Memorial, Greece
HAWKEN, Ada Gilbert, Staff Nurse
Auckland
Enteric fever, No 19 Gen Hospital, Alexandria, 28 Oct. 1915
Alexandria Military and War Memorial Cemetery, Egypt
29
HILDYARD, Nora Mildred, Staff Nurse*