Book review of "A special kind of service" by Joan Crouch. The book is about a wartime field hospital, the 2/9th Australian General Hospital (AGH). It was a portable group of about 300 nurses, doctors and support servicemen. The 2/9th AGH started it's life by heading by sea for the Middle East, where it was to care for ill and injured troops. It operate with a minimum of 600 bed, with 4000 at times of stress. Sister Joan Crouch has collected dairies, correspondence, official records, recollections and photos from people who served with the 2/9th for her book, told chronologically. The book begins with the first passage as a unit, via India, to the Middle East. They established the 2/9th AGH near the Arab village of Amiriya, where sand storms penetrated everything, including the operating theatre, but the staff were able to go sightseeing at the Pyramids. Next they moved to a monastery in Nazareth, where it snowed over Christmas 1941. The 2/9th AGH was recalled after Pearl Harbour to assist in South-East Asia, but Singapore fell so they came back to Northfield, Australia for a few months. They were then moved to a site 30km out of Port Moresby, called Seventeen-Mile. There they bore the brunt of casualties from the Kokoda Trail, with December 1942 seeing them looking after 4000 with a staff of twenty-nine doctors, 112 sisters and about 300 others. The 'walking wounded' were known to help nurse the bedridden. In September 1943 the first group of the Australian Army Medical Womens Service (AAMWS) arrived to assist the 2/9th AGH. March 1944 ended the service of the 2/9th AGH in what is now Papua New Guinea and they briefly returned to Tamworth, Australia, before closing temporarily for a few months. March1945, the 2/9th AGH were sent to assist in the Borneo campaign at Morotai, where they saw out the war. Joan Crouch worked as a nurse with 2/9th AGH, during World War II, continued afterwards in the Army Nursing Service (ANS) and was later involved in the Korean War, working in Japan and Seoul. A photocopy of a large newspaper clipping consisting of a title, eight columns of text and a black and white photo of a group of women sitting outside'THE NEWCASTLE HERALD / 21 FEB 1987' [photocopied ink, top left]wwii, world war two, ww2, korea, alternative publishing co-operative, adelaide, alexandria, tobruk, crete, merewether beach, red cross, bbc world service, big ben, red cross radio, syria, 7th australian division, casa nova monastery, terra santa monastery, rouna falls, laloki river, loribaiwa, church of the nativity, bethlehem, westmead hospital, new south wales, south australia, molucca group, macarthur, philippines, japanese emperor, potsdam agreement, nagasaki, american, america, pows, prisoners of war