Part One - Medical services of the RAN Part 2 - Medical Services of the RAAF. Part 3 - Women in the Army Medical Services.Women in the Medical ServicesAustralia in the War of 1939-1945 - Medical Services of the RAN and RAAFAustralian War Memorialran raaf medical, building the naval medical service, medical stores and eqipment, living conditions in ships, prisoners of war, burns, infectious diseases, diseases of the skin, affections of the ear, nose and throat, dental branch, medical units in base areas and in the field, milne bay to noemfoor, morotai to philippines and borneo, aviation medical, medical aspects of survival, raaf nursing service, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, the australian army medical women's service

Letter written from (unknown) POW imprisioned by the Japanese on Morotai Island from 1942 - 1945 to (unknown) friend. Descriptive of life and treatment in POW camp. The island was captured by the Japanese in early 1942. Morotai's southern plain was taken by American forces in September 1944 during the Battle of Morotai, and used as a staging point for the Allied invasion of the Philippines in early 1945, and of Borneo in May and June of that year. Japanese soldier Teruo Nakamura was discovered in the Morotai jungle in 1974, as one of the WWII Japanese soldiers who held out subsequent to the Japanese military's surrender.Photocopy of letter, 4 pages, originally written in ink on (unofficial) Australian Red Cross form.Added to head of letter at a later date is inscription ' First letter written home for 3 1/2 years'.Top left hand- FOR SAFETY/ IN YOUR LETTERS DO NOT REFER TO:-/ The name of your ship or other ships in the convoy, or its escorts./The date of sailing, ports of call, or probable destination./ The description of troops, their loca-/tion or any other information/ which, if intercepted, would be of/ value to the enemy. In your Top right hand- Australian Red Cross Society/ (UNOFFICIAL)/ 25-8-45/ (added at later date 'Morotri Island')/ Alex, Have witten this especially/ as i don't wish our women folk to know the tougher side of life./Well Alex for the first/ 2 1/2 years as POWs we lived reasonably/ well, but the last 15 months was like /hell. Heres the worst lot of b-s/ you could find on earth, they worked /us from 7AM till 6 PM, & fed/ us on muck you wouldn't feed to/ Pigs. I'm nothing at all they would 2, pow, morotri island, morotai island, world war, prisoner of war, australian red cross society

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