Historical information

Front page - Governor, Sir Dallas Brooks, opens the War Nurses' Memorial Centre on St Kilda Road. The centre is a memorial to the 75 Australian nurses who lost their lives in the war. The centre will offer various rooms for use and house the the headquarters of the Australian College of Nursing. General Sir Thomas Blamey, chairman of the Centre Committee said there was hardly a fighting soldier who had not at some time experienced the care and devotion to duty of the service sisters.

Back page - Left hand clipping - About 500 people, including more than 100 service and civilian nurses attended the ceremony that opened the War Nurses Memorial Centre. The centre is a refurbished and converted house. The crowd also included former POWs and relatives of the 75 nursing sisters who lost their lives in the 1939-45 war. Dr Garnet Leary gave 100 pounds towards the establishment of a nurses' library in the centre.


Back page - Right hand clippings - top - The author heard a service broadcasted from St Paul's Cathedral and felt overwhelming gratitude towards nurses.
bottom - After the dedication of the War Nurses Memorial Centre, the author was reminded of two instances of senseless loss of nurses' live during the war. May 1943, the Australian hospital ship, the Centaur, was torpedoed by the Japanese, resulting in 299 dead, eleven of them nurses, and only 64 survivors. Also the Banka massacre, where 22 nurses were shot by the Japanese, after surviving the sinking of their ship. Only one nurse survived the massacre.

Physical description

Three newspaper clippings have been glued to either side of a lined sheet of paper.
Front of page - A newspaper clipping of two black and white photos and a short story in two columns. the larger photo is of two men in military uniform walking through women in nurses uniforms lined up on either side of a path. The smaller photo is of three women, all wearing nurse's uniforms, one woman holding a tray with cups.
Back of page -Two newspaper clippings have been glued to a lined sheet of paper. The left hand clipping consists of a large black and white photo of a crowd of people and nurses outside a nice house, and a column of text. The right hand clipping is of two separate paragraphs of text, both appear to be letters to the editor.

Inscriptions & markings

'Feb 19 50.' [blue ink, front of page, top right]