Historical information

Betty Duval (now Cornford) decided to sign up with Australia's Defence Forces in February 1941 to have an adventure. Four weeks later she was off to Victoria Dock with all the nurses to head overseas, destination unknown. Betty was onboard the Mauretania, one of the convoy with the HMS Hobart, HM Queen Mary, Aquitania, and New Amsterdam, and a naval escort ship. Soon after leaving Perth the Queen Mary split off for Malaya. Of the sixty-five nursing sisters on board, only twenty-four would ever return to Australia alive.
Betty and the Mauretania arrived in Bombay. During the next fourteen months the nurses of the 2/9th Australian General Hospital (AGH) manned hospitals in Palestine and Egypt, depending entirely on the war and troop movements.
Early 1942 saw Prime Minister John Curtain order the 6th and 7th Australian divisions withdraw from the Middle East. Betty boarded the [Strathallan], again with destination unknown. Arriving home in Melbourne saw Betty move on to nursing in Adelaide until her unit was to be sent to New Guinea for fifteen months.
In 1945 Betty was discharged from the Army and married her sweetheart Doug.

Physical description

A black and white photocopy of a large magazine clipping, consisting of a title, two large photos and six columns of text. Both photos are of the same woman, the smaller one shows her as a young woman in nurse's uniform, the larger shows her present day, as an older woman, looking at photo albums.