DPCU Shirt : Major Susan Lee Felsche, Royal Australian Army Medical Corps, MINURSO

Disruptive Pattern Camouflage five button fly front shirt with two breast pockets with flaps and hidden buttons. A cloth tab and two buttons on each cuff and button down Shoulder straps carrying rank slides for the rank of major. Over the right breast pocket is a name tag with "FELSCHE" embroidered in black. On the right upper arm is a circular light blue and white United Nations badge and on the left is an Australian flag.

Worn by Major Susan Felsche when she was serving with MINURSO. Doctor Felsche was killed in an aircraft accident while serving in country during 1993.

Susan Lee Stones was born in Brisbane on 24 March 1961. She began studying medicine at 17 at the University of Queensland where she pursued her interest in military medicine, enlisting in the Naval Reserve, rising to the rank of petty officer.

In 1983 she joined the army undergraduate scheme. Following her graduation in December 1984 Dr Stones spent two years working in remote Queensland before being posted to the 5th Military Hospital at Duntroon in 1987. It was here that she met, and later married, fellow army officer Klaus Felsche.

In 1991, she was promoted to major and became a Fellow of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners. She was posted to the Directorate General of Army Health Services before being posted as the Medical Officer in Charge of Clinical Services to the 1st Military Hospital at Yeronga.

On 17 May 1993, at the age of 32, she deployed as the medical officer to the 4th Australian Staff Contingent to Operation Cedilla, the Australian presence with the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO). This United Nations Mission involved monitoring the ceasefire between rebel separatists and the Moroccan army, and the identification and registration of voters, largely in refugee camps. The proposed referendum would resolve whether the Western Sahara would become independent or be incorporated as part of Morocco.

Like her preceding medical officers Felsche was absorbed into the Swiss Medical Unit and on 17 June she deployed to the Swiss clinic at Awsard, some 800 km from United Nations Headquarters. From here she travelled by air to carry out both her medical visits to sick and injured members of the force and to conduct clinics for local people.

On the morning of 21 June, she boarded a Pilatus Porter aircraft for a routine visit to the Dougaj team site. It was a routine flight with fine weather and a moderate breeze. Shortly after take-off the plane veered to the left and the nose dropped; the aircraft cartwheeled and flipped nose over tail, eventually coming to rest on its back. During the crash an external fuel tank had broken free and spread fuel, which was ignited causing a fire. A civilian UN employee saw the crash, extinguished the flames and pulled Felsche free, but she died that morning in the medical treatment room of a Moroccan Army camp. The sole survivor of the crash was Swiss nurse Edith Bass.

Major Susan Felsche became the first Australian woman to die on overseas service since the Second World War. She was returned to Australia, where she was buried at Cleveland, east of Brisbane, with full military honours on 28 June following a service at the Trinity Uniting Church.

The Australian contingent renamed its “Kangaroo Club” canteen the “Major Susan Felsche Bar” in her honour, and on 6 May 1994, shortly before withdrawing from Western Sahara, a remembrance ceremony took place at a memorial dedicated to her and the other personnel who had died in the accident.

Each year the Royal Military College awards the Major Susan Lee Felsche Memorial Trust prize to the best Royal Australian Army Medical Corps graduate. She was posthumously awarded the United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld medal, an award given by the United Nations to military personnel, police, or civilians who lose their lives while serving in a United Nations peacekeeping operation.