Dr Phoebe Chapple MM

Studio portrait of Dr Phoebe Chapple. She was educated at the Advanced School for Girls in Grote Street, Adelaide before entering university aged 16. She gained her Bachelor of Science in 1898, and, inspired by South Australian women's advocate and Adelaide's first practising woman doctor, Dr Violet Plummer, Phoebe went on to study medicine. For academic excellence in her second year she was awarded the university's Elder Prize. She graduated as a doctor in 1904. During the First World War she became frustrated with the Australian army's refusal to appoint women doctors. She travelled to England in February 1917 to enlist in the Royal Army Medical Corps. She was appointed as surgeon to Cambridge Hospital in Aldershot. Later, she was attached to Queen Mary's Army Auxiliary Corps (QMAAC) and moved to France. Chapple was accorded the honorary rank of captain and was one of the first two women doctors sent to the front. On 29 May 1918, Chapple was inspecting the QMAAC Camp 1 near Abbeville in France when it came under a German aerial bombing attack. Using the glow from a lorry that had been set on fire, German aircrew dropped three bombs on the compound. Two destroyed huts while a third exploded on a covered trench used by the women as a shelter. The explosion killed eight women and a ninth was mortally wounded. Six were slightly wounded. Working in the dark for hours, Phoebe moved through the destroyed trench, tending to the dead and wounded. For her actions during and following the air raid, Chapple was awarded a Military Medal (MM), the first woman doctor so decorated. The citation for the award reads: 'For gallantry and devotion to duty during an enemy air raid. While the raid was in progress Doctor Chapple attended to the needs of the wounded regardless of her own safety.' At the time of recommending the award for Chapple, the Commander-In-Chief was unable to authorise a Military Cross, a comparable award given to officers, as the women did not hold commissions. A recommendation for a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) was considered more appropriate for the women though the MM was finally decided upon as it could only be won in the field. Dr Phoebe Chapple BSc MB BS MM died on 24 March 1967, aged 87 and was cremated, with full military honours, at Centennial Park Cemetery.