Hind, Rita May (Lieutenant, b.1910-d.2002)

Collection relating to the Second World War service of NX76519 Lieutenant Rita May Hind, Australian Army Medical Women’s Service, Voluntary Aid, Middle East, 1941-1943.

Collection consists of one diary compiled by Lieutenant Rita May Hind between 2 November 1941 and 3 February 1943. Lieutenant Hind served as a Voluntary Aid nursing orderly in the Middle East. The diary contains an itinerary of the locations she travelled through, worked at or visited and the dates she did so. It also contains diary entries dated 2 November 1941 and 3 February 1943. In her diary entries, Hind records her experiences of service, including embarkation, serving with the 1st Australian General Hospital at Gaza Ridge, 7th Australian General Hospital at Rehovot, and 6th Australian General Hospital at Gaza Ridge, and sightseeing throughout the Middle East. Hind describes her impressions of the towns she visited, including Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Ascalon, Lackesh, Beersheba, Haifa, Nazareth, the Sea of Galilee, Jericho, Rehovot, Cairo, Alexandria, Beirut, Tripoli, Baalbeck, Rafah, and Suez. She also comments on meeting people of different cultures and seeing places described in Bible stories first-hand. Additionally, this diary contains signatures of other Voluntary Aid nursing orderlies that embarked with Lieutenant Hind, and photographs of many of the locations that she worked at and visited.