Nell Williamson as a member of the Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS), 1940-44, interviewed by Jan Bassett

Enlisted 1940, discharged 1944. Early life; civilian nursing training at Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney; registered in the army reserve; ran private hospital at Tullamore NSW then in 1937 went to England working at the London Clinic and the University College Hospital; returned to Australia in 1939 and was called up into the army in 1940; first posting to Ingleburn as Deputy Matron then sent to Sydney Showgrounds Camp Hospital as Senior Sister; sailed on the hospital ship Manunda to Port Moresby to bring back sick and injured civilians then sailed in September 1940 to the Middle East; returned to Australia with sick and injured from Middle East; posted to 2/9th Australian General Hospital (2/9AGH) and sailed on the SS Aquitania to Egypt in February 1941 and attached to a British hospital in El Amara; discusses conditions in British hospital and unsuitability of uniforms, food, types of illnesses and injuries treated; moved to Nazareth in Palestine; nurses health; recreation; escaped injury in British tank accident; returned to Australia in 1942; in October 1942, after six months in Adelaide, the 2/9 AGH was sent to Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea; describes living and working conditions in the hospital, relations with neighbouring American hospital, types of injuries and ilnesses treated; problems with Scrub Typhus disease; Japanese prisoners; medical orderlies; boilersuits; promoted to Principal Matron of Australian Hospitals in New Guinea; problems with American negroes harrassing Australian nurses; returned to Australia at the end of the New Guinea campaign and left army when she married in 1944; discusses main benefits of her service in the army and advances in medical treatments as a result of the Second World War. END OF INTERVIEW
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