Informal portrait of four hospital nursing staff of the Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS) ...

Informal portrait of four hospital nursing staff of the Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS) and four officers of the British Army. Identified back row, left to right; Sister Emmeline Wellard; unidentified; Sister Ellen Purcell; Sister Lily Stewart (in wide brimmed hat); unidentified and Sister Mary Theresa Parnell. The two men crouching at the front are also unidentified. It is believed that the only other AANS nurse serving at Bushire, Sister Margaret Brodie Waterstrom may have taken the photograph. The hospital, at Bushire on the Persian Gulf, was the only one near the Mesopotamia front staffed by Australian nurses. It had about thirty beds for officers and 100 for other ranks. Most of the troops in the Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force nearby were doing outpost duty on the railway line which ran from Bushire about 100 miles into Persia. Sister Wellard (far left) is the only one positively identified. See also H12565. They may have been visiting Arg-E Bam, the largest adobe building in the world, located at Bam.