for Women

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 177, 29 July 1942, Page 3

for Women

IN AUSTRALIA

U.S. NURSES

"TRIM NAVY BLUB OUTFITS"

CANBERRA, July 20. The Lnited States Army Nursing Corps has contributed its quota to the flow of visitors to Australia in recent weeks, and the trim navy blue outfit and little forage caps of its members are becoming familiar. They are under the command of First Lieutenant Floramund A. Fellmeth, a surprisingly youthful commander, who has had more than her share of air raids during the past months, for she came from Manila and Corregidor. For weeks on end she and her fellow workers have been doing a "round the clock" job When they left the Ignited States, most of the nurses had only 4S hours warning before they sailed. They knew when they enlisted that it was lor duty anywhere in the world, but when they sailed from America they did so under sealed orders, and did not know they were coming to Australia until they arrived here. Unlike army sisters in Australia, who are enlisted from the civilian population, the American Corps is made up from the Regular Army service, which requires a hieh school education and three years' training, and from the American Red Cross- Nursing Service, for which members must be graduated, registered nurses. Entrants from the Kegular Army Service must sign on for the duration of the war and for six months afterwards, and all wpmen joining the service do so with the knowledge that they may not marry and still retain their membership. Many Experiences Many of the nurses came from Bataan. Prom December 25 until April 8, when all nurses were ordered to leave Bataan for CorregiFi\ had various experiences. We had never, most of us, appreciated bamboo before," Second Lieutenant Hortense McKay said, "but at Bataan we made crutches of it, clothes baskets for dirty linen chairs, beds and furniture. In one ward our office was the sawn-off top of a bus mounted On bamboo poles. 'We improvised everything, but one thing we not get was a cigarette. Men would carry water for the hospital all day for one cigarette. We did not run out of class 1 drugs, and we always had enough bandages. No. 2 Bataan hospital was in the open air, and as the lighting became heavier and more men were wounded and fell sick, we expanded wherever the nearest tree was. We stripped the beds of mattresses or filled mattress covers with bamboo and leaves for our patients." Everywhere the nurses wore overalls, mostly size 42, air corps issue cut down to fit them, and Gl' shoes which they obtained from Filipino troops whose feet were smaller than these of the American troops. In Corregidor the nurses lived in a lateral tunnel off one of the main corridors and slept in three-decker beds welded together. They had to go outside to breathe fresh air or to smoke They left Corregidor for Australia at three hours' notice bringing only what they could pack a musetta bag and wearing overalls or shorts and a pair of shoes each, which other nurses on Corregidor had given them.