Namanula Hospital

NAMANULA, HOSPITAL RABAUL

NAMANULA, RABAUL. C. 1915. A COMPOSITE VIEW OF THE HOSPITAL

Elizabeth Henry on the verandah of the hospital at Rabaul

Rabaul, New Britain. Exterior view of the Namanula Hospital. This hospital was used as required by the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force.

Nurses' quarters at the old German hospital at Rabaul.

Namanula, Rabaul, New Britain. c. 1918. The doctors' quarters of Namanula Military Hospital which was used by the 3rd Battalion, the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force (AN&MEF), otherwise known as the 'Tropical Force'.

Entrance to the Military Hospital at Namanula, Rabaul. Identified from left to right: unidentified civilian; unidentified male in white; Matron Flora Robertson, of Bathurst NSW; Lieutenant Colonel John Wellesley Flood, Principal Medical Officer, (PMO), of York Town SA; Sister Agnes Bissett Nelson, of Glen Innes NSW; Back row:-Sister Marian Adelaide MacLean, of Maytown Qld; unidentified male civilian; Sister Catherine Elizabeth Lethbridge, of Mitchell, Qld; Mr Lucas and friends on a Royal Commission visit.

Sisters' quarters at the Military Hospital at Namanula, Rabaul.1919 Identified from left to right:- Sister Catherine Elizabeth Letherbridge, of Mitchell, Qld; Sister Agnes Bissett Nelson, of Glen Innes NSW; Sister Marian Adelaide MacLean, of Maytown Qld; and Matron Flora Robertson, of Bathurst NSW

Group portrait of staff and patients, at the front entrance to the Military Hospital at Namanula. Identified is Sister Agnes Bissett Nelson, of Glen Innes, NSW. The patients are mainly suffering from malaria.

Group portrait of staff and patients on the verandah of the Military Hospital at Namanula. Identified is Sister Marian Adelaide MacLean, of Maytown Qld. The patients are mainly suffering from malaria.

Convalescent soldiers taking it easy at the Military Hospital at Namanula, after an attack of malaria fever.

Portrait of Sister Marian Adelaide MacLean, of Maytown Qld, of the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force (AN&MEF), in the garden of the Military Hospital at Namanula.

Informal group of convalescent patients with Sister Ethel Macquarie Cook, of Bathurst, NSW, on duty at the Military Hospital at Namanula, Rabaul.

The milk supply for the Hospital

The ward boys and house boys working at the Hospital

The Japanese Occupation 1942-1945

January 1943 Group portrait of Japanese naval personnel and military nurses in front of the 8th Navy Hospital at Namanula,

Rabaul. The hospital was built by the Germans circa 1910, then operated by the Australian government after the First World War.

From 1942-1945 the hospital was used by the Japanese Imperial Navy. Note the Red Cross painted on the roof of the hospital.

Group portrait of Japanese naval personnel and military nurses in front of the 8th Navy Hospital at Namanula, Rabaul.

The first contingent which consisted of 12 nurses and two administrative assistants arrived at the Eighth Navy Hospital in August 1942 after a 20-day boat journey from Japan via Saipan and Truk. Later, Red Cross nurses joined them and by the end of 1942 there were around 25 nurses at the hospital. Most of the nurses were in their early twenties and one administrative assistant was only 17 years old. According to their oral accounts, their initial one-year assignment at the Navy hospital was a difficult but memorable experience for them. The hospital was bombed frequently by the Allies at night and the nurses needed to evacuate not only themselves but their patients as well. As the wounded and sick soldiers were transferred to Rabaul from surrounding islands, such as Guadalcanal, the nurses worked extremely long hours, battling horrific injuries and serious illness without sufficient amounts of medicine and medical supplies.

Many soldiers who were transferred to the hospital had battle injuries and many more were ill with infectious diseases, such as dysentery and dengue fever. Furthermore, many soldiers were weakened by starvation at the front line. The treatment the hospital staff could offer was often limited as medicine and medical supplies were lacking, and makeshift and overcrowded ward facilities could only offer substandard accommodation in the tropical heat and humidity. The nurses accounts’ revealed the dramatically contrasting emotions they experienced as they worked: on one hand, they experienced exhilaration by nursing sick and injured soldiers to recovery. On the other, they felt desperate that they could not provide the best possible care due to overcrowding and lack of supplies. They also needed to cope with a high number of deaths each day.

The nurses also experienced difficulty in their day-to-day lives. The most difficult problem for many nurses was lack of water. As the hospital relied on rain for its water supply, both staff and patients experienced constant water shortages. The nurses found it extremely difficult to maintain sanitation at the hospital, for patients as well as for themselves. They recounted the difficulty of working in their white uniforms in the tropical heat while trying to maintain personal hygiene. While their work was extremely demanding and with long hours, the nurses also enjoyed working in a different climate and culture. The women nostalgically recalled the exotic tropical plants and flowers around the hospital compound. They also enjoyed occasional interactions with local people who were employed as labourers for the hospital. Some local workers helped the nurses around the hospital and, in return, the nurses treated minor illness and injuries the workers and their families suffered. Some nurses visited the local workers’ home villages and met their families.

Some nurses were aware of the presence of comfort women, who provided sexual services to Japanese troops in Rabaul , but there seemed to be hardly any contact between these two groups of women – other than when the comfort women visited the hospital for medical treatment.

There were also Army hospitals in Rabaul and Kokopo. Although the number of nurses and the length of their stay is not clear, various records show that a number of civilian nurses worked in those hospitals. The Catholic nuns who were interned within the Vunapope mission compound near Kokopo watched Japanese nurses attend the sick and wounded in primitive makeshift hospital facilities from across barbed-wire fences. The nuns had high praise for the nurses and wrote that the women were ‘neat, clean and refined’ in contrast to the soldiers they were attending. Some of the nurses were Catholic and tried to participate discreetly in the mass which was held in the mission compound, by standing close to the barbed-wire fence which separated the mission from the hospital.

The first group of nurses who worked in the Navy hospital left for Japan in August 1943, 12 months after their arrival. The second group had arrived in Rabaul in July 1943 to take over nursing duties. However, they had to be evacuated to Japan as the Allied air raids became more intense and the Allied landing on New Britain became imminent. All the nursing staff of Army and Navy hospitals were evacuated to Japan between November 1943 and January 1944.

contributed by Dr Keiko Tamura

Group portrait of Japanese naval personnel and military nurses

Japanese military nurse, Miss Shizu Watanabe (later Ueki), tends wounded Japanese Naval personnel on the veranda of the 8th Navy Hospital at Namanula,

Japanese Naval personnel and military nurses exercising in the gardens of the 8th Navy Hospital, Namanula, Rabaul.

A Japanese naval NCO and a native crouched down in front of three Japanese military nurses. The nurses worked at the 8th Navy Hospital at Namanula, Rabaul.

Military nurses from the 8th Navy Hospital at Namanula, Rabaul, being interviewed around a table at the Japanese publisher Kodansha's office after their return to Tokyo.

Group portrait of nurses and administrative staff from the 8th Navy Hospital at Namanula, Rabaul, after their interview at the Japanese publisher Kodansha's office after their return to Tokyo. The two women on the left without caps are the administrative staff

Group portrait of Japanese military nurses and naval medical personnel on board the ship Takasago Maru on the way back to Japan from Rabaul. They had staffed the 8th Navy Hospital at Namanula.

Group portrait of four Japanese military nurses in the gardens of the 8th Navy Hospital at Namanula, Rabaul.

Identified, left to right: Miss Domon; Miss Mitsu Oshima (later Oshima); Miss Shizu Watanabe (later Ueki); Miss Abe.

Portrait of two Japanese women, one a military nurse and the other an administrative staff member, in the gardens of the 8th Navy Hospital at Namanaula, Rabaul.

Namanula Hospital was built in 1909 by the Germans along with a group of other buildings including

Government House at Simpsonhafen later to be known as Rabaul, the hospital was operated as the

Hospital for European .

Then operated by the Australian government after Bita Paka the start of the First World War in 1914 as the AN&MEF Hospital .

Survived the 1937 volcanic destruction of Rabaul.

From 1942-1945 the hospital was used by the Japanese Imperial navy. At wars end, 1945 the Hospital was again in the hands of the Australian Administration and returned to general public use.

The 1994 Volcanic eruption saw the end of Namanula Hospital and most of the Town

Links

World War 1 Australian Army Nursing Service

The Rabaul Nurses Prisoners of World War ll

Military hospitals were established by the Japanese Army and Navy after Japanese troops landed in Rabaul in January 1942. Many young civilian nurses were sent from Japan to work in these hospitals for over eighteen months in total between August 1942 and January 1944. However, their presence in New Britain has been hardly noted and remaining historical records are very sketchy. What is known is mainly based on the oral accounts of nurses who worked in the Eighth Navy Hospital in Rabaul. This hospital was established on the site of the Namanula Civilian Hospital on the hill behind the town soon after the Japanese landing. The Australian nurses who had worked and lived in this hospital had been captured by Japanese forces and transported to Yokohama for internment in June 1942.

The first contingent which consisted of 12 nurses and two administrative assistants arrived at the Eighth Navy Hospital in August 1942 after a 20-day boat journey from Japan via Saipan and Truk. Later, Red Cross nurses joined them and by the end of 1942 there were around 25 nurses at the hospital. Most of the nurses were in their early twenties and one administrative assistant was only 17 years old. According to their oral accounts, their initial one-year assignment at the Navy hospital was a difficult but memorable experience for them. The hospital was bombed frequently by the Allies at night and the nurses needed to evacuate not only themselves but their patients as well. As the wounded and sick soldiers were transferred to Rabaul from surrounding islands, such as Guadalcanal, the nurses worked extremely long hours, battling horrific injuries and serious illness without sufficient amounts of medicine and medical supplies.

Many soldiers who were transferred to the hospital had battle injuries and many more were ill with infectious diseases, such as dysentery and dengue fever. Furthermore, many soldiers were weakened by starvation at the front line. The treatment the hospital staff could offer was often limited as medicine and medical supplies were lacking, and makeshift and overcrowded ward facilities could only offer substandard accommodation in the tropical heat and humidity. The nurses accounts’ revealed the dramatically contrasting emotions they experienced as they worked: on one hand, they experienced exhilaration by nursing sick and injured soldiers to recovery. On the other, they felt desperate that they could not provide the best possible care due to overcrowding and lack of supplies. They also needed to cope with a high number of deaths each day.

The nurses also experienced difficulty in their day-to-day lives. The most difficult problem for many nurses was lack of water. As the hospital relied on rain for its water supply, both staff and patients experienced constant water shortages. The nurses found it extremely difficult to maintain sanitation at the hospital, for patients as well as for themselves. They recounted the difficulty of working in their white uniforms in the tropical heat while trying to maintain personal hygiene. While their work was extremely demanding and with long hours, the nurses also enjoyed working in a different climate and culture. The women nostalgically recalled the exotic tropical plants and flowers around the hospital compound. They also enjoyed occasional interactions with local people who were employed as labourers for the hospital. Some local workers helped the nurses around the hospital and, in return, the nurses treated minor illness and injuries the workers and their families suffered. Some nurses visited the local workers’ home villages and met their families.

Some nurses were aware of the presence of comfort women, who provided sexual services to Japanese troops in Rabaul , but there seemed to be hardly any contact between these two groups of women – other than when the comfort women visited the hospital for medical treatment.

There were also Army hospitals in Rabaul and Kokopo. Although the number of nurses and the length of their stay is not clear, various records show that a number of civilian nurses worked in those hospitals. The Catholic nuns who were interned within the Vunapope mission compound near Kokopo watched Japanese nurses attend the sick and wounded in primitive makeshift hospital facilities from across barbed-wire fences. The nuns had high praise for the nurses and wrote that the women were ‘neat, clean and refined’ in contrast to the soldiers they were attending. Some of the nurses were Catholic and tried to participate discreetly in the mass which was held in the mission compound, by standing close to the barbed-wire fence which separated the mission from the hospital.

The first group of nurses who worked in the Navy hospital left for Japan in August 1943, 12 months after their arrival. The second group had arrived in Rabaul in July 1943 to take over nursing duties. However, they had to be evacuated to Japan as the Allied air raids became more intense and the Allied landing on New Britain became imminent. All the nursing staff of Army and Navy hospitals were evacuated to Japan between November 1943 and January 1944.