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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, as most of the Tow
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.
Informal group of convalescent patients with Sister Ethel Macquarie Cook, of Bathurst, NSW, on duty at the Military Hospital at Namanula, Rabaul.
The ward boys and house boys working at the Hospital
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
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.
The milk supply for the Hospital
The Japanese Occupation 1942-1945
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.
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.
Japanese military nurse, Miss Shizu Watanabe (later Ueki), tends wounded Japanese Naval personnel on the veranda of the 8th Navy Hospital at Namanula,
Group portrait of Japanese naval personnel and military nurse
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
Section 2: Dispatch of nurses to Rabaul
In 1942, with the expansion of the Pacific Front to the south, it was decided to dispatch nurses from the Yokosuka Navy Mutual Aid Hospital and Yokosuka Naval Hospital to the Eighth Navy Hospital located in Rabaul, New Britain Island. . The selection of the dispatched staff was not recruiting applicants, but a candidate list was first created in the hospital. According to one of the nurses dispatched from the Naval Hospital, Mitsu Sakata (nee Oshima), each nurse was asked if he had any intention to apply for an overseas dispatch. The final members were 11 nurses, 3 brush students and 1 male clerk. The names (all maiden names) of nurses dispatched from Yokosuka Mutual Aid Hospital are Tomiko Ishiwatari (Major), Michiko Suyama, Masako Yamaguchi, Tokiko Tajiri, Kanako Nishijima, Shizuko Oshimoto, Shiz Watanabe, Miyoko Fujimura, and Mariko Suzaki I went with me as a brush student. Nurses who joined from the Navy Hospital were Mitsu Oshima and Tagako Abe, and Kayo Miyagawa and Sadako Watanabe (Pharmaceutical Department) also joined the school. The clerk was Takashi Toida. Among these members, Tomiko Ishiwatari (17th student) and Shiz Watanabe (22th student) have been identified as graduates of the Kyosai Hospital Nurse Training Institute.
派 A delegation from Kyosai Hospital left Yokosuka on the transport ship Heiyomaru on September 7, 1942. The term was set for one year, but the nurses were not informed of the specific destination. Many soldiers were on the bottom of the vessel. Only seven days after departure, it was announced that the assignment was in Rabaul. Rabaul later became known for his place name through military songs such as "Rabaul Kouta" and "Rabaul Navy Air Corps," but the nurses on board the ship, except that it might be a fierce battlefield in the south. I had no prior knowledge. Questions and anxieties, such as "What kind of people live in there?" And "Is working in a hot southern climate, will you have physical strength?"
Heyo Maru first called on Saipan Island, then entered Truck Island, where he was granted a half-day landing permit. Several nurses visited the Navy Hospital on the island, but Mr. Oshima had locals harvest coconut from the island, breaking it and drinking coconut juice for the first time. . Shiz Ueki (nee Watanabe) remembers hearing Japanese songs from elementary schools. The ship then sailed further south and entered Rabaul Harbor 20 days after departure. Rabaul was occupied by Japanese troops on January 23, 1942 as one of the goals of the southern assault immediately after the war, and after the occupation, it had many troops as a central base toward the South Pacific. There was a soldier.
When the nurses arrived in Rabaul, the war was not so severe, but Rabaul was already in the area of Allied airstrikes. The ship was hit by a bombardment on the night that Heiomaru arrived at Rabaul with a nurse and was anchored in the bay for landing the next morning. For the nurses who had stayed aboard, they were bombed for the first time in their birth, and were instructed to evacuate from their cabin to the hold, and ran down steep steps to the food storage. Mr. Sakata jumped into the warehouse as he was told and rushed down, but remember that the intense smell of rotten cabbage there was still unforgettable. The next morning, the nurses arrived at a pier at Rabaul Harbor, moving from a ship anchored offshore to a barge. Nurses went up from the boat to the pier, as local men helping with the unloading work were lifted out to reach. The contrast of their black glowing skin and curly hair, and the intense colors of gorgeous laplaps (clothing like a skirt wrapped around the waist) and the white flowers inserted in their hair, are young people arriving from Japan on a tropical island. It made a strong impression on women.
Until the war, the Eighth Navy Hospital, located in Perabaur, was an Australian-manufactured Namanula hospital, located on a hill slightly off the city centre. The nurse's dormitory has been set up on the second floor of the main building. Mariko Arai (formerly Susaki), who was assigned to Rabaul at the age of 17 as an administrative assistant, said that when she first entered the hospital building, she saw a nurse's white coat hanging on the wall. May have been a white coat of an Australian nurse who worked before the Japanese occupation. Seventeen nurses, working in private and military hospitals in Rabaul, were already taken to Yokohama in June on a transport ship Naruma with two other women as prisoners of war.
第一 The first team of service nurses who arrived at the Eighth Navy Hospital, and after the troops expanded and the front expanded, the number of nurses dispatched by the Japanese Red Cross Society increased, and the total number of nurses increased to 40. The dispatch of JRCS nurses to the Army Hospital in Rabaul was slower than that of the Navy and began in March 1943, but the number is close to 150 and more than the Navy Hospital. The nurses from Yokosuka spent a 12-month term from September 1942 to August of the following year. Meanwhile, the JRCS nurses raised Rabaul from December 1943 to January of the following year due to intensified air raids and a predicted Allied landing in western New Britain Island. As a woman, nurses dispatched from Yokosuka work the longest.
勤務 Working at the Eighth Navy Hospital for nurses was busy and demanding. Waking up time is 4:30, and after a roll call and gymnastics, breakfast is at 5:45. After working in Japan at the Imperial Palace Harukai and morning rites, work at the hospital begins at 6:45. Lunch was at 11 o'clock, and I was given a two-hour rest, but I was too busy to take this break. Dinner time was 4:15, and that was the end of the day. At 7:00 in the evening, he went to the ward and went to bed at 9:00. At night, however, allied air raids were sporadic, requiring evacuation in shelter shelters. Some nurses complained of fatigue and chronic lack of sleep, rather than evacuating to an air raid shelter, saying, "I want to sleep here because I can die." However, he cannot be killed or injured, "he said, entering the trench with his sleepy eyes rubbing. In addition, the ills were often transported to hospitals at night, avoiding air raids, during which time reception and first aid treatment continued throughout the night. Sakata says that he helped treat injuries sustained on the battlefield, thanks to his experience in treating falls and injuries during work at the Navy Arsenal. Meanwhile, Arai, who was in charge of affairs, remembers that he worked all night with a board to fill out papers from his neck to check the names and units of the injured soldiers sent one after another. Thus, for those dispatched by Kyosai Hospital, youth and physical strength were the only dependable years.
到 着 After arriving in Rabaul, it wasn't just the raids and intense work in the hospital that were waiting for the nurses. Nurses often became infected with dengue fever and other tropical illnesses that caused them to fall asleep for days with high fever, or to become ulcers after a simple insect bite and did not recover easily.
Since the beginning of 1943, injured soldiers, sick people and malnourished people have been transported from Guadalcanal and New Guinea, but if they are infected with malaria or dysentery, isolate them from other patients. In case of inconvenience, the infectious disease patient was housed in a quarantine ward created under the floor of the hospital in a hurry, but the tour of the isolation ward was the role of a nurse, helping the patient to add a business, but Patients who have lost their stamina have been forced to make a hole near the buttocks of a sleeping stretcher and place a container underneath to receive diarrheal stool. Nurses also took care of soldiers asking them to "give me water," and dug and burled blood and stool. Some nurses became infected with dysentery during such work, and were so ill that they had to be hospitalized. ->
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
Japanese Naval personnel and military nurses exercising in the gardens of the 8th Navy Hospital, Namanula, Rabaul.
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.
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.
In addition, nurses struggled with lack of water, which had to rely on rainwater. The tropical climate of Rabaul has a dry season and a rainy season, especially during the dry season, which suffered from water shortages. After working all day in the sultry heat, there was no place to sweat slowly and no water. Relatively energetic inpatients took off their shirts, put soap on them and waited for the rain to fall when tropical squalls were about to arrive. Occasionally, the nurses laughed, looking at the faces of the soldiers looking up at the sky with soap on their skin, sometimes unexpectedly. Of course, the nurses couldn't copy it, so they made every effort to get enough water to keep their bodies and lab coats clean. Sakata stores the canned fruits that he distributes, exchanges it with a full of drums of water, and from the drums hidden under the floor of the dormitory, draws water with a washbasin and forgets the pleasure of squeezing on his body even now He told me he couldn't.
At the foot of the active volcano in Rabaul there is a hot spring, where the Navy has set up an open-air bath. However, nurses could only go to this hot spring. Occasionally, he called himself a “laundry landing” and rode on a truck bed to a hot spring by the sea. However, he did not have time to soak slowly and had to complete bathing and washing in the given 10 minutes. The general shortage of medical supplies at naval hospitals has existed since the earliest arrival of nurses, but has become more severe as the war has worsened, and the lack of medical supplies such as bandages and cotton wool has increased in hospitals. Although it affected function and treatment, there were compelling issues for young nurses. Sanitary absorbent cotton used during menstruation was not provided. It was a serious problem for young and healthy nurses. In addition, my daily life at the hospital was very male, so my patients, my boss, and my colleagues were all men. They received extra "lodges" and cloth from the soldiers for barter, and replaced them with cotton wool and napkins. The cloth had to be washed, dried and used many times, but in addition to lack of water, she was very careless about washing and drying in hospitals that were just men. Furthermore, it was not easy to keep nurses' white coats white due to lack of water. In particular, when menstruation began, they mutually confirmed that menstrual blood leaked accidentally into the back of the white coat.
勤務 Though it was a difficult job, nurses had fun memories. After arriving in Rabaul in September, she continued to work every day and was finally given a holiday two months later, on November 3, Meiji Setsu (the day of current culture). On that day, he had a special lunch with white rice balls and went hiking with his fellow nurses, calling him a "march" from the back of the hospital to the beach. Navigating through the jungle to the seaside, the nurses spent the day catching fish, climbing trees, and shouting poetry. One day, Ueki Shiz (nee Watanabe) sang "Haiku no Yado" on the beach one day, reminiscent of Japan, along with his friend Arai. Locals who passed by sang and sang the same melody in English. This song was originally called "Home Sweet Home" and is a popular song in English-speaking countries. Local residents may have been familiar with the melody learned from white missionaries. It must have been a reproduction of the scene depicted in Burmese Harp.
One of the unforgettable events for nurses was that in April 1943, General Isoroku Yamamoto visited the Navy Hospital and watched relaxing with the hospital director and officers in the cafeteria of the officer's office. Arai, in particular, might have noticed and noticed a woman who was not in Yamamoto or nursing clothes during the patrol, and Arai, who met her eyes, felt the impact of being hit by electricity. He said he was not tall but emitted an aura. Nurses were dispatched in the crash of Yamamoto, but couldn't talk about anything. "The soldiers were really savvy," he said.
The nurse dispatched from Yokosuka finished his one-year term and left Rabaul on August 4, 1943, at the hospital ship Takasago Maru. During the voyage, she arrived at Kure on August 18 while nursing the wounded soldiers to be transferred to Japan, and all were able to return safely. Their success was already reported in the magazine "Ladies Club" in July 1943, titled "Nurses at the forefront working hard under air raids" by Hirohama Hamamoto, a popular writer at the time. The name of the place was hidden because of the war, but it was clear from the context that it was a southern island. After returning to Japan, Tomoko Ishiwatari and seven others were invited to the Women's Club headquarters, where a return report roundtable was held and introduced in the November issue of the same year. Participants talked about hard but fulfilling work days, but were silent about the reality of hard work and the increasing severity of the war.
看護 For the nurses and brush students dispatched from Yokosuka, their one-year experience at Rabaul was unforgettable, and they kept in touch with each other even after the war. Central to the unity was a friend who can be said to be a fellow friend who shared the desire for Haru Ninomiya, a captain of the Navy Medical Officer who became director of the mutual aid hospital after the war, and shared difficulties and fun memories in extreme situations. Wasn't it conscious? After the war, an annual meeting was held for the 8th Navy Hospital officials, the Hachiyukai, a former warrior's association, and former nurses also took part in it. Has also decreased. However, the valuable experiences of mutual aid hospital nurses dispatched to Rabaul, a military hospital far from Japan and closest to the Pacific battlefield, will need to be documented. (Keiko Tamura, )
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