Rita Margaret Nunan

The younger child of ten children, Rita was the daughter of Matthew James Nunan and Helen Jane Hill. Born on 15 January 1914 at Bylands near Kilmore, the family spent some years at Alexandra before finally settling on a farm at South Wangaratta in 1926.

Rita, along with two of her colleagues, Marion Pittaway and Laura Sandwith gained their general nursing qualification from the Ovens District Hospital in 1938. The timing of their qualification was fortunate as the Victorian Charities Board believed the hospital, built in 1857, to be in a state of disrepair and no longer meeting the demands of modern medicine or nursing and had threatened to close it, if a new facility was not built.

Also, due to the hospital’s daily occupancy rate falling to less than forty, it's designation as a full time training school was changed to part time. Consequently, Rita, Marion and Laura  would need to complete an additional six months at a larger hospital after their three years at Beechworth. Rita and Laura, in 1939 chose to do their additional six months at the Queen Victoria Hospital. Having completed her studies, Rita returned Wangaratta and was employed at St Mary's Private Hospital.

In early August 1940  the Australian government announced the appointment of an additional 148 nurses  to medical units of the Australian Imperial Force (AIF), 60 of whom came from Victoria and included Rita Nunan, Marion Pittaway and Laura Sandwith. See Sun News Pictorial, 9 August 1940. Rita, at the time of enlisting was nursing at Ambermere, a private hospital in Shepparton. Designated a staff nurse, she was attached to 2/7th Australian General Hospital (AGH) which was located at Puckapunyal. 

In mid-January 1941, the staff of the 2/7th AGH were granted leave prior to their departure from Australia. On Sunday, February 2, 1941, they enjoyed a family picnic at Puckapunyal before boarding an overnight train to Sydney. Two days later, Rita Nunan and Marion Pittaway, who'd joined the AANS in October 1940, departed Sydney aboard the Aquitania, accompanied by a vast flotilla of small craft eager to see them off. 

After arriving in the Middle East, both Rita and Marion, for two months were with the 2/1st AGH at Gaza Ridge on the east coast of the Mediterranean sea. Originally mandated as a 600 bed hospital, the 2/1st grew like topsy. During the Syrian campaign, the bed number increased to 2,200 with no corresponding increase in nursing staff numbers.

Treatment Path for Military Casualties

In May 1941, Rita rejoined the 2/7th AGH after a 1,200-bed hospital and tented camp were established in Rehovot, Palestine. The hospital treated wounded soldiers from Greece, Crete, and Syria. A year later, she transferred to the 2/6th AGH, located at the Kaiser’s Palace on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem. Nurses at the 2/6th AGH gained valuable experienvce in a wide range of medical and surgical circumstances. 

After her appointment as a Group One sister in December 1941, Rita rejoined the 2/7th who were at Buseilli, between Alexandria and El Alamein in Egypt. In May 1942, the hospital moved to Kilo 89 in Palestine and then to Saida, Syria in July. Around the time of the the battle of El Alamein, the hospital returned to Buseilli where they evacuated long term patients to the 2/6th AGH at Gaza Ridge. At the end of January 1943, the 2/7th AGH was relocated to Suez where the staff embarked on the Niew Amsterdam bound for Australia.

Rita, now a lieutenant, was then stationed at the 115th Australian General Hospital (now known as the Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital) until September 1943, when she rejoined the 2/7th which was one of three general hospitals largely responsible for caring for the sick and wounded fighting on the Huon Peninsula in north eastern New Guinea. Before leaving for New Guinea, she was promoted to Captain. 

New Guinea was not kind to Rita. In March 1944, she was admitted to hospital suffering dysentery, a painful intestinal infection usually caused by bacteria or parasites, which if untreated can be life threatening. Two months later, she was re-hospitalised suffering from dengue fever, an infectious tropical disease transmitted by several mosquito species.

She returned to the 115th AGH in July 1944, and in October the following year she once again was attached to the 2/7th AGH situated on the banks of the Busu River near Lae, New Guinea. Nursing in the tropics was a whole new ball game as the nurses during their training had been taught very little on how to treat tropical diseases. The only antibiotics available at the time were sulphur drugs and malaria was treated with atebrin and quinine.

©Anne Hanson, 2025                                                                                 E-mail:  Anne Hanson