Rita Nunan’s relief at passing her final year nursing examinations in July 1938 were probably twofold. According to the newspapers, the Ovens District Hospital where she had been undertaking her training was in ‘danger of closing’.[1] Built in 1857, the Victorian Charities Board had condemned the hospital as being out of date and were threatening to close it unless a new hospital was erected.

The younger child of ten children, Rita was the daughter of Matthew James Nunan and Helen Jane Hill. Although born at Bylands near Kilmore, she and her family moved to a farm in South Wangaratta in 1924.

In August 1940 while nursing at Ambermere, a private hospital in Shepparton, she enlisted in the AANS and was attached to the 2/7^th AGH. The 2/7^th left Sydney on the HMT Aquitania in February 1941. The Aquitania was accompanied by the Queen Mary, Nieuw Amsterdam and the naval escort HMAS Hobart. On reaching India, the 2/7^th boarded the HMT Windsor Castle and arrived at Suez, Egypt on 21 March.

On disembarkation, Rita was attached for two months to the 2/1^st AGH at Gaza Ridge on the east coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Originally mandated as a 600 bed hospital, during the Syrian campaign, the 2/1^st AGH’s bed number increased to 2,200 whilst the nursing staff numbers remained the same.

In May 1941, Rita was re-attached to the 2/7^th AGH after a 1200 bed hospital and tented camp had been established at Rehovot in Palestine. The hospital treated wounded from Greece, Crete and Syria until June 1942 when the 2/7^th were relocated to Sidon in Syria. However, a month prior, Rita was transferred to the 2/6^th AGH based at the Kaiser’s Palace at the Mount of Olives on a mountain ridge east of Jerusalem. The 2/6th AGH treated patients from Syria, some of whom were suffering from tuberculosis.

After her appointment as a Group One sister in December 1942, Rita was re-attached to the 2/7^th which was at Buseilli, between Alexandria and El Alamein in Egypt. At the end of January 1943, the 2/7^th staff were relocated to Suez where they embarked on the Niew Amsterdam bound for Australia.

In March 1943 all members of the AANS were granted a military rank, as opposed to an honorary one. Rita who was then stationed at the 115^th AGH (now known as the Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital) became a Lieutenant.

Rita, in late September 1943, was re-attached to the 2/7^th AGH at Buna in New Guinea. The 2/7^th AGH was one of three general hospitals responsible for caring for the sick and wounded fighting on the Huon Peninsula in north eastern New Guinea.

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. Then two months later, she was re-hospitalised suffering from dengue fever, an infectious tropical disease transmitted by several mosquito species. She came home in June 1944, returning to the 115^th AGH and was appointed Captain.

In October 1945, she rejoined the 2/7^th AGH situated on the banks of the Busu River near Lae, New Guinea. As one nurse put it, ‘nursing in the tropics was a whole new ball game. We had been taught very little during our training about how to cope with tropical diseases. The sulphur drugs were the only antibiotics available at this stage. Sulphaguidine was the treatment for dysentery and the troops called it `cement'. Sulphonamide was used for infections and wounds, with atebrin and quinine for malaria. ... ‘[1]

Rita ultimately spent almost ten years as a nurse with the Australian armed forces, nursing in the Middle East, New Guinea, Australia and on troop and hospital ships.

Within twelve months of her discharge, aged thirty-seven, she married George Rees and had two children in quick succession. She died in January 2011 and was buried at Wangaratta Cemetery.

Sources

Guns and Brooches; Australian Army Nursing from the Boer War to the Gulf War Jan Bassett, Oxford University Press, 1992. p. 131.

Rita Margaret Noonan, Service Record Number VFX45586, National Archives Australia.

© Anne Hanson, 2013 annehanson1@bigpond.com