IT has come to light that three women from Collie served as nurses in World War I on the Western Front and that two of them lost brothers in the same battle.
"One of the things a lot of people don’t understand is that if a soldier died, the nurses actually had to write up a letter and send it back home informing their family."
- Grahame Old
Grahame Old, Collie-Cardiff RSL sub-branch vice-president, said nurses played a vital role in Australia’s war effort.
“Nurses were employed in field hospitals and also manned casualty clearance stations, which were basically first aid posts.
“If a soldier was wounded he would be first looked at by a medic in the field and then carried by stretcher-bearers to a casualty clearance station.
“These stations were very close to the front and nurses risked their lives from aerial bombardment.
“If soldiers could be patched up, they were sent back to the front.
“In a lot of cases the injuries were too severe and they had to be transferred to a field hospital.”
Mr Old described how the job of nurses also involved intense emotional trauma.
“One of the things a lot of people don’t understand is that if a soldier died, the nurses actually had to write up a letter and send it back home informing their family.
“That would have been very hard,” an emotional Mr Old said.
One letter demonstrates the nurses’ difficult task of both attending the wounded and then informing families of deaths.
In August 1915 Nurse Nelly Littlewood wrote from Egypt to the mother of Collie soldier William Maxwell.
“I was with him all Saturday morning, and again on Sunday morning until he died at about 11 o’clock.
“He did not regain consciousness and died very peacefully… I am sending you his pay-book, belt, watch, tobacco pouch, letters and one or two other small things that he brought into the hospital with him… I wish to God we could have saved your son for you.
“We did our best.”
A total of 2139 nurses served in WWI, of whom 25 died.
The three nurses from Collie survived: Mary Catherine Carson, Helen Grace Doyle and Katherine Mary Coleman.
Ms Carson was born in Ireland.
She trained as a nurse for three years at Fremantle then enlisted for service in June 1915 when she was 27-years-old, while living in Collie.
Ms Carson served in casualty clearing stations in England, Egypt and France, before returning to Australia in January 1918.
Afterward she continued her nursing career, working at King Edward Memorial Hospital in Perth from 1921 until her retirement in 1954.
Ms Doyle was born in Horsham in Victoria.
Leaving Collie she sailed to England in 1915, aged 28-years-old, and served in France until February 1919.
Ms Doyle remained in the nursing profession in WA until her retirement in 1959.
She was a matron at a number of regional hospitals including in Margaret River and Geraldton.
Ms Caron and Ms Doyle’s brothers, William Carson and Henry Wright Doyle respectively, both died in September 1917 in Belgium from wounds received in the trenches.
Both are remembered on the Menin Gate Memorial in Belgium, with no known graves.
The third nurse, Ms Coleman, was not living in Collie at the time when she enlisted, but attended Collie High School, as revealed on a student list.
She enlisted in November 1916 when she was 32-years-old and embarked for Europe that December.
She had extensive service in France at casualty clearing stations and returned home in September 1919.
