Lemnos 1915: A Nursing Odyssey to Gallipoli

Nurses who sailed from Western Victoria in 1914 and 1915 watched and lived through the medical debacle at close quarters from hospital ships as well as base hospitals in Egypt and Lemnos. Their experiences are a fascinating but forgotten chapter of Australian history.

In August and September, 130 Australian women lived in hospital tents on Lemnos Island nursing thousands of sick and wounded men as summer heat turned to autumn gales and winter snow. They fought medical rather than military battles but life and death struggles nonetheless.
The Anzac military legend flourished after 1915 but, although their pioneering military nursing was documented beyond doubt, decades of silence almost erased Australian memory of women on Lemnos, as well as in New Guinea, Malta, Palestine, Greece, Serbia, Mesopotamia, India, Russia, and even England, Belgium and France.

First Edition. x, 198 p. : ill., maps, ports. illusts #0818