Monica’s War

John McMahon

As a triple certificated nurse Monica joined the Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS) and in late 1941 became the matron of an Australian military hospital at Puckapunyal. Then she was a matron at the internment hospital at Tatura, a hospital ship,11 other Australian military hospitals, a camp hospital at Koitaki New Guinea and the 130th Australian General Hospital at Eta Jima Island Japan. Her detachments of commissioned Australian Army Nursing Service members formed patient-care communities with both male and female members of Army officers and other ranks. Monica’s War highlights male orderlies and doctors’ medical work at the life threatening front-line Kokoda Track. In rear based hospitals, Monica and her AANS sisters coordinated the patientcare of servicemen suffering from malaria and scrub typhus, other tropical diseases, facial wounds and post-traumatic stress disorders.