Vivian Bullwinkle - Changi - Malaria - Dysentery - Typhoid - Betty Jeffrey - War injuries and illnesses.

Willingly into the Fray comprises the personal stories of sixty-five individual nurses, their voices preserved and their words, often fraught with emotion and mired in distress at what they have seen, endured and railed against, carefully retained. Many of these stories are told for the first time, particularly those of the recent campaigns, peacekeeping operations, disaster relief and humanitarian missions. These are men and women who, like those before them, often worked in the most primitive conditions, as one nurse remarked tellingly, ‘with TLC and little more’. It is typical of Australian Army nurses to proceed ‘willingly into the fray’, often with little warning, but always with courage, determination and a strong sense of humour. In the hundred or so years since the first intrepid Boer War nurses set out, Australian Army nurses have forged a proud and enviable reputation. They are justifiably renowned for their determination to provide quality medical care despite extreme privation, perilous circumstances, and a lack of the most rudimentary medical equipment. If this is the reputation they can forge in the face of such adversity, then we have much to look forward to over the next one hundred years. Willingly into the Fray provides a rare opportunity for the reader, to take a personal journey through the lives of Army nurses from the early days of 1899 to modern times, and to experience the vast changes in society that accompanied those hundred or so years.

The discovery of a wonderful primary source—the five-year correspondence from Wilson Tong of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force to Edith Harris at Phillip Island—inspired the author to create this rich and unusual memoir, written as she came to terms with a diagnosis of cancer. As the author replies to the long-dead soldier's letters, links and parallels emerge between the young man living with the fear of death and the woman, 80 years later, facing her own death in middle age. She reflects on her life—particularly her childhood on Phillip Island—her work, and her own confrontation with mortality.

After the outbreak of the Anglo-Boer War, hundreds of women left their countries for South Africa, some in search of adventure, others with a strong desire to help the victims of war. They came from all over the world – from Britain and its colonies, and from pro-Boer countries in Europe. But, whatever their origins, they all came to live and work under harsh conditions in a world that was foreign to them. Angels of Mercy tells the story of twelve of these brave women. Hailing from England, the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, some worked as nurses on the frontline, while others came to teach Boer children in the concentration camps. Based on personal diaries and letters and other wartime sources, this fascinating and inspiring book tells of their trials and tribulations as they dealt with the dangers of war, the extremes of the environment, and the sad eyes of the dying men under their care. Theirs are stories of compassion and courage.

Caring for the wounded of the First World War was tough and challenging work, demanding extensive knowledge, technical skill, and high levels of commitment. Although allied nurses were admired in their own time for their altruism and courage, their image was distorted by the lens of popular mythology. They came to be seen as self-sacrificing heroines, romantic foils to the male combatant and doctors' handmaidens, rather than being appreciated as trained professionals performing significant work in their own right. Christine Hallett challenges these myths to reveal the true story of allied nursing in the First World War — one which is both more complex and more absorbing. Drawing upon evidence from archives across the world, Veiled Warriors offers a compelling account of nurses' wartime experiences and a clear appraisal of their work and its contribution to the allied cause between 1914 and 1918, on both the Western and the Eastern Fronts. Nurses believed they were involved in a multi-layered battle. Primarily, they were fighting for the lives of their patients on the 'second battlefield' of casualty clearing stations, transports, and military hospitals. Beyond this, they were an integral component of the allied military machine, putting their own lives at risk in field hospitals close to the front lines, on board hospital ships vulnerable to enemy submarine attack, and in base hospitals subject to heavy bombardment. As working women in a sometimes hostile, chauvinistic world, allied nurses were also fighting to gain recognition for their profession and political rights for their sex. For them, military nursing might help to win not only the war itself, but also a more powerful voice for women in the post-war world.

Michele A. Connolly's postcolonial analysis links the Gospel of Mark - produced in the context of the Roman Empire - with contemporary Australia, established initially as a colony of the British Empire. Feminist analysis of texts from two foundational events in Australian colonial history reveal that women in such texts tend to be marginalised, silenced and denigrated. Connolly posits that imperialist sexism, both ancient and modern, perceives women as a threat to the order that males alone can impose on the world. The Gospel of Mark portrays Jesus bringing the order of the Reign of God to combat the disorder of apocalyptic evil. Jesus' task is a markedly male project, against which eleven female characters are portrayed as disorderly distractions who are managed by being marginalised, silenced and denigrated, contradicting Jesus' message of mutual service and non-domination. In his death under apocalyptic power, Jesus is likewise depicted as isolated, silenced and denigrated, subtly associating femininity with chaos, failure and disgrace.

War is only a small part of military life. Uniformed men and women spend the vast majority of their time away from combat, training, receiving medical attention, burying the dead and undertaking the myriad tasks of survival in an operational zone. Beyond Combat explores how the military manages its ‘other’ roles, as well as the experiences of the servicemen and women themselves. With contributions from Christina Twomey, Noah Riseman, Shirleene Robinson and Major Clare O’Neill, among others, Beyond Combat is a ground-breaking examination of life beyond the frontline.

More than Bombs and Bandages exposes the false assumption that military nurses only nursed. Based on author Kirsty Harris’ CEW Bean Prize-winning PhD thesis, this is a book that is far removed from the ‘devotion to duty’ stereotyping offering an intriguing and sometimes gut-wrenching insight into the Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS) during World War I. More than Bombs and Bandages provides rich pickings for all those interested in nursing history, women in the Australian military the application of medical treatments and World War I. What I enjoyed most about is Dr Kirsty Harris’s ability to reflect those nurses voices in a way that was so real – one could be there, the settings were so well understood from her research and the language kind of made a time warp in the reading. Very satisfying. As you know I have that Peter Rees book, but I could not get into it after reading the historical one. It was like comparing a great documentary to Facebook trivia!!! Rev’d Dr Barbara Oudt

The execution of British matron Edith Cavell by occupying German forces was portrayed by the allies as one of the key atrocities of the Great War. This book recovers and interprets the worldwide reaction to Cavell's death, exploring its contextual relationship within imperial and international history, as well women's history and gender history.

The question of women's role in the military is extremely topical. A Woman and a Soldier covers the experiences of women in the military from the late mediaeval period to the present day. Written in two volumes this comprehensive guide covers a wide range of wars: The Thirty Years War, the French and Indian Wars in Northern America, the Anglo-Boer War, the First and Second World Wars, the Long March in China, and the Vietnam War. There are also thematic chapters, including studies of terrorism and contemporary military service. Taking a multidisciplinary approach: historical, anthropological, and cultural, the book shows the variety of arguments used to support or deny women's military service and the combat taboo. In the process the book challenges preconceived notions about women's integration in the military and builds a picture of the ideological and practical issues surrounding women soldiers.