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On This Day - Australian Military History

#OTD: First Australian nurses awarded Military Medal for bravery under fire
On the 22nd of July 1917, four Australian nurses were awarded the Military Medal for rescuing patients trapped in a burning casualty clearing station at Trois Arbes, France. These were the first bravery awards won by nurses in action.

Sisters Clare Deacon, Dorothy Cawood, and Alice Ross-King and Staff Nurse Mary Jane Derrer, had joined the Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS) when war broke out. They had initially worked in Egypt, nursing Australian soldiers wounded during the Gallipoli campaign, before being transferred to France in 1916. Although posted to different hospitals during 1916, by mid-1917 they had all been sent to 2 Australian Casualty Clearing Station (2ACCS).

2ACCS had been moved close to the front line in order to cope with the expected influx of wounded from the third battle of Ypres, which was to begin on 31 August. On the 22nd of July, the casualty station was bombed, setting it alight.

Accounts by others who saw them say that the nurses ran to the shattered tents to rescue patients, either carrying them to safety or giving those who could not be moved basins to put over their heads, and placing tables over their beds. They all ignored their patients’ cries to seek shelter in dug-outs.

A month after the attack, the commander of 1 ANZAC Corps, General Sir William Birdwood, wrote to inform the four women that they would be awarded the Military Medal for 'coolness and devotion to duty'. They were the first Australian nurses to be given this decoration, which had only been extended in June 1916 to include women “showing bravery and devotion under fire”.