Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

Sister

Australian Red Cross

Daughter of Rev. Elizs CROZIER and Sarah Maria nee WILLIS
Embarked for France per 'Kanowna' July 1916
Mobile Surgical Hospital No 1. The hospital was established by Mrs Mary Borden-Turner, to operate in the French section of the lines on the Western Front. In 1917-18 she employed, through the Australian Red Cross, four Australians to nurse wounded French soldiers at her hospital, known in French as Hospital Surgical Mobile No. 1.

Party of twenty Australian Red Cross nurses, sponsored by the NSW Jockey Club, and know as the 'Bluebirds' because of their blue uniforms.

Among a group of twenty civilian trained nurses who volunteered in Australia in 1916 for service in France. The hospital was situated first at Beverau, twenty miles from Dunkirk, then at Oest Hoek.

Married Eric D Lloyd JONES 1933 in NSW

Nursing in France.
LETTER FROM AUSTRALIAN GIRL
GERMANS BOMBED THE HOSPITAL.

Nurse Lynette Crozier, one of the 20 nurses sent by the Red Cross Society to help in the French-hospitals, writing from Chamberay to a friend here, says: "Our hospital is placed much nearer the lines now, so that we are in a position of danger all the time, and there being nothing but an advanced dressing station in front of us, we receive the men in straight from the trenches. Being so near we are able to save many more cases. "We have had plenty of surgical work, and after gas attacks
have had large numbers of men in. In many cases getting them early meant that a good many of
them pulled round. In fact, we had only a small percentage of deaths. At times when we had rushes
one had to work part of the night as well as day-time, and food is quite a secondary consideration.
After our last bad time I nursed a boy of 19. He looked 15, he was so small and sweet. He spent his
time asking, 'Why we were so good, etc.? as only a Frenchman can, when it was not 'our place,' as
he put it. He was quite the most pathetic case away from his mother and people. We were talking
to one of our best surgeons the other day, who said, 'Well, you know, Mademoiselle, if you were
not here we should lose exactly half the cases we now save.'"We have our excitements and horrors,
too. About five weeks ago we were all in bed about 11 p.m., when the wretched Taubes went over our huts, making their usual unpleasant sounds. They continued for sometime, and then we thought our hut had been hit by a bomb, they were so close, but one had fallen just across the road in the field corner. We then heard another, and a fearful scream. Everybody rushed to the windows or outside, and found a bomb had fallen in the middle of the hospital, and had wounded one of our night nurses badly in the foot. The foot was almost blown away. Poor girl, she will not walk for a long time, and then never without an appliance, and even yet it may be necessary to amputate it. She is a Canadian girl. The theatre and most of the huts were riddled with shrapnel, and we are still grateful for the marvellous escape of that night, and hope never to have another like it. Both the night nurses were given the Croix de Guerre, which we all appreciated. Still a medal isn't much compensation for a foot, is l:t?In several of the huts the screens.quilts and bedclothes were torn and pierced very much.

Windows broken everywhere. One orderly was also wounded. One of the patients was covered with feathers
where an eclat had gone into his pillows. His sheets were just torn to bits and his face was covered with glass
in the form of dust, but he was not a mite injured and most cheerful. It does seem awful that they cannot get
rest even in hospital. Hospitals more than 10 miles further inward get bombs. The next night we had a gas
attack, which reached and passed over us, but, fortunately, no harm was done, more than that, some of the vegetation round turned brown. Everybody was given the alarm about 10.30. and I remember getting out to
shut the door and window, and Sister Wallace and self got our masks on. Then being deadly tired after the
night before promptly went to sleep. Sisters Loxton and Hough were not disturbed and didn't get much sleep
and having a hole in the wall some of the gas got through sufficient to start two of the girls vomiting because
they had not got their masks on. But fortunately, nobody suffered. One of the English sisters, who had been in the war zone for ever two years gave in and she and her friend left. It was quite time, too one couldn't stand many years of that. So with a nurse to look after the wounded sister and two on holiday, seven of us were left for work next day, and it did per in. Each of us had two wards instead of one, and we really felt as though we could not possibly cope with it, but all went fairly well. I had one ward full of gas cases, and the one next door of wounded, but they were not now cases; so were very patient and I did not see much of them that day. "Now at about two days' notice we had orders to get up and more (that's what comes of being the only movable hospital attached) two weeks' rest and we expect to go back to where we were as there are no more of our troops just where we are now. As we bore the brunt of the last move we were sent for a holiday, while there are no patients, and so four of us came here for mountain air and a rest. We are given first-class return tickets, and with special books can travel anywhere at half rates. At this hotel the manager gives us special Red Cross rates."

West Gippsland Gazette Tuesday 16 October 1917 page 3