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The brave world of Sister Beryl

Sister Beryl Chandler, left, and Sister Margery Dickfos, members of RAAF No 1 Medical Air Evacuation Unit pictured in August, 1944. Photo courtesy of the Australian War Memorial.

SISTER Beryl Chandler, of Longreach, Queensland, joined the Royal Australian Air Force Nursing Service (RAAFNS) in May, 1942.

Her memoirs, now housed at the Australian War Memorial, record a lively introduction to service nursing as she adapted to taking cold showers, sleeping on a bed made of hay and the camaraderie of life in the RAAF.

The RAAFNS was set up in July 1940 in response to the huge wartime increase in RAAF personnel. Applicants had to be registered nurses who were Australian citizens; they also had to be female, aged between 21 and 40, and single. If they married, their appointments were terminated.

During World War II, air evacuation became a quick and effective way to transport seriously wounded troops from the front line in New Guinea and the surrounding islands.

In early 1944, 15 nurses were recruited from the RAAFNS to the newly formed No. 1 Medical Air Evacuation Transport Unit (1 MAETU – nicknamed “meet you”). They began training in in-flight medicine and care, emergency survival procedures, and tropical hygiene.

Known as “The Flying Angels”, flight teams comprising of a sister and an orderly flew in Douglas C47s, carrying up to 18 stretcher cases at a time, from forward areas back to base hospitals in Australia.

Within the first year of operation, some 8000 patients had been evacuated. In 1945, 2 MAETU was formed with 10 new nurses. After the war, both units assisted with the repatriation of thousands of prisoners of war.

Chandler was one of the first nurses to join 1 MAETU. For these women, this work brought them ever closer to the front line and introduced a new series of challenges.

Apart from their regular nursing duties, Chandler and her colleagues had to contend with airsickness, altitudes of up to 18,000 feet, and anoxia. Some of their pilots appear to have wished they had been fighter pilots, and flew accordingly.

Chandler records her many adventures with 1 MAETU, including caring for one patient who chewed through the electric wiring of the plane while in flight, and nights stranded with her crew in thick jungle. She nursed soldiers suffering burns, gunshot wounds, and terrible shock.

But she concluded her memoirs by summing up: “We who have had the privilege of serving with the RAAF feel a great deal of pride… and congratulate all who have served and are serving today with the RAAF and wish it the great future we know lies ahead”.

“Nurses: from Zululand to Afghanistan” at the Australian War Memorial until October 17.

Read more: “Nurses who helped save a nation”.

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One Response to The brave world of Sister Beryl

JENNIFER BALLARD says: 18 February 2012 at 5:50 pm

We salute these wonderful woman. Do you know if there are any still living? My mother was one. In the 2nd M.E.A.T.U – Joan Loutit. She is 90 years old and still alive, as is her friend Elizabeth Baldwin, also in the 3rd, I think. Please contact me if you know anything of the other “girls’.

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