nurses

Events In History

Articles

New Zealand Army Nursing Service

Medical Units

The Salonika campaign

  • The Salonika campaign

    23 October is the anniversary of the 1915 sinking of the Marquette with the loss of 32 New Zealanders, including 10 nurses. They were en route from Egypt to the Greek port of Salonika as New Zealand’s contribution to the little-known Allied campaign in the Balkans

    Read the full article

  • Page 5 - NZEF involvementThe New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF) provided no combat units for the campaign in Salonika. The official contribution of New Zealanders was brief but marked by tragedy.

Passchendaele: fighting for Belgium

  • Passchendaele: fighting for Belgium

    Ever since 1917 Passchendaele has been a byword for the horror of the First World War. The assault on this tiny Belgian village cost the lives of thousands of New Zealand soldiers. But its impact reached far beyond the battlefield, leaving deep scars on many New Zealand communities and families.

    Read the full article

  • Page 6 - Helping the woundedMore than 14,000 New Zealanders were wounded between June and December 1917 in Belgium, and medical staff, orderlies, chaplains and stretcher-bearers worked round the clock to

Hospital ships

  • Hospital ships

    The Maheno and Marama were the poster ships of New Zealand's First World War effort. Until 1915 these steamers had carried passengers on the Tasman route. But as casualties mounted at Gallipoli, the government - helped by a massive public fundraising campaign - converted them into state-of-the-art floating hospitals.

    Read the full article

  • Page 5 - Life on boardWhat was life like aboard a hospital ship? That largely depended on your job, your rank and your

The 1918 influenza pandemic

  • The 1918 influenza pandemic

    The lethal influenza pandemic that struck New Zealand between October and December 1918 killed about 9000 people in two months. No other event has claimed so many New Zealand lives in such a short time.

    Read the full article

  • Page 7 - Aftermath

Biographies

  • Shadbolt, Rene Mary

    René Shadbolt led the only New Zealand contingent to the Spanish Civil War. She and fellow nurse, Isobel Dodds, cared for wounded soldiers, particularly those from the International Brigades, from July 1937 to November 1938.

    Read more...
  • Aubert, Mary Joseph

    Suzanne Aubert – later Mary Joseph Aubert – was a Catholic nun, nurse, teacher and pioneering social worker, who sometimes had to battle church and government authorities in order to help those in need.

    Read more...