Resources
" A Legacy of Caring"- Second World War and Jayforce Nursing
In October 2025 the museum committee will continue the display and exhibition related to the contribution made by Christchurch Hospital Trained nurses to the Second World War and Jay Force. Here is more information relating to the exhibition.
Dodging enemy air raids in Greece
No 1 New Zealand General Hospital was set up in tents 130 miles north west of Athens in late March 1942. Fifty two NZ nursing sisters followed on March 27. The German offensive began on 6 April. Within days, snow falling, the nurses were awakened to learn the allied forces were in retreat. By lantern they packed minimal items and gathered in the mess. Bombs were falling continuously. Escape was delayed until 4am the next morning until finally the loaded trucks began the terrifying trip to Athens, arriving at 7.30pm.
The following days news of departure to safe shores came and went as bombing and screaming sirens continued.
They were now in Kephissia and news of escape on a hospital ship was dashed as air raids continued. Time to sing Maori Battalion and many other songs. Nights later they were awakened and learnt that their train travel was ready. Unfortunately, the Germans were now bombing the railway lines. Their only escape was to nearby cornfields where they sheltered under trees for the day.
Eight trucks arrived to collect the nursing sisters. On board were 100 British and Australian nurses. The convoy made a terrifying journey over steep hills, no lights, cratered roads and dead animals everywhere, on the journey to Corinth.
At daybreak, a stop for bully beef and biscuits ended abruptly with everyone escaping the trucks and lying in the cornfield as bombs landed close by.
Their journey continued until one truck overturned resulting in casualties among the NZ nurses. The injured were placed in Australian ambulances and the nurses’ journey continued, as did the bombing. The nurses escaped to a cemetery and huddled together behind gravestones. Night arrived and the trucks negotiated the Corinth Canal safely.
Weary and stiff, the nurses, carrying their hand luggage, began the one mile final walk quietly in complete darkness to the Australian destroyer HMAS Voyager. Safely aboard with hot drinks, food and blankets the exhausted nurses were finally able to sleep.
At 3pm the Voyager arrived at the island of Crete where a British General Hospital had opened a week before. The NZ nurses took charge of the surgical wards and theatres. Raids continued, terrifying patients who would sit in bed wearing their helmets,
Within five days 180 nurses and 500 walking wounded embarked aboard a small Greek vessel the Iona. “This slow old vessel was the most terrifying thing I did in the Army,” said one of the nurses, Margaret Nicol.
After arriving safely in Alexandria, the nurses enjoyed three weeks of special leave.
Captain Ted Sayers, a NZ medical officer who helped to escort the nurses out of Greece, said: “Never once … did I detect a trace of fear, a sign of hysteria or any failure of morale … The whole show was one of which every NZ woman can be proud.”
Bibliography
Rogers, Anna. While You’re Away, New Zealand Nurses at War 1899 – 1948, Auckland University Press, 2003
Sister Ailsa Fleming’s letter home after escaping from Greece
Excerpts from a letter written in Cairo by Sister Ailsa Fleming to her Christchurch Hospital Matron and colleagues after No.1 New Zealand General Hospital’s withdrawal from Greece.
…my story is our strategic withdrawal from Greece…We had a grand tent hospital established in a valley at Pharsalos…Everything was in smooth running order, and we have about 400 patients. All went well for about two weeks…
However, on the evening of April 15th…lying awake listening to the sound of artillery bombardment…at 11pm Matron told us to pack…we set sail in army trucks for Athens….
We remained in Athens for about three days…quite near the aerodrome, and every morning without fail Jerry gave us a pre-breakfast session…following Sunday…we tried to continue our strategic retreat… Jerry came over…set off on a Wednesday afternoon for a railway some miles away…line had been bombed…sat down among corn and poppies…ate more bully beef and biscuits, sang Māori Battalion and Wish Me Luck etc. etc…when along comes the grand old army…52 New Zealand sisters, please pile into trucks…
The soldier in charge told us we were leaving Greece... Should we be attacked from the air, there would be a series of blasts on the horn of his car – and in his words “For God’s sake don’t think about your suspenders – get out of the truck and run at least ten yards away and lie flat, and stay put till Jerry is well away”…
We hadn’t been going long when the truck I was in overturned, and ourselves with it. There were 19 of us in it and one soldier… Everyone was shocked – but seven were injured, none of us seriously…. I stopped the soldier mentioned and a suitcase with my chest, but as you know I am well-padded in that region… I bruised my brachial plexus, but except for a bit of arm ache etc, I’m great.
Well, while we were scattered on the road side, Jerry thought – here’s my chance, and over he came…Two nice Australian soldiers gathered me up and sat me in the corn, and assured me he’ll never get us… We set off for the port…boarded a small boat which took us out to the destroyer on which we travelled to Crete.
Never will any of us forget the feeling of security we had once on board the “Voyager”. Only the injured had beds. The other girls, New Zealand and Australians, slept on the floors, on deck and around guns. They gave me a sling for my arm… O.P.D. (Outpatients Department) at Christchurch hasn’t a sling half as grand in my opinion.
We arrived at Crete at 1pm. next day…the British Hospital, 7th General, was just ready to open, so they opened it by admitting the N.Z.A.N.S. wounded… We spent three days there, and then came on to Alexandria, arriving there about May 3rd…
Yesterday, before leaving hospital, we all broadcast to New Zealand… Oh, and you’ll be amused to know I took the cake the Sisters (Christchurch Hospital) sent me to Greece, and I brought it part of the way back, and we ate it in Athens. It was a lovely cake, but I’m sure you never thought it would travel so far.
Bibliography
Campbell, H. Looking Back, A History of Christchurch School of Nursing 1891 - 1987,
A & H Print Consultants, Christchurch, 1997
Christchurch Hospital Nurses Serving with Jayforce 1946-1948
Two atomic bombs were dropped on Japan in August 1945, one was a uranium bomb on Hiroshima 6 August 1945 and the other a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki, 9 August 1945. By 2006 no detectable radiation existed.
Image at front of Jean Fraser (WAAF) photo Album (courtesy of Elsie Spink, Daughter)
NZ Army Nursing Service (NZANS) and Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (WAACs) and Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAFs) as part of the 12000 New Zealanders with Jayforce. It is also written as J-Force. This was part of the larger Commonwealth Occupation of Japan from 1946-1948. The nurses had a critical role in providing care for the NZ troops as well as providing support any local population health needs as the country was supported to rebuild after the devastation of war. A large purpose of Jayforce (as well as preventing Japan was reforming a military force) was to enable the Japanese people to be viewed in a positive way to foster national friendship. Aspects of this is certainly evident in some of the photos reviewed for this exhibition where nurses and WAACs are photographed next to their smiling domestic staff (both men and women) as well as candid shots in streets and markets. Nurses recalled the female domestic staff (‘house girls’) were ‘a great comfort’, but the men were not very pleasant as they resented being asked to do things by a female’.
Recollections note that the kiwis had to pass through Hiroshima to get to their base at Kiwa in the Yamaguchi prefecture, on the island of Honshu. The first group of NZANS went straight to Japan from Italy in 1946 and they were soon supplemented by approximately 100 more in four drafts between early 1946 and September 1948. Those initial nurses along with the troops had a life of relative hardship as they attempted to set up a hospital and a disused TB sanitorium, after initially being attached to the 130th Australian General Hospital, close to Hiroshima. They wrote how flimsy the accommodation was, how cold they felt. Just before the ^ NZGH moved in the building was described as full of broken windows, smelly and stagnant water, with dreary rooms holding 200 Japanese patients with TB.
After cleaning, disinfection and spraying with DDT for Mosquitoes, some of the first duties of the nurses were to care for patients with mumps during an epidemic. As it was soon winter, water drums froze over and the ice had to be cracked. Official documents note that the New Zealanders were “a hardy bunch and not very sickly, but they were ‘accident prone.” All food had to be tinned or sent from elsewhere due to the risks of radiation. Anecdotal stories from descendants suggest they felt that their mothers were affected by cancer at relatively young ages, and later research suggests the rates were potentially higher in the Jayforce Populations for leukaemia and lymphoma (based on studies of later radiation exposure).
Controversy existed on the return of nurses and troops as the RSA would not recognise their service as being eligible for membership of the RSA if they had only served in Jayforce, however some individual branches did include them as members. However, this did not formally change until 1956 for all Jayforce personnel and medals were not issued until 1995, almost 50 years after the service.
Newspaper cutting from album of Jean Fraser (WAAF) supplied by daughter Elsie Spink.
Sources for Notes
https://www.veteransaffairs.mil.nz/about-veterans-affairs/our-documents-and-publications/research/research-about-new-zealands-nuclear-veterans/
https://www.aucklandmuseum.com/war-memorial/online-cenotaph/features/jayforce
Copy of Display Information
❖ 12,000 NZers served as part of the Commonwealth Occupation forces to support the demilitarisation, physical and political rebuild of Japan.
❖ At least 30 NZNNS nurses went from Italy to form the 6 NZGH at rural Kiwa and connected by rail to the port of Kure where the troop ships docked. 100 more in 4 drafts from NZ.
❖ Basic conditions until the hospital (an old TB sanitorium) was restored. Illnesses include mosquito borne malaria and Japanese B encephalitis & frequent accidents.
❖ 12 nurses from Christchurch Hospital served with Jayforce - caring for Kiwi troops & the local population of Kiwa. They saw firsthand the effects of the Atomic Bomb. All food was tinned due to radiation concerns.
❖ Nurses spent time off sightseeing, playing sports against the troops & shopped in local markets. Silk fabric & kimonos were a popular purchase. The nurses were away for 3 - 18 months. One nurse reportedly brought home some pebbles she picked up at Hiroshima!
Jayforce veterans were not recognised by the RSA until1964 and did not receive service medals until 1995. All NZANS nurses were volunteers.
Image from Online Cenotaph, https://www.aucklandmuseum.com/war-memorial/online-cenotaph/features/jayforce (L-R) unknown nurse, Joan De Thier (Chch nurse), Iris Frazer unknown location possibly Italy before travelling to Japan.
Sources for poster display
· All images supplied by Wendy Maddocks, from private collection of images mostly unknown nurses.
· Map from: Source: R. Singh, Official History of the Indian Armed Forces in the Second World War 1939-45. Post War Occupation Forces: Japan and South-East Asia, Kanpur, 1958. (no known copyright).
· Other information from Archives NZ, Auckland War Memorial Online Cenotaph, https://kiwisoldier.wordpress.com/2021/09/01/jay-force-figures/,
· Laurie Brocklebank (1994). Master’s Thesis New Zealand and the military occupation of Japan 1945-48 Massey University,
