Seventy-eight died, some through accident or illness, but most as a result of enemy action or while prisoners of war. At first, the AANS was the only women's service.
By June 1945, the number of Army Nurses in the E.T.O. reached a peak of 17,345. Army Nurses received 1,619 Medals, Citations and Commendations during WW2, reflecting their courage and dedication. In total, 201 Nurses died while serving.
Twenty-five Australian nurses died during the war and eight were awarded the Military Medal for bravery.
In 1942, a group of Australian nurses were murdered by Japanese soldiers in what came to be known as the Bangka Island massacre. Now, a historian has collated evidence indicating they were sexually assaulted beforehand - and that Australian authorities allegedly hushed it up.
An estimated 1,500 nurses from a number of countries lost their lives during World War I. Some died from disease or accidents, and some from enemy action.
Eventually, some 5,000 Australian nurses served in a variety of locations, including the Middle East, the Mediterranean, Britain, Asia, the Pacific, and Australia. Seventy-eight died, some through accident or illness, but most as a result of enemy action or while prisoners of war.
Records show that 2861 women in the AANS served overseas during World War I. Of those women, 25 died during their service. The nurses worked in many countries, including Belgium, Egypt, England, France, Greece and India: at Australian and Allied hospitals near the action and behind the lines in England.
1957: Prime Minister Kishi Nobusuke said to the people of Australia: "It is my official duty, and my personal desire, to express to you and through you to the people of Australia, our heartfelt sorrow for what occurred in the war."
Unprepared for coping with so many captured European prisoners, the Japanese held those who surrendered to them in contempt, especially the women. The men at least could be put to work as common laborers, but women and children were "useless mouths." This attitude would dictate Japanese policy until the end of the war.
The Australians captured by the Japanese in early 1942 included fifty-nine women who were serving with the Australian Army Nursing Service. Six nurses were captured on New Britain in late January 1942 and were transferred six months later to Japan.
Its casualties from enemy action during the war were 27,073 killed and 23,477 wounded. Many more suffered from tropical disease, hunger, and harsh conditions in captivity; of the 21,467 Australian prisoners taken by the Japanese, only 14,000 survived.
Landing at Anzac Cove
Neither side succeeded. Some 8,700 Australians lost their lives and some 18,000 were wounded during the campaign. The most successful operation of the campaign was the evacuation which ended on 19–20 December 1915, conducted under a well-planned deception operation.
Among the more than 27,000 American military personnel held as POWs in the Pacific were 77 US military nurses.
In the summer of 1944, the service of army and navy nurses was finally recognized as full military service when women in both Nurse Corps were commissioned as officers into their respective branches. By the end of the War, more than 59,000 women served in the Army Nurse Corps and around 11,000 in the Navy Nurse Corps.
These two nursing corps grew in numbers during the war, with 11,000 women serving in the Navy Nurse Corps, and 57,000 in the Army Nurse Corps. In 1944, nurses in both corps finally received commissions and full benefits equal to women in the Women's Army Corps.
Over his 16-year career, Cullen is confirmed to have murdered 29 patients, and is believed to have killed as many as 400 people in total through multiple means, including covertly dosing them with drugs like insulin and digoxin.
During World War II, Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany (towards Soviet POWs and Western Allied commandos) were notorious for atrocities against prisoners of war.
The reasons for the Japanese behaving as they did were complex. The Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) indoctrinated its soldiers to believe that surrender was dishonourable. POWs were therefore thought to be unworthy of respect.
This force was intended to defend the Japanese mainland in case of invasion, but due to Japan's surrender in August that year, it was never properly mobilized. There were 2.3 million military deaths, of whom 1.4 million died away from the battlefield, succumbing to disease and starvation.
The Australia-Japan economic relationship is underpinned by complementary strengths and needs. Australia is a safe, secure and reliable supplier of food, energy and mineral resources and a world-class centre for financial and other services.
Japanese plans
In early March 1942, the Japanese had debated what to do now that Japan had so easily gained her objectives. The Navy wanted to invade Australia and deny the country as a base to either America or Britain. The Army felt it did not have the strength to invade and fully occupy so vast a continent.
The Japanese Army opposed the Navy's proposal as being impractical. The Army's focus was on defending the perimeter of Japan's conquests, and it believed that invading Australia would over-extend these defence lines.
Around 3000 Australian nurses served as part of the Australian Army Nursing Service in places as diverse as Egypt , England , France , Gallipoli , Italy , Burma , Salonica and India .
The estimate provided by the Australian War Memorial is 8,141 but, as is the case with virtually all casualty figures, this number has varied somewhat over the years and slightly different figures are cited in other sources.