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Nursing Service. She wrote ‘to my bitter disappointment the Government would not release me from the Northern
Territory Medical Service.’
She continued with the Territory Medical Service until the military authorities advised her in 1940 that a
1 200 bed Army hospital was being established in Darwin and she was, much to her surprise, to be its Matron.
Known as the 119th Australian General Hospital, it was only established with great difficulty. The site selected
was at the Bagot Compound. As a temporary measure the Army, nurses were accommodated at the quarantine
station, some 10 kilometres away and were transported to and fro in Army trucks. The day following the arrival
of the unit a truck carrying a number of sisters met with a serious accident in which Sister High was seriously
injured, necessitating the amputation of her right arm at the civilian hospital. This cast a gloom over the unit but
the fortitude and example of Sister High became an inspiration for the rest of the staff.
New hospital buildings were being constructed at Berrimah, approximately 12 kilometres south of Darwin
and towards the end of 1941, this was sufficiently advanced for part to be used. On 30 December 1941 a medical
officer, White, six Sisters and three general duties men arrived at this new site to prepare it for occupation. As the
operating theatres were incomplete, only cases not requiring surgical treatment were transferred from Bagot.
On New Year’s Day 1942, 78 patients were transferred from Bagot and on 12 January, an officer and 12 men of
the United States Army Medical Corps were attached for duty. This proved to be of great assistance.
During December 1941 the Administrator, C L A Abbott, had decreed that all civilians were to be evacuated
from Darwin, and following the fall of Singapore the recently opened civilian hospital at Kahlin was taken over
by the Army. This hospital could accommodate 250 to 300 patients and a surgical team was sent there. Now the
119th was functioning in three different locations, Bagot, Berrimah and Kahlin, presenting the Matron and staff
with exceeding difficulty in administration and the rostering of staff. From the viewpoint of military planning the
three locations were bad. Kahlin was quite close to Larrakeyah Barracks, while Berrimah and Bagot were very
close to the civil aerodrome and the new Royal Australian Air Force base. These factors were to be significant in
the events that followed.
The hospital received its first battle casualties on 18 February when 11 badly wounded patients were admitted
from a convoy that had been attacked the previous day in the Timor Sea. Edith White remembered the next day.
She wrote, ‘The 19th February 1942 was a unique and memorable day for Australia when she was attacked by
enemy planes. At 10.45 am an Air raid warning was heard just as enemy bombers and fighters came over the town
of Darwin. For a few minutes, it was not realised by staff and patients that the armada of planes overhead was the
enemy approaching. The sound of bomb explosions and ack-ack fire soon disillusioned everyone. Patients were
placed under beds and those who could, made their way to the long grass. Others scrambled to the few slit trenches
which had recently been dug.’ On that day the hospital in three locations had to deal with casualties, both service
and civilian, resulting from the Japanese bombing of the town, the aerodrome and ships in the harbour. Among
ships hit was the hospital ship Manunda. White wrote that, ‘The bombing of the hospital ship Manunda was a
terrible blow. Thirteen of her staff were killed including one of the nursing staff, Sister de Mestre, while Sister
Blow was very seriously injured and others badly shocked.’ Among the casualties admitted that day were hundreds
of cases of burns from ships, the wharf and oil tanks. The facilities for treating these were poor. The nursing staff
worked for 36 hours without rest and on 20 February the most serious were transferred to Manunda, which, in spite
of the damage it had sustained, was seaworthy. Loading the wounded was difficult as the ship was anchored in the
harbour. Matron White praised the skill of those responsible. She wrote ‘the loading of the wounded took hours.
They were taken across from the land in barges to the Manunda which was anchored at a distance out. The way the
wounded were hauled up from the barges was really amazing; no praise is too great for those men who organized
and assisted with the task.’ Manunda sailed at 11.30 pm on 20 February 1942. White later gave her impressions of
the scene while the operation was taking place, ‘The wharf was still burning... and as I waited with four Sisters
who had volunteered to help the staff of the Manunda nurses, the whole scene was one of devastation; bodies were
washed up on the beaches. Men were collecting the dead and placing them on barges for burial at sea. It was sad
to see so many ships smouldering.’
Now the decision was taken to move the hospital once more, this time to Adelaide River. On 7 March 1942,
22 Sisters and 50 patients were transferred to Adelaide River with the result that Matron White now had her staff
scattered over an area stretching over 130 kilometres from Darwin: at Kahlin, Bagot, Noonamah and Adelaide
River.
The Camp Commandant at Adelaide River, Captain Victor Levitt, was notified that the nurses were coming
and asked to arrange accommodation. He had a small camp hospital alongside the 111 Convalescent Depot. These
units were based in Sidney Williams huts, made of steel frames and corrugated galvanised iron. The four Sisters of
the camp hospital had a hut divided into sleeping quarters and the rest furnished as a lounge. Levitt ordered that this
hut and another adjoining were to be used to house the Sisters soon to arrive. Adjustments were made to the space
used by the convalescent depot, and stretchers and blankets were hurriedly secured. An immediate unforeseen
problem was that whereas the hut previously occupied by the Sisters of the Camp Hospital had been screened with
a brush fence to give privacy to the occupants, there was no such luxury in the other hut now housing the Sisters
and this provided some unexpected entertainment after dark for men who had not seen women for some time.
The darkened bush all around was used as a ‘viewing area’ until measures were taken by Levitt to overcome this.
The new location for the hospital, particularly the huts to be used as wards, revealed further difficulties.
While now sited away from the area up to now attacked by the enemy, this new site was sur
rounded by what could be regarded as legitimate targets. Within a kilometre’s radius, there were an ammunition
depot, stores, petrol and oil supplies and troop encampments. At the same time as the hospital arrived a troop of
artillery with 25 Pounder guns was sited within a few metres of the wards. Also, the Sisters going on duty from