In the First World War, Olive Haynes volunteered to serve overseas with the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) as a member of the Australian Army Nursing Service. Olive is remembered by all her descendants for her service and sacrifice. LEST WE FORGET
Australian War Stories ANSWERING THE CALL When Britain declared war on Germany in August 1914, as a dominion of the British Empire, Australia was also at war. The outbreak of hostilities were greeted with enthusiasm by the Australian public. Olive Lillian Haynes was among the more than 330,000 Australians, including nearly 3,000 nurses, who volunteered to serve overseas between 1914 and 1918. An extraordinary number from a population of under five million. Their wartime journeys took them to far-flung battlefields at Gallipoli, on the Western Front and in the Middle East. For the ANZACs the adventure was to become a nightmare. In the quagmire that was Belgium and Northern France – where over 295,000 Australians served – 46,000 lost their lives and over 130,000 were wounded. For the soldiers and nurses who returned to Australia, many bore the scars of their experience for the rest of their lives. DISCOVER the personal story of your ANZAC hero at: australianwarstories.memories.com.au 📄 ‣ Australian nursing recruitment poster by David Souter c. 1914. (Courtesy: State Library NSW) 🎞 ‣ Soldiers voices, dramatised and archival footage of the Western Front campaign. (Courtesy: Sir John Monash Centre, © Commonwealth of Australia 2018)
Australian War Stories ALL SIGNED UP At the age of 26, Adelaide-born Olive Lillian Creswell Haynes joined the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) as a member of the Australian Army Nursing Corp. Olive had trained and worked as a nurse at Adelaide Hospital for four years before enlisting. Olive duly completed the AIF enlistment form – called the ‘Attestation Paper’. She noted that her home state was South Australia and confirmed her age, occupation and marital status. Olive advised that her next of kin was her father, Reverend Haynes. On the second page of the Attestation Paper she made the following oath in the presence of the Attesting Officer: “I, Olive HAYNES … swear that I will well and truly serve our Sovereign Lord the King in the Australian Imperial Force until the end of the War … SO HELP ME, GOD.” DISCOVER the personal story of your ANZAC hero at: australianwarstories.memories.com.au 📄 ‣ First page of the Attestation Paper signed by Olive Haynes, © Commonwealth of Australia (National Archives of Australia) 2019
Australian War Stories FIT FOR ACTIVE SERVICE Like all new nursing recruits, Olive underwent a thorough medical examination. She was found to be free of a wide range of conditions that would “unfit her for duties,” including “impaired constitution” and “defects of vision, voice or hearing.” The Examining Medical Officer stated that Olive “can see the required distance with either eye; her heart and lungs are healthy; she has the free use of her joints; and she declares she is not subject to fits of any description. I consider her fit for active service.” DISCOVER the personal story of your ANZAC hero at: australianwarstories.memories.com.au 📷 ‣ Sister Olive Haynes was 26 when she embarked for Egypt. (Portrait courtesy Marnie Watts)
Australian War Stories ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Australian War Stories and Memories gratefully acknowledge the support of News Corp Australia in honouring our first ANZACs. Sister Olive Haynes’ memorial produced with content provided by the National Anzac Centre (NAC) where her story is featured. 📷 ‣ Granddaughter Marnie Watts in front of Olive’s display at the NAC. DISCOVER the personal story of your ANZAC hero at: australianwarstories.memories.com.au 📄 ‣ Enlistment and embarkation details sourced from digitised records in the public domain held at the National Archives of Australia and the Australian War Memorial. Images and video from the Australian War Memorial, National Archives of Australia, National Film & Sound Archive and the Sir John Monash Centre © Commonwealth of Australia and reproduced using Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia and International 4.0 licences. Content curated and produced by Mediality Pty Ltd © 2022. IMPORTANT NOTE: whilst every effort has been made to verify the accuracy of this memorial timeline content, including personal data, enlistment and embarkation details, on occasion primary sources contain conflicting detail and omissions.
Australian War Stories ARRIVING IN EGYPT HMAT Kyarra, with Olive on-board, arrived at Aden before sailing up the Suez Canal to Alexandria in Egypt – a land that had seen more armies than almost any other. It was here, in the shadow of the pyramids, that the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps would be first grouped together under the now hallowed acronym ‘ANZAC’. Olive was posted to the No. 2 Australian General Hospital at Mena House near the pyramids, previously a tourist hotel. The initial months were not particularly busy, with Olive and the other nurses patched-up any injuries from the soldier’s training. They also provided treatment for increasing cases of smallpox, measles, pneumonia and later cholera. DISCOVER the personal story of your ANZAC hero at: australianwarstories.memories.com.au 📷 ‣ HMAT Orvieto arriving at Alexandria in December 1914. (Photo by Phillip Schuler, courtesy Australian War Memorial, PS0375) 📷 ‣ General Birdwood addresses Australian nurses in Cairo in early 1915. (Courtesy: Marnie Watts) 📷 ‣ No. 2 Australian General Hospital at Mena House. (Courtesy: Marnie Watts)
Australian War Stories AUSTRALIAN ARMY NURSING SERVICE Olive Haynes was a member of the Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS). The AANS was formed in 1902 by combining the nursing services of the colonial-era militaries and the Australian Army Medical Corps (AAMC). Nurses were recruited from both the nursing services and the civilian workforce. They were aged between 25 to 40 and most often educated and qualified. Although in early 1916, the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) gave them officer rank, these women were paid around half of what the male officers received. Wages were so low some received financial support from their families back home. They served at field and base hospitals in Australia as well as in Egypt, England and across the Western and Middle Eastern Fronts. Some suffered physical and mental injuries as they were exposed to the huge casualties from battles. Other challenges included exposure to poor facilities, lack of staff, disease, harsh climate and gas and bomb attacks. Around 2,861 women joined the AANS for overseas service, with hundreds more serving with the Royal Australian Navy Nurses, and with organisations such as the Red Cross and for home service in Australia. DISCOVER the personal story of your ANZAC hero at: australianwarstories.memories.com.au 📷 ‣ Lieutenant Hugo Throssell VC at Wandsworth Hospital in England recovering from wounds received at Gallipoli. The Australian nurse is not identified. (Courtesy: Australian War Memorial, 00516-003) 🎞 ‣ Dramatised and archival footage of nurses on the Western Front. (Courtesy: Sir John Monash Centre © Commonwealth of Australia 2018)
Australian War Stories NURSE TOURISTS On their few days off, Olive and her friends took in the sights of Cairo, went sailing, rode camels and climbed the pyramids. Many had their own cameras and took photos at the top of the Grand Pyramid and in front of The Sphinx. DISCOVER the personal journey of your ANZAC hero at: australianwarstories.memories.com.au 📷 ‣ Sister Olive Haynes and friends relax away from duties at the hospital in early 1915. (Photos courtesy: Marnie Watts, Olive’s granddaughter)
Australian War Stories GALLIPOLI WOUNDED The real test for Sister Olive Haynes came in late April and May when casualties from the Gallipoli landings began to arrive. On 29th April she recorded in her diary: “Over 2,000 landed at Alexandria.” The 2nd Australian General Hospital became so overcrowded that in May a second hospital was opened in the nearby Ghezireh Palace Hotel. For the next four months, staff ferried between the two sites, struggling to contend with continual arrivals of several hundred cases at a time. In addition to wounded soldiers, many were victims of the typhoid and dysentery spreading through the trenches. Their infections were exacerbated by the severe heat and the huge numbers of flies. Olive described a ‘ghastly smell like decomposing mummies’ in the hospital. 📷 ‣ Wounded soldiers from Gallipoli being taken aboard the Gascon hospital ship in May 1915. (Courtesy: Australian War Memorial, A02740) 📷 ‣ Gallipoli wounded being transferred to a hospital train in Alexandria, 1915. (Courtesy: Australian War Memorial, H12939) 📷 ‣ Olive Haynes (third from left) and colleagues at a Mena Hospital tent overflowing with wounded diggers. (Courtesy: Marnie Watts)
Australian War Stories TAKING ITS TOLL Long and arduous shifts and insufficient staff were beginning to take their toll on the nurses. Olive recorded in her diary: “On all day … hotter and hotter. Night duty tonight at 12.00. I’m sure I’ll never get up. Never felt so tired in my life.” Although granted one week of respite in Alexandria from 2 to 9 August, she returned to the massive casualties from the August offensive on Gallipoli. On 11 August she wrote: “Another convoy 400 … Didn’t get off until 2.30am – on again at 7.00 – very busy.” Overworked and weak, many nurses also became ill – Olive wrote about a number of sisters who died from infections such as septicaemia. 📷 ‣ Sister Olive Haynes (right) in the operating theatre at 2nd Australian General Hospital. (Courtesy: Marnie Watts)
Australian War Stories LEMNOS ISLAND Sister Olive Haynes transferred to Lemnos Island on 18 September 1915. Located less than 100 kilometres from the Gallipoli peninsula, Lemnos had become a major staging and medical base for the Gallipoli campaign. Olive joined No.2 Australian Stationary Hospital and found serious shortages in tents and beds as hospital ships with up to 700 casualties arrived at the harbour. She wrote in her diary: ‘poor old chaps lying everywhere,’ suffering further because of inadequate water supplies and terrible sanitation. Olive herself endured ramshackle tents, half rations and ailments such as neuralgia, lumbago and dysentery. Conditions only worsened as winter approached, bringing with it severe winds and rain. The 1915 November and December blizzards caused particular hardships, as well as a surge in the number of frostbite victims from Gallipoli. DISCOVER the personal journey of your ANZAC hero at: australianwarstories.memories.com.au 📷 ‣ Then and now: Lemnos Island and the No.2 Australian Stationary Hospital in 1915. (Courtesy: State Library NSW) 📷 ‣ Nurses outside of their huts on Lemnos Island. (Courtesy: Marnie Watts)
Australian War Stories LEAVING FOR FRANCE Following the successful evacuations of Gallipoli in December, work for Lemnos medical staff eased and Olive returned to Egypt for two months. On 26 March 1916 she embarked on HMHS Braemer Castle for Marseilles to support troops on the Western Front. Olive spent the next two months in Marseilles with the 2nd Australian General Hospital. With the exception of a spate of smallpox in mid-May, work was steadier here, and when not nursing she enjoyed occasional leisure time and the coastal countryside. DISCOVER the personal journey of your ANZAC hero at: australianwarstories.memories.com.au 📷 Olive (right in hat) having afternoon tea with friends at the Red Cross in Luxor, Egypt, in early 1916. (Courtesy: Marnie Watts) 📷 Calm before storm: watercolour of a peaceful French village. (Courtesy: State Library NSW)
Australian War Stories THE WESTERN FRONT Olive was about to experience the horror that was the Western Front. She joined the No. 13 Stationary Hospital (13SH) in Boulogne on 14 June. Within days she recorded arrivals of three convoys a day flooding into the hospital. In a letter to her parents on 16 July, Olive wrote: “Convoys of wounded coming in all the time and, poor dears, they are so badly wounded … Both legs, an arm, head and back [wounds] all on one man is quite common, and such a lot dying.” In another letter to her mother, she explained that 13SH received ‘all the worst wounds’ because it specialised in surgical cases: “They have a special Jaw Ward here, where they have all the smashed-up faces, and really they do wonders. They have a special French sculptor – most frighteningly clever – who makes news jaws and noses and faces.” 📷 ‣ Olive sent this photograph of a patient at Boulogne to her mother in July 1916. She explained that he “has compound fractures … of both arms, three wounds in his head, lost his left eye, and [is] wounded in the chest. He had a haemorrhage after the photo was taken.” (Courtesy: Marnie Watts)
Australian War Stories TO THE FRONTLINE In August 1916 Olive was transferred to the newly established No. 2 Australian Casualty Clearing Station (2 ACCS). Situated close to the front line at Trois Arbres, 2 ACCS was very vulnerable to enemy attacks. On 25 August, soon after her arrival, Haynes wrote to her mother: “We had a bit of excitement the other morning picking up bits of shell and shrapnel which landed just outside the tent … The aeroplanes are always flying around here above us and, as soon as the Germans spot them, they open fire and we do the same when theirs appear. There is a huge gun just near us … when it fires the windows smash in the houses around and everything shakes.” While at 2 ACCS, Olive also first spoke of having to deal with the deaths of her patients, many of whom she had become close to. In a letter to her mother on 12 September, she wrote: “They call dying ‘going west’ … We always write to their mothers if they die. I have had some of the sweetest letters from the poor mothers … it is so sad to see them die … You’d give anything or do anything to save them.” 📷 ‣ Australian wounded at a Casualty Clearing Station on the Western Front in 1916. (Courtesy: Australian War Memorial, EZ0066)
Australian War Stories THE CARNAGE CONTINUES After two weeks of leave in London in January 1917, Olive travelled to Wimereux to work again with 2nd Australian General Hospital. It was a large central hospital which treated thousands of patients and evacuated many back to England. Olive remained there until the end of the year, observing at first hand the war on the Western Front. Olive faced casualties from the terrible fighting at Ypres and Passchendaele. She wrote to her mother on 19 August: “We are very busy again. Kept going pretty well all the time.” Medical staff were among the victims she treated: “Ever so many Sisters have been wounded and some killed. There were a few brought up the other day and one has lost an eye and the other eye has almost gone.” 📷 ‣ Dead horses on Menin road beyond Ypres in 1917 – photo by Frank Hurley. (Courtesy: Australian War Memorial, E00700) 📷 ‣ Nurses at an Australian Hospital dugout in Wimereux France. (Courtesy: Australian War Memorial, H04152)
Australian War Stories HOMEWARD BOUND At the end of February 1918, Olive embarked on RMS Llandstephan to return home to Australia. Olive had married an Australian soldier, Pat Dooley, in the December at Oxford, England. At the time, women who married during active service were forced to resign from the AIF. In Australia, Olive was reunited with her husband who had been repatriated earlier due to serious wounds. After the war, Olive and Pat started a life together in Melbourne, Dooley’s home town. Over the next 60 years they raised a family of seven children and 17 grandchildren. DISCOVER the personal story of your ANZAC hero at: australianwarstories.memories.com.au 📷 ‣ Olive (far right) on her return voyage to Australia. (Courtesy: Marnie Watts)
Australian War Stories PEACE AT LAST At 11am on 11 November 1918, Germany signed the Armistice that would bring the war to an end. In cities and towns across Australia people celebrated in the streets. The headline on the front page of the Melbourne Argus read: ‘The City Rejoices,’ and a report in The Sydney Morning Herald noted that the Inspector of Police had instructed his officers “to give reasonable latitude to persons who may be inclined to be somewhat boisterous in their peace celebrations.” And so it was across the country, finally at peace after a war that had left over 60,000 Australians dead and 156,000 wounded – proportionally one of the highest casualty rates of any of the Allied countries. DISCOVER the personal journey of your ANZAC hero at: australianwarstories.memories.com.au 📷 ‣ Returned soldiers and supporters celebrating Armistice in Sydney. (Fairfax Photos) 🎞 ‣ Armistice on the Western Front – dramatised and archive footage. (Courtesy: Sir John Monash Centre, © Commonwealth of Australia 2018)
Australian War Stories ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Australian War Stories and Memories gratefully acknowledge the support of News Corp Australia in honouring our first ANZACs. Sister Olive Haynes’ memorial produced with content provided by the National Anzac Centre (NAC) where her story is featured. 📷 ‣ Granddaughter Marnie Watts in front of Olive’s display at the NAC. DISCOVER the personal story of your ANZAC hero at: australianwarstories.memories.com.au 📄 ‣ Enlistment and embarkation details sourced from digitised records in the public domain held at the National Archives of Australia and the Australian War Memorial. Images and video from the Australian War Memorial, National Archives of Australia, National Film & Sound Archive and the Sir John Monash Centre © Commonwealth of Australia and reproduced using Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia and International 4.0 licences. Content curated and produced by Mediality Pty Ltd © 2022. IMPORTANT NOTE: while every effort has been made to verify the accuracy of this memorial timeline content, including personal data, enlistment and embarkation details, on occasion primary sources contain conflicting detail and omissions.