In the First World War, Olive Lillian Creswell HAYNES volunteered to serve overseas with the Australian Imperial Force (AIF). She embarked at Melbourne, Victoria aboard HMAT Kyarra on 5 December 1914 as a member of the Australian Army Nursing Service.The nurses never landed at Gallipoli itself, but they were stationed on the nearby Island of Lemnos.
Olive found it really hard at first to deal with the dying soldiers … some of them were so very young 16, 17, 18 years of age, and she really found that very hard that such young boys were being lost. But she also felt for the families left behind at home and so she always made an effort to write to the mothers of the soldiers who died in her care to let them know how the soldiers’ last days or hours were … and to try and put the mothers’ minds at rest, or to care for the mothers as best as she could, so she was caring for the boys as well as for their families.
Jenni Hubert talks with Marnie Watts who shares her grandmothers amazing journey…