New Zealand Post has issued a set of 10 stamps called 1915, the Spirit of ANZAC, New Zealand’s Story. On the cover of the booklet is a photo of a nurse, Evelyn Brooke, who was born in New Plymouth, in 1879. She was one of more than 500 New Zealand nurses who served overseas during the First World War.
In 1915, she was on the hospital ship, the Maheno, which was anchored off the beach at Anzac Cove. Soldiers who were sick or wounded were treated on the ship and then taken back to hospitals in Egypt or Malta. The ship made 6 of these trips between August and November 1915. This was dangerous because of mines, torpedoes and sniper fire from the hills of Anzac Cove. Working on the ship was difficult in the heat with sea sickness, a shortage of space and supplies, and many seriously wounded patients. She then worked in hospitals for New Zealand soldiers in England and France during the war. She was awarded a Royal Red Cross medal in 1917 and a bar to this medal in 1919.
By the time the war ended, New Zealand’s two hospital ships had carried more than 47,000 sick and wounded soldiers.
Another stamp shows the Marquette Memorial window in the Nurses’ Chapel at Christchurch hospital. The ship, the Marquette, was torpedoed in October 1915 in the Aegean Sea. On board were 741 soldiers and medical staff. 161 were drowned. 10 of those who died were nurses and 22 were doctors and medical assistants. The Nurses’ chapel was built in the 1920s to remember these people. The chapel was damaged by the earthquakes in 2011 and is still closed, waiting for repairs.
Vocabulary
• anchored – staying in one place in the water
• mines – explosives under the water
• torpedoes – explosives fired from a ship
• sniper fire – gun fire from a shooter who is hidden
• wounded – injured during a war
• award (v and n) – a prize or a medal for service or excellence
• bar to a medal – same as two medals