Connection with the Hunter Valley – Staff Nurse Gertrude Burns was a resident of the Upper Hunter and is named on Muswellbrook Citizens’ Memorial.  She trained at Newcastle Hospital.

Training and experience – graduated from Newcastle Hospital 1917.

Service – Australian  Army Nursing Service (AANS)

Service location – Sea Transport and UK

Medals – British War Medal

        More detail and references:

Enlisted – 11 September 1917, age 30

Residence before embarkation – Muswellbrook

Port of embarkation, vessel and date – Sydney / Ormonde / 2 March 1918

Return to Australia – 12 December 1918 (on troopship recalled on account of Armistice)

Next-of-kin as indicated in service record – father, Mr Caleb Charles Burns, “Glenthorpe”, Sydney Road, Muswellbrook

Medals  – British War Medal

Discharged – January1919

Relative in AIF – Brothers, Francis Henry Burns, Australian Army Medical Corps, and Vincent Burns, 1^st Field Artillery Brigade.

Honour roll – Muswellbrook Citizens’ Memorial

Marital status / married surname       Single

Where born / parents – Katoomba (registered at Lithgow) / Caleb C and Elizabeth  Burns

Notes – A Gertrude Alice Burns was working as a nurse at Woodville Red Cross Home, Randwick in 1922.  It was not uncommon for returned army nurses to find employment in hospitals and homes for returned men.

Do you know more?

References:

NA-Aust B2455 BURNS G A

Nominal Roll of the First AIF, Australian War Memorial (AWM) AWM133, 07-050

Embarkation Roll of the First AIF,  AWM Sea Transport Staff – 1 to 10 Sections (July 1916 – December 1918)

AWM Australian Army Nursing Service in Egypt Part 1, June 1916 – April 1918

Sydney Morning Herald, 16 July 1918, 10 November 1922

© Christine Bramble 2013