Women in War

As we commemorate ANZAC Day, it is timely to acknowledge the significant part women of the Illawarra have played in war, on the home front, in caring for the wounded and contributing to surveillance. Two local women for whom Wollongong City Library holds information are Alice Thompson and Carol North.

At age 23 Alice Jane Thompson of Balgownie enlisted with the Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS) as a nurse on 20 March 1917, during World War 1. She then embarked from Sydney aboard RMS Mooltan and served in Greece.

Information from Nurse Thompson at the time shows that 40 of the 300 nurses who left Australia on the ill-fated Mooltan were selected to proceed to Salonika, she being one of them. She states that most of the cases so far are sickness owing to the terrible heat and says she is not sorry that she came and if she had to choose over again, she would do the same, as too much cannot be done for the boys who are fighting and bleeding for us all.

After the war, Alice Thompson was kept in quarantine due to influenza. She married Dr Theo Allen in England on 16 January 1919, which resulted in her discharge from the AANS; they then returned to Australia on 23 January 1919. Alice received the British War and Victory medals, and a Greek Medal for Military Merit. Sadly, she died on 6 June 1922 and was buried at Wollongong.

Carol North, a local resident of Coledale, who passed away on 2 December 2021, was a radio operator in WWII. She was interviewed by Samantha Figueroa, one of Wollongong Libraries’ Local Studies team in April last year. You can listen to the interview here.

The abbreviated account below explains her training and service.

“We did the Morse code in at Flemington Racecourse, six months training … I was posted to Queensland … I worked in several places there. The last place was Amberley and that was underground and we had a lake on the top of us. It looked like a lake … we were working secretly underneath the glass top …

“When we went on duty and off duty we had to go into Brisbane into the secret place, which was behind a cigarette stall. So, we used to go in the cigarette stall, at the back was a huge radio organisation, and we learnt there.

“Everything we took was in Morse code and we used to listen very intensely for the airwaves. Then if we heard a strange plane, which in those days was Japanese planes flying everywhere, we would take their code number… [it was] given to General MacArthur’s helpers … They would decode the messages … that was very, very secret at the time. No one actually knew where the Air Force was working with the radios. That was exciting.”

Visit illawarrastories.com.au and find WW1 stories at www.illawarraremembers.com.au