Bibliograph

Edith Blake's war, the only Australian nurse killed in action during the First World War, Krista Vane-Tempest

Type

Label

Edith Blake's war, the only Australian nurse killed in action during the First World War, Krista Vane-Tempest

Language

eng

Bibliography note

Includes bibliographical references

resource.biographical

individual biography

Illustrations

platesportraitsillustrations

Index

no index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

Edith Blake's war

Nature of contents

bibliography

Responsibility statement

Krista Vane-Tempest

Sub title

the only Australian nurse killed in action during the First World War

Summary

In the early hours of 26 February 1918, the British hospital ship Glenart Castle steamed into the Bristol Channel, heading for France to pick up wounded men from the killing fields of the Western Front. On board was 32yearold Australian nurse, Edith Blake. After being torpedoed by a German Uboat, the Glenart Castle took minutes to sink. Of the 182 on board, 153 perished including all eight nurses. After missing out on joining the Australian Army, in 1915 Edith Blake was one of 130 Australian nurses allocated to the Queen Alexandra's Imperial Nursing Service by the British government. In very personal letters to her family back home Edith shares her homesickness, frustration with military rules, and the culture shock of Egypt. In Edith Blake's War, her great niece Krista VaneTempest traces Edith's story from training in Sydney to her war service in the Middle East and the Mediterranean; her conflicted feelings about nursing German prisoners of war as German aircraft bombed England, to her death in waters where Germany had promised the safe passage of hospital ships

Target audience

adult

Creator