General News
6 August, 2022
Ivy Vera Delany - WW1 Nurse
Ivy Vera Delany was a Staff Nurse who served at the 60th 66th 43rd and 52nd General Hospitals.
By The Horsham RSL Sub-branch, Military History & Heritage Group
Ivy Vera Delany was a Staff Nurse who served at the 60th 66th 43rd and 52nd General Hospitals. Ivy was born in Horsham on January 12th 1890 to Edward Delany and Mary Healey, Edward died in 1923 and Mary in 1899.
Ivy was 28 years old and was working as a nurse at Horsham District Hospital when she enlisted on 26th May 1917 with Ivy naming her father Edward Delany of Firebrace Street Horsham as her next of kin.
In April 1917 an urgent request from the British Director General of Medical Services called for four contingents of AANS nurses to be dispatched to Salonika to increase the hospital services there. German submarines presented a constant threat in the Mediterranean and it was deemed safer to send Australian nurses via Egypt than from England, as the route was more dangerous. Each unit was allocated one Matron, ten AANS Sisters and eighty Staff Nurses. RMS Mooltan left Sydney in June 1917 with 215 nurses.
Ivy being on this contingent. From her record it states that Ivy embarked on HMAT Mooltan on 12th June 1917 from Melbourne when a total of 300 army nurses travelled to Suez arriving on 19th July 1917.
These units contained AANS personnel from all states; however the first contingent consisted mainly of nurses from the 3rd Military District (Victoria) led by Principal Matron Jessie McHardie White. She was directly responsible for the care of these nurses, as well as the overall welfare and administrative control of all nurses in Salonika. On orders of the Director of Medical Services, Egyptian Expeditionary Force, they were distributed to various British and Australian hospitals in Egypt. After the successful outcome of the campaign the nurses were sent to Salonika and arrived there in August 1918.
From her record Ivy Delany departed for Salonika in Greece on the “Chagres” on 26th July and on 31st July 1917 she joined 60th General Hospital was at Hortiach Salonika.
The nurses were stationed at several hospitals during the Balkan campaign. The first contingent took over No. 66 British Hospital, a tent hospital at Hortiach, about 20 kilometres from the city, high in the hills towards Bulgaria. However they moved down to No. 52 British General Hospital (BGH) at Kalamaria in about November 1917 (Ivy moved here earlier in August 1917).
These nurses moved several times, spending summers at Hortiach and winters close to the coast at Lembet.
On 14th August Ivy joined 66th hospital for duty, at Hortiach Salonika for duty. This hospital was 20 kms from the city in the hills towards Bulgaria.
For the duration of the campaign each contingent battled adverse conditions to ensure not just the welfare of their patients, but their own as well. AANS nurses suffered from deprivations and hardships, yet they proved their mettle and contributed to a legacy of military nursing of which we can only be proud.
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One of the contingent nurses described the difficulties of obtaining fresh food and how the sisters drew rations just as the soldiers did (though they did not use their rum ration!) Once a week they had iron rations, that is bully beef and biscuits. At other times the ‘home sister’ allocated to each hospital for the purposes of attempting to obtain fresh vegetables, eggs or milk would be successful. Matron McHardie White mentions that once the nurses were settled on the ground, their Red Cross supplies began to arrive and were of immense value. However, the water always remained of poor quality and had to be chlorinated.
Climatic conditions in which the nurses found themselves, “the winter was exceedingly severe; the wind known as the Vardar wind, being almost a blizzard. There were heavy falls of snow, and very low temperatures at night”. The extreme temperatures caused drugs, ink and hot water bottles to regularly freeze in the morning. Wintery conditions were a danger to the nurses as some fainted, while others were affected with carbon monoxide poisoning as fuel was almost impossible to obtain and the only means of heating came from charcoal burnt in braziers. Staff Nurse Lucy May Pitman wrote of the challenges of her first autumn and winter in Salonika when she was working at No. 60 BGH at Hortiach: Despite the harsh winters, there was little respite in the warmer months as the heat of the summers was as intense as the cold of the winters. improvised uniforms using white aprons and used sheets. The heat also contributed to the malaria which dominated the difficult summer months A ‘mosquito proof’ nurse would be clad in her working dress, huge gloves, rubber boots and thick veil, making it incredibly difficult to move and nurse
On 29th August 1917 Ivy was attached to 52nd General Hospital at Kalamaria Greece as a member of Staff
On 4th September Ivy was admitted to 43rd General Hospital with dysentery but marked as NYD {Not Yet Diagnosed}. After a spell in the Sisters Convalesce Camp she commenced nursing duties at the 52nd Hospital on 10th December 1917.
Her records indicate a Medical Board found her condition was “dysentery fit for light duties at home, contracted in the Service and under circumstances which she had no control, in a country where dysentery is prevalent”. This was dated 20th March 1918.
By August 1918 45 nurses had been sent back to Australia from Salonika and another 14 were waiting to go, mostly on grounds of ill health. Fortunately, although many sisters suffered greatly from malaria and dysentery (75 were invalided to Australia) only one was lost from the disease.
Although a request from the British Director General of Medical Services for additional Australian nurses was made in February 1918, it was opposed by Major General Neville Howse, the director of the AIF's medical services. In early September 1918 Howse recommended to AIF headquarters in France that the Australian nurses be withdrawn from Salonika. He argued that the original reason for sending them (the shipping threat in the Mediterranean) no longer applied, they were not nursing AIF soldiers and could be elsewhere, and that many were suffering from ill health. Despite this, the nurses remained in Greece until after the war ended.
On 30th March 1918 Ivy was “invalided to Australia” on the Wiltshire.
After regaining her health in Australia, Ivy was able to serve again and on 17th September 1918 she embarked as a member of staff on the Hospital Transport Kanowna A61 from Sydney.
On 7th November Ivy was granted leave in London and then on 15th December she was temporarily attached to the 3rd Australian General Hospital until 3rd January 1919 when she was again attached to the Hospital Transport Kanowna for the return trip to Australia arriving on 7th March 1919 and was discharged on 7th April 1919. She received the British War Medal and the Victory Medal.
In 1921 she was living at Dandenong Road, Armidale as an occupation Nurse
The AANS nurses would not have been sorry to finally leave Salonika in the first few months of 1919
Reference : WW1 Australian Nurses -National Library Of Victoria; Greensborough Historical Society World War 1 Project 2015- 2017; Extracts from Article Mettle & Steel: the ANNS in Salonika by Ashleigh Wadman