Happy Corps Day to the Royal New Zealand Nursing Corps!

Happy Corps Day to the Royal New Zealand Nursing Corps!

Happy Corps Day to the Royal New Zealand Nursing Corps!
 
We would like to wish a happy Corps Day to one of the smallest, yet highly skilled, corps in the New Zealand Army, the Royal New Zealand Nursing Corps.
 
As the only military nursing service in New Zealand, and with a history stretching from the Second Boer War to present-day, the Nursing Corps is well worth recognition for its fundamental role in the history of the New Zealand Army. Without the skill and courage of its nurses and nursing officers, many more New Zealanders would have died due to the wounds sustained in battle or from illness.
 
Nurses serve with the same duty, patriotism and dedication, and endure the same dangers and discomforts as the soldiers they work alongside. At times, they experience trauma far worse than most, as can be imagined for Sister Wray Cecile Corsbie in WWII. She joined JayForce as a Bacteriologist (a civilian, but with the rank of Sister) and was sent to 6 NZGH (NZ General Hospital) in Kiwa, Japan. 
 
We are lucky to have Sister Corsbie’s sewing kit/comfort in our collection, something she would have needed and used regularly in her time in Japan. Although in general the nursing staff were treated well, women still needed to be escorted outside camp environments and did not have the opportunity to go shopping often. Shopping did come to them though via a little gift train (which visited all the local military camps) and stocked clothing, fabrics, and stockings as well as many other useful items. Sister Corsbie would have had to make do with what she already had if it was not available for her to purchase, so her trusty sewing kit would have seen its fair share of use.
 
Her military service in Kiwa, only a few hours on the train from Hiroshima, was in the aftermath of the atomic bomb drop. The Japanese were in a poor state after years of fighting and the hospital had inadequate facilities and high workloads. Things Sister Corsbie would have faced and had to deal with day-to-day included poor hygiene, inoculations, venereal disease, mumps, typhus, cholera etc, as well as no doubt the emotional and physical effects of war and the after effects of a nuclear bomb.
 
We salute the selfless spirit of the nurses of the RNZNC, past and present, who diligently perform to the best of their abilities in whatever situation they find themselves in. From all of us here at the National Army Museum Te Mata Toa, happy Corps Day and thank you for your enduring service.