Recently the Australian Embassy in Greece paid tribute to the war service of a nurse from Ballarat, Sister Gertrude Eveyln Munro.
In a formal ceremony held at the Allied War Cemetery at Mikra, on the outskirts of Thessaloniki, the Australian Defence Attache from the Australian Embassy in Athens, Captain Bruce Legge, laid a wreath at her grave. The solemn service was attended by the Greek Military Police and other Defence Attaches accredited to Greece.
Sister Munro had succumbed to the twin illnesses of pneumonia and malaria on 10 October 1918, barely a few weeks before the war with the Ottoman Empire came at an end with the signing of the Armistice of Mudros at Lemnos on 31 October 1918. How sad for someone who had served the sick and wounded of the First World War for over two years.
Gertrude was born at Alfredton, Ballarat in 1882, educated at Ballarat’s Queen’s College and gained her nursing training at Ballarat Hospital. Joining the Australian Army Nursing Service in August 1916, she departed Melbourne aboard the RMS Mooltan – the same transport that had taken many of the Australian nurses who served on Lemnos during the Gallipoli campaign.
Her initial war service would see her treating war casualties at military hospitals in India, established to treat the wounded and sick from the campaign being fought in Mesopotamia, modern day Iraq. By August 1917, Gertrude arrived at the great port of Thessaloniki, Greece’s second city. It was here that she would treat the sick and wounded from the fronts that stretched across northern Greece, from the Adriatic to the coast of Thrace, in what was referred to as the Salonika campaign.
It has been my pleasure to have researched, written articles and made presentations on the Australian involvement in this campaign. In the process of this research, I was fortunate to meet a number of the descendants of veterans of the campaign, including the late Gil Easton, whose Welsh-born mother Edith Jeremiah from Wonthaggi served there.
As part of this research, a few years ago I was asked by Col (Ret) Jan McCarthy to review the photographic collection held by the RSL Victoria Nurses Sub-Branch. These had been donated over the years by nurse veterans and their families. One unnamed collection contains a photograph of the Thessaloniki waterfront and city, the view that Gertrude would have seen as she arrived.
The Salonika campaign had begun in 1915 as the Gallipoli campaign drew to its end and would last until the end of the war in October 1918. The campaign would see hundreds of thousands of Allied troops face a similar number of enemy troops, from Bulgaria, Austria-Hungary and Germany. The Allied troops were drawn from many nations – mainly British and French troops as well as those of Greece and Yugoslavia, and even a small number of Australian and New Zealanders. Some of these Australians would go on to serve in Greece in 1941, like Major Ned Herring from Maryborough in Victoria, not far from Gertrude’s Ballarat.
Gertrude was part of a large contingent of some 450 Australian nurses. Most of the nurses served in four British Hospitals, all led by 47 year old Principal Matron Jessie McHardie White from Yarra Flats, near Healesville and also a Gallipoli veteran. Gertrude would serve at the 66th British General Hospital and then the 42nd British General Hospital, being promoted to Temporary Head Sister at the latter.
While they would record their short periods of leave, enjoying the sights and famed hospitality of Thessaloniki, the nurses and other medical staff were soon overwhelmed by wounded and diseased soldiers. The conditions endured by Gertrude and the other Australian nurses were poor. Summers brought heat, dust and the malaria-bearing mosquito, winter brought rain, snow and cold. Food was poor and the hospitals often suffered attacks by marauders.
Dysentery and malaria were rampant – the latter accounting for ten times more hospital admissions than battle casualties. Many nurses fell ill. It was in this environment that Gertrude became ill and died at the 43rd British General Hospital. She was 36 years old. She was buried with full military honours, Chaplain Strong conducting the service.
News of her death were reported back in Australia, the Weekly Times newspaper on 26th October 1918 quoting one of her fellow nurses that “Sister Munro had a most lovable nature and was a general favourite. The news of her death will be received with the deepest regret by all the nurses with whom she has worked and the patients she has tended. I heard a matron of the British Regular Army say that Sister Munro was the type of nurse who would be a comfort to any nursing administrator. She was skilled in her profession, a reliable domestic manager, and a lovable woman.”
Gertrude’s grave has often been visited by Australian’s seeking to honour her service. I have visited it on a number of occasions, taking tour groups to her grave. In 2018 a group from the Ballarat Base Hospital Trained Nurses League laid a symbolic wreath of knitted poppies at her grave.
Gertrude is one of five Australians killed on the Salonika Front – Sapper E. Heron from Cottesloe in Western Australia is buried near her at Mikra War Cemetery, while South Yarra’s Major Jack Hughston is at Sarigol War Cemetery and Second Lieutenant Donald Glasson at Skopje War Cemetery. Sydney’s Lieutenant Ralph Cullen is remembered on the British War Memorial at Doiran.
Not far from Gertrude’s grave in Mikra Cemetery stands the memorial to the HMT Marquette disaster, in which 167 New Zealand soldiers and medical staff, including ten nurses, died as a result of the enemy attack on their transport as it approached Thessaloniki.
Remembering Gertrude and the Salonika Nurses – in Greece and Australia
Gertrude was the only Australian nurse to die on service in Greece during the First World War. It is fitting that her service has been recognised by the Australian Embassy, as the representative of Australia in Greece. This commemoration follows on from the Australian Ambassador in Greece’s recent visit to the northern Greek village of Thrylorio, to honour the refugee work of another Australian from Ballarat, Major George Devine Treloar.
To further remembrance of Gertrude and all those Australians who served on the Salonika campaign, the Lemnos Gallipoli Commemorative Committee has successfully proposed that an annual commemorative service be held at Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance. The proposal is that this service be held each year on the anniversary of Gertrude’s death. This service is planned to commence from next year.
The service of Gertrude and George are two of the many soldiers from Ballarat who served in Greece – whether at Salonika or on Lemnos in the First World War or across the mainland and Crete during the Second World War. Gertrude’s service is remembered at the Ballarat RSL, which displays her photograph and war medals, and her name is also recorded on the Memorial Board at Ballarat’s St Peter’s Anglican Church. Ballarat is also the home to the George Treloar Memorial in Sturt Street, erected by the Ballarat City Council and Melbourne’s George Treloar Memorial Committee in 2019.
These are all aspects of the Hellenic link to Australia’s Anzac tradition and demonstrations of the historic link between Australians and Greeks.
Next time you visit Ballarat take some time to visit the local RSL or St Peter’s Church and pay your respects to a local woman who came to Greece to serve the sick and wounded, only to die and remain there in a grave at Thessaloniki.
Jim Claven is a trained historian, freelance writer and published author. He is most recent publications are Lemnos & Gallipoli Revealed and Grecian Adventure. The latter will be launched by the former Premier of Victoria, Mr Steve Bracks AC, on Thursday 20th October 2020. He is also Secretary of the Lemnos Gallipoli Commemorative Committee and an Executive member of the George Treloar Memorial Committee. He can be contacted at jimclaven@yahoo.com.au