Kitty's War

The remarkable wartime experiences of Kit McNaughton

Janet Butler

• Publisher: University of Queensland Press
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9780702251047
• Edition: 0
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Australian & Oceanian History
• Index: History

The remarkable wartime experiences of Kit McNaughton Kitty's War is based upon the previously unpublished war diaries of Great War army nurse Sister Kit McNaughton. Kit and historian Janet Butler grew up in the same Victorian district of drystone walls, wheatfields and meandering creeks, except many decades apart. The idea of this young nurse setting out on a journey in July 1915 which would take her across the world and into the First World War took hold of Janet Butler and inspired her to research and share Kit's story. This decisive and dryly humorous woman embarked upon the troopship Orsova, bound for Egypt in 1915. Kit's absorbing diaries follow her journey through war, from Egypt, where she cared for the Gallipoli sick and wounded,to the harsh conditions of Lemnos Island, off the coast of the Dardanelles, and then on to France and the Somme. Here she nursed severely wounded German soldiers for the British. During Passchendaele, a year later, she ran the operating theatre of a clearing station near the front line. Kit finished the war as Australia's first plastic surgery nurse, assisting medical pioneers in this field as they repaired the shattered faces of Australian soldiers. Through Kitty's diaries and Janet Butler's thoughtful narration, we see the war through the eyes of a young Australian nurse as she is transformed by what she witnesses. Kitty's War is an intimate and rare story of one woman's remarkable experience of war.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Author biography
• Title page
• Imprint page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 Journey into war: July – August 1915
• 2 Interlude in Egypt: August 1915
• 3 Lemnos Island: September 1915 – January 1916
• 4 Friendship and Romance, Lemnos Island: September 1915 – January 1916
• 5 Interlude in Cairo: January – March 1916
• 6 Interlude in Marseilles: April – June 1916
• 7 Nursing wounded German soldiers, the Somme: June – October 1916
• 8 The Western Front after the Somme: October 1916 – August 1917
• 9 On the frontline, Trois Arbres, France: August – December 1917
• 10 The end of the diary, Dartford: January – August 1918
• 11 Sidcup, the Wiltshire and home: August 1918 – February 1953
• Conclusion
• Postscript
• Acknowledgements
• Permissions
• Notes
• Select Bibliography
• Index
• Picture section