About this record
This two-page typed letter came from Richard Reading, a soldier who served with the Belgian Army. Dated 4 July 1917, it was sent from a hospital in Bombay (now Mumbai), India. It is one of many letters of appreciation sent to acknowledge the work of Australian nurses in India during the First World War.
Educational value
- On a voyage to Australia in June 1917, the SS Mongolia was sunk by a mine off the coast of India. Such explosives were laid in shipping lanes to sink merchant and naval ships supplying the English forces. Of the 450 passengers on board, 24 were killed.
- In Richard Reading’s letter he commends the work of three Australian nurses in the aftermath of the detonation: Beatrice Mary Mawson, Eveline Mary Vicars-Foote and Charlotte Letitia Despard. Reading noted that the nurses comforted a dying man who had been ‘scalded and skinned’, and that Sister Mawson (with the help of two other women) set Reading’s leg with a broken oar blade and used the ‘whole of a lady’s underskirt’ to pad the splint.
- Like most nurses, Mawson, Vicars-Foote and Despard trained for three years before serving overseas. Their training could not have fully prepared them for the challenges of war. Hospitals and wards were often makeshift and overcrowded and a lack of staff made it difficult to meet the needs of badly injured patients. The nurses’ own health was often compromised and the climate in places such as Egypt was exceptionally harsh. Despite these challenges, nurses were innovative and devoted.
- Reading was born in England but served with the Belgian Army during the First World War. During this time, while on a scouting expedition, he saved his unit from a German ambush, telling them to drive off without him. However, he managed to hold onto the back of his unit’s moving car and survived, despite being shot in both legs during the escape.
