Nursing Sisters
Prior to 1941, the only women in the Canadian Armed Forces were nursing sisters who were part of the Royal Canadian Army Medical
Corps. The nursing sisters were as close to the action of the front as any woman came. Field hospitals were set up right behind
the front line to deal with the injured soldiers. Shells fell amongst the medical corps as they did their work. Invasions always
had a field hospital involved in the event and bloodshed was never far away. Under the most difficult of circumstances nurses,
doctors and medics did their best to patch up the flesh and limbs torn apart by guns and bombs. Throughout World War II
approximately 4500 women served with the Army Medical Corps. Seventy-four Island women enlisted. Island historian Ed
MacDonald in his book, If You're Stronghearted, Prince Edward Island In The Twentieth Century, notes that two Islanders,
Ruth MacLean and Mary Winnifred MacNutt received the Royal Red Cross
for their service during the war. Nurses were always enlisted as officers and were paid one hundred fifty dollars per month ($150.00). This would be more than double what they earned in civilian life during the Depression.
A young Summerside woman who chose to enlist in the army as a nursing sister was Andrea Dalton. She graduated as a registered nurse in 1939 from St. Martha's School of Nursing in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. She did private nursing until she joined the army in March of 1941. Lieutenant Dalton served in Canada, the United Kingdom and continental Europe. The twenty-nine year old woman served with the NO. 7 General Hospital. She nursed with a British hospital in Nottingham, England where the casualties of Dieppe were brought for medical care. She served at the front lines in Belgium during the invasion. Perhaps one of her most difficult experiences may have been in Bayeux, France, August 7 to 10 of 1944. The Germans were carrying out bombing raids and many causalities were being inflicted. When a children's hospital was struck, its numbers were added to the list. The operating tables of the Canadian unit were in continuous use for ninety hours. A fellow Islander whom Dalton served with throughout the war, Medic Wendell MacKay, was awarded the Military Cross and Bronze Star from the French government for his work at Bayeux.
Dalton, over the course of her life, would speak little of the war. One thing she was quoted as tearfully saying was, "My God most of them were only boys."
Dalton was discharged in June of 1946 and was awarded the 1939-1945 Star Medal, France and Germany Star, Defence Medal, Canadian Volunteer Service Medal and Clasp. (Medals are shown on the Veterans Affairs website, type in medal name)
Following the war Dalton married and moved to Boston where she continued her nursing career. She died in 1997.
A classmate of Dalton's who followed her into the service was Margaret MacNeill (Cook) of Summerside. Six of her brothers had volunteered for military service. Lieutenant Nursing Sister MacNeill enlisted in April of 1945, and served at the Cogswell St. Hospital in Halifax and onboard the hospital ship "Letitia". One of her chief nursing jobs was looking after war brides and their babies on the crossing to Canada. She was discharged from the army in October of 1946 and continued her nursing career in Summerside. She later married and moved to Sydney, Nova Scotia.
A third Summerside nurse to join the nursing sisters was Bea Rankin. She nursed in a hospital in Britain before transporting to Normandy for the Invasion. However, she developed pneumonia and returned to England where she finished out the war working in a British hospital. When a mural of World War II was done on an exterior wall of the Summerside Legion Home the picture of the nurse is Bea Rankin.
Things To Do!!!
Who served with the nursing sisters from your hometown?
