Only a handful of the more than 3000 nurses who served with the Canadian Army Medical Corps during the First World War remained on full-time service during the interwar years. But, in the reserve units of the corps there was gradually built up a core of trained nursing sisters, ready for service should another war break out.
By the end of the Second World War, Canada's armed forces had benefitted from the efforts of 4480 nursing sisters (and their professional associates, such as dietitians and physiotherapists). Of the 3656 nursing sisters in the army, 343 in the navy, and 481 in the air force more than two thirds did duty on the other side of the Atlantic in England, South Africa, and behind the lines in the Mediterranean and European theatres of war. Some worked along side surgeons at field ambulance units. Historian G.W.L. Nicholson described how these nurses, while in England, were "toughened up through periods of special field training. They were involved in revolver practice, rifle firing on the ranges, route marches, and the large-scale army manoeuvres, some of them lasting as much as ten days." During the Second World War, ten nurses from the army, two from the air force, and one from the navy lost their lives.
Here, Lieutenant B. Rankin administers a blood transfusion to a wounded soldier in Montreuil, France, on 10 September 1944.
Courtesy: Department of National Defence Photograph, National Photography Collection, Public Archives of Canada (PA-128234)
