This is a guest post by historian Janet Butler about her recently published book, ‘Kitty’s War’, which is about Australian WW1 nurse Kitty McNaughton. Janet is an Honorary Associate in the History Program at La Trobe University, Melbourne.

Nurse Uncut has two copies of her book to give away – read on…

Kitty McNaughton and I grew up in the same quiet district of drystone walls and wheat fields, bluestone schools and meandering creeks near the You Yang ranges in Victoria, though we were generations apart. I found Kit’s name and that of her cousin Sadie McIntosh on our local Memorial Gates. The nurses were out of alphabetical order and under the names of the soldiers who were themselves the grandfathers of my school friends.

As I stood before the monument that day, the idea of this unknown woman setting out on a journey which would take her away from the familiarity of neighbourhood and family, across the world and into war took hold of me and would not let me go.

Kit (centre) at No. 3 Australian Auxiliary Hospital, Dartford 1918 (courtesy Therese Ryan)

All of those who went to war with Kit McNaughton are gone now. Each succeeding generation of Australians is captured by them and has their own questions. Why did they go? What did their going mean for us, as a nation?

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