Voluntary Aid Detachment Nurses

The photograph was taken before the Australian Army Medical Women’s Service (AAMWS) and Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) Nurses went overseas. VAD and AAMWS nurses lived and trained at Knutsford Claremont before the overseas deployment.

The Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) was founded in 1909 in the United Kingdom. A voluntary unit of civilians providing nursing care for military personnel in countries of the British Empire. The most important periods of operation for these units was during World War I and World War II.

Although VADs were intimately bound up in the war effort, they were not military nurses, as they were not under the control of the military.

The primary role of a VAD member was that of nursing orderly in hospitals, carrying out menial but essential tasks - scrubbing floors, sweeping, dusting and cleaning bathrooms and other areas, dealing with bedpans, and washing patients. They were not employed in military hospitals, except as ward and pantry maids; rather, they worked in Red Cross convalescent and rest homes, canteens, and on troop trains.

The Australian Army Medical Women's Service (AAMWS) was an armed services organisation which existed from 1942 until 1951.

Growing out of the St John Ambulance Voluntary Aid Detachments (VAD), it was formed in December 1942 and its members served as nurses in military hospitals in the Middle East, Australia and, with the British Commonwealth Occupation Force, in Japan.

In 1951, the AAMWS was merged into the Royal Australian Army Nursing Corps.