Guns and Brooches: Australian Army Nursing from the Boer War to the Gulf War (1992) By Jan Bassett
 
History of the wartime experiences of 9000 Australian army nurses over the past 100 years.
 
Guns and Brooches investigate the contradictions, paradoxes, and anomalies that have arisen because army nurses have been in but not of' the army. They have faced discrimination as women in a men's organisation. Guns have replaced brooches as part of their uniforms as 'total war' has increasingly made a mockery of the distinction between non-combatants and combatants, a meaningless distinction for the nurses machine-gunned on Banka Island during the Second World War. Those sent to the 'outpost of the empire', such as India during the First World War, have also had to cope with difficulties caused by deep-seated imperial tensions.
 
Includes a detailed bibliography and index.
 
Hard Cover with Dust Jacket
261 pages
In Good Condition