Today is Remembrance Day. We pause to remember those who served in the military in all conflicts and those that made the ultimate sacrifice. I also like to pay homage to those that have preserved the history of their service such as the National Archives of Australia and the Australian War Memorial.
The National Archives have been working tirelessly to digitise and upload service records from World War II so they are available to everyone free of charge. You can check what has been loaded hour by hour on their ‘recently added‘ page.
I like to check this page regularly and see what is being uploaded and on one occasion was intrigued to read about a nurse named Ethel Lane who served in the army during WWII.
Ethel was born Ethel Marion Stalker on 5 Jul 1918 at Ulverston, Lancashire. Her parents, Ernest and Gertrude Stalker (nee Piggott), moved to Australia when Ethel was two and lived near Port Kembla.
After attending college in Wollongong, Ethel trained as a nurse at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, enlisted in the Australian Army Nursing Service in 1942 and served at Concord, Dubbo and Tamworth before going to Morotai, an island off Indonesia. There she met Captain Raymond Lane, a doctor treating casualties from the Borneo Campaign and Australian prisoners of war rescued from Japanese captivity.
Raymond and Ethel got married in December 1946 and had their first child the next year. On 1 August 1948, Raymond developed peritonitis and tragically passed away, leaving Ethel and their infant son.
After Raymond’s death, Ethel ran a stationery shop in Five Dock before devoting her time to causes including the RSL, the Nurses Memorial Club and the War Widows Guild. The first elected Australian woman member of the World Veterans Federation, she led delegations overseas. Awarded the MBE in 1978, she became a Member in the Order of Australia in 1990. A professorial chair in nursing with the University of Sydney and Concord Hospital was named in her honour.
Ethel’s obituary in the Sydney Morning Herald on 22 November 2007 tells the story of her war time service as well as her lifetime dedication supporting war widows. She devoted much of the rest of her life, until her death at 89, to fighting for issues affecting war widows, nurses and veterans.
Lest we forget.
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