Never Leave Your Head Uncovered: A Canadian Nursing Sister in World War Two

How many Canadians are aware that 3,512 nursing sisters and their associates - dieticians, physiotherapists, and occupational therapists - served with the Canadian forces during World War Two? Or that they staffed military hospitals in Newfoundland, England, Africa, Hong Kong, Northwest Europe, Sicily, and Italy? Soon after D Day the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps Nursing Service reached its peak strength with 3,214 members, 2,152 of them overseas. Sixty thousand wounded Canadian, along with many form the other allied nations - and even the enemy - were treated with tender loving care by these dedicated Canadian medical professionals.

Nursing Sister Lieutenant Doris V. Carter served overseas with the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps from 1940 to 1945 in military hospitals in England, Algeria, Sicily, Italy and Belgium. She was sent to Rome after its fall, where she met Pope Pius XII, discovered that the reason one soldier’s wound wouldn’t heal was because his watch strap was buried in it, dated an American soldier who rented a whole Roman carnival one evening just for the two of them, and watched in horror as one citizen cut the heart out of another for being a Fascist.

Available from:
Potlatch Publications