Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

My brief story - Ruth Ellen Hough (nee CARTER) F68

I am a South Australian but was nursing in Tasmania when a friend from Queensland and I saw the reports in the paper about the grave situation our troops were in up in Korea so we decided to volunteer, if nurses were needed. We signed up in July and duly started nursing in the Army at 2 Camp Hospital, Ingleburn, NSW on 14 August 1951 just as three soldiers Jacko, Smithy and Martin were admitted with burns. I will always remember our introduction to Army life as we had to dress their burns with Cod Liver Oil (CLO). A few days later on my birthday, a patient Sgt Gale, who was handy with a pencil, presented me with a sketch of me and my cod fish birthday cake and the cod fish menu we could have to celebrate. The smell of the CLO stayed with us for days.

In December we went to a 2 week Indoctrination Course at Healesville, Victoria which was very good and we met many of the Sisters from the Camp Hospitals in other States. We arrived back just in time for Christmas.

I left for Japan on 24 November 1952 staying overnight in Darwin, Borneo and Hong Kong which were fascinating as the countries and people were so different to our way of life. We had a brief stop in Okinawa and were very late landing in Iwakuni well after dark because of an electrical storm so we had a very cold and silent launch trip (as we weren't allowed to talk) across the Inland Sea to Kure. It was easy settling in as I had already met a lot of the Sisters and it was good to see them again.

From Korea the sick and the wounded were evacuated by Air Force to Iwakuni where we attended to them and then an Australian Army Sister and an Orderly accompanied them in the medical train to the Britcom General Hospital at Kure. The hospital was a Japanese Naval Hospital during WW2. The nursing, to me, was very rewarding. We nursed soldiers from all the UN countries and they were very good patients always positive and appreciative of our care no matter how severe their injuries or how ill they felt.

Every week we had a day off and every 4 months we had 4 days off so for those of us taking them over the weekend and adding the weekly ones we would have 6 days to visit places in Japan. We were not allowed to travel on our own though. I went to Tokyo with Sr Joan Crouch then to Kyoto and Osaka with Sr Kath Cutler and on the 3rd leave Kath and I went to Beppu and Nagasaki on the South Island of Kyushu (which is where the 2nd atom bomb had been dropped).

I flew to Korea in a DC3 - with the seating removed and replaced with forms around the sides which was very uncomfortable - on 8 Nov 1953 landing at Pusan then at Kimpo Airfield. It was quite exciting travelling from the airport and over the long and narrow Han River Bridge which was still all wired up with explosives. We had to go very slowly over the uneven planks and once again we had to be quiet.

The BCCZMU (British Commonwealth Communications Zone Medical Unit) was very primitive with no 'mod-cons' at all. Very inadequate heating (almost no-existent), no power or running water so it was just as well most patients did not stay there very long before they were evacuated by air. However, some recovered there and were able to go back to their units. As the cease fire had come into effect on 27 July 1953 we didn't have the number of wounded as previously but there were still accident cases and a lot of sickness due to the severe conditions in Korea and the extremely cold winter.

I had been issued with a full detail of warm clothing in Japan - thermal vests, fleecy 'long johns' to wear under my winter uniform (a pant suit like the men's uniform), a cardigan & wool lined parka with a hood plus wool lined knee boots. I won't say I was not cold,  but we had buildings to work in and to sleep in and even though our rooms were just cubicles we were well off compared to some of the conditions the soldiers had to endure in the harsh terrain and extreme weather (very hot in summer and freezing cold in winter). The destruction in Seoul and the desolation and poverty of the Korean people were very evident. The view from my cubicle window reminded me of it every day and it is a picture which remains in my memory. Before I returned to Japan I was very fortunate to be asked to go 'up front' with the CO and the Medicos when they had to visit a forward unit and we went to the 38th Parallel. It was so cold we could stay out of the jeep only long enough to have a photo taken.  I returned to Australia on compassionate grounds as my Father was extremely ill. After leave I was posted to 4 Camp Hospital at Woodside until my discharge to the Reserves on the same compassionate grounds on 22 October 1954.

On 15 October 1955 I married Graham HOUGH.

Kath Cutler and I have remained friends ever since our time together in Japan and Korea.