Catherine Tully

Service: Women’s Sick & Wounded Convoy Corps then Queen Alexandria’s Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve (QAIMNSR)
Place of Birth: Wheeo
Highlights: Born in 1874, Catherine (known as Kitty) completed her nurse training at Goulburn District Hospital in 1904 and was in England when World War One broke out. She joined a civilian group, the Women's Sick and Wounded Convoy Corps, initially established by Mrs Mable Stobart, and then absorbed into the British Red Cross Society. The nurses went to Antwerp, Belgium to nurse injured Belgian soldiers. The city was besieged by the Germans and after moving their 120 patients to other hospitals Catherine and her colleagues (several of which were Australian) escaped Antwerp over the ‘boat bridge’, under the direction / protection of a Belgian Army Officer, in the last vehicle to leave Antwerp before the blazing city fell to the Germans in November 1914. The group travelled to Cherbourg in France and were eventually evacuated to England. Kitty then joined the QAIMNSR, putting her age down by 7 years to do so. She was 40 years old at this time. In Aug 1915 was sent to 21 General Hospital Alexandria (Egypt). In Feb 1916 she was posted to 19th Stationary Hospital, Mombasa, Kenya and between then and her return to England in 1919, she also served on HM Hospital Ships Neuralia and Oxfordshire. She continued her nursing in England at the Pavilion (Military) General Hospital for Limbless Soldiers, before working her passage back to Australia as Nursing Staff on the troopship SS Kigoma. Kitty was awarded the 1914 Star for her work in Antwerp, Belgium and the escape from that city. Kitty never married and died in Young in 1957.