AustLit

'On the night of 29 March 1918, Dr Phoebe Chapple saw the world explode in flames. She had been inspecting a Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps camp near Abbeville in France when the site came under fire from a German aerial bombardment. Chapple and 40 other women were sheltering in a trench when a direct hit killed eight women and mortally wounded a ninth. Chapple worked for hours in the destroyed camp, tending to the wounded in the dark. For ‘gallantry and devotion to duty’ during the attack, Chapple was awarded the Military Medal, making her the first woman doctor to receive the award. Chapple had enlisted in England with the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) in 1917 as she was ineligible to join the Australian forces. At the outbreak of hostilities in 1914, women doctors were seen as unsuitable for active service in England, too. Women were allowed to serve as nurses and in a number of auxiliary roles, until the unceasing swell of wounded from the Western Front prompted the RAMC to reluctantly allow women medical practitioners into its ranks. Chapple was among dozens of women doctors who served in World War I, and who have largely been forgotten by history.' (Introduction)