Sr Alicia Kelly (Mt Dandenong), Australian Army Nursing Service: Is awarded the Military Medal for her actions on this day at the 3rd Australian Casualty Clearing Station. She is one of only seven Nurses to be awarded the Military Medal during the war.
From the Australian Dictionary of Biography: ‘Sister Kelly was on duty at the 3rd A.C.C.S. during an air raid. Orders sent the rest of the medical staff running for their lives as bombs fell. A padre discovered Sister Kelly sitting in one of the hospital tents holding a patient’s hand. When he asked why she had not left with the rest she answered ‘I couldn’t leave my patients’. She had covered their heads with enamel washing basins or urine pots to give them some feeling of security; she knew that the basins would be useless against flying shrapnel or a direct hit but there were no helmets. Her quiet courage enabled her patients to come through the bombardment ‘with confidence’.
Cpl Clarence Windsor (Lilydale), 58th Battalion: Arrives in Australia from Europe on the HT Euripides to be discharged as medically unfit as a result of wounds he’d received in action.
Pte Daniel Bowen (Lilydale), 60th Battalion: Arrives in Australia from Europe on the HT Euripides to be discharged for family reasons.