Olive Dorothy Paschke, RRC (19 July 1905 – 15 February 1942) was a distinguished Australian army nurse who died in the Second World War.
Olive Paschke | |
|---|---|
 Olive Paschke in 1942 | |
| Born | 19 July 1905 Dimboola, Victoria, Australia |
| Died | 15 February 1942 (aged 36) Java Sea |
| Allegiance | Australia |
| Service | Second Australian Imperial Force |
| Years of service | 1940–1942 |
| Rank | Matron |
| Service number | VX38812 |
| Unit | Australian Army Nursing Service |
| Battles / wars | Second World War |
| Awards | Royal Red Cross Florence Nightingale Medal |
Early life
editOlive Dorothy Paschke was born at Dimboola, Victoria, the daughter of Heinrich Wilhelm Paschke and Ottilie Emma Kreig Paschke. Both of her parents were born in Australia. Her father was a farmer and a station agent. Paschke earned her nursing certificate at Queen Victoria Memorial Hospital for Women and Children in Melbourne. She also held certificates in midwifery and infectious disease nursing.[1]
Nursing career
editPaschke worked as a hospital matron at Dimboola for four years, then in Melbourne at the Jessie McPherson Community Hospital. She joined the Australian Army Nursing Service in 1940, at age 35. She was posted to Malaya, to establish the 2/10th Australian General Hospital, in early 1941. In 1942 she was sent to Singapore to help convert a school into a 200-bed hospital. Soon her unit was converting nearby buildings and treating up to 600 patients at a time.[1] Paschke was recognized with the award of the Royal Red Cross in January 1942.[2]
In February 1942, Paschke and Irene Drummond were the matrons supervising 63 nurses when all of them were sent back to Australia on a ship carrying hundreds of women and children, the SS Vyner Brooke. The ship was struck by a bomb in the Bangka Strait. Paschke's life raft never reached land, and all its passengers were considered lost at sea, presumed drowned.[1] Twenty-two of Paschke's colleagues, Australian nurses who reached land following the bombing of the Vyner Brooke, were executed by Japanese soldiers in the Bangka Island massacre.[3][4]
Posthumous honours
edit
Paschke was awarded the Florence Nightingale Medal by the International Red Cross Committee in 1951.[5][6] The Matron Paschke Memorial Sundial at her alma mater in Dimboola was dedicated in 1949.[7] Paschke's name is inscribed on the Kranji War Memorial in Singapore.[8]
Pashke Place in the Canberra suburb of Chisholm is named in her honour.[9]
References
edit- ^ a b c Janice McCarthy, "Paschke, Olive Dorothy (1905–1942)" Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography (Australian National University 2000).
- ^ "Royal Red Cross Award to Dimboola Nurse" Horsham Times (20 January 1942): 2. via Trove
- ^ K. S. Inglis, Jan Brazier, Sacred Places: War Memorials in the Australian Landscape (The Miegunyah Press 2008): 347–348. ISBN 9780522854794
- ^ Elizabeth M. Norman and Dorothy Angell, "Vivian Bullwinkel: Sole Survivor of the 1942 Massacre of Australian Nurses" Nursing History Review 7(1999): 97–112.
- ^ "Posthumous Award for Matron" The Horsham Times (25 May 1951): 3. via Trove
- ^ "Honors for Nurses" The Age (24 May 1951): 1. via Trove
- ^ "Matron Olive Paschke" Monuments Australia.
- ^ "Olive Dorothy Paschke RRC" RSL Virtual War Memorial.
- ^ "Schedule 'B' National Memorials Ordinance 1928–1972 Street Nomenclature List of Additional Names with Reference to Origin: Commonwealth of Australia Gazette. Special (National: 1977–2012) – 8 Feb 1978". Commonwealth of Australia Gazette. Special. 8 February 1978. p. 13. Retrieved 2 April 2020.
External links
edit- Another photograph of Olive Dorothy Plaschke, from the Australian War Memorial.