Diary of an Anzac love story goes on display at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital

AMID the carnage, destruction and death of World War I, the love story of the digger and the army nurse sits like a rose among the thorns.

Captain HRC Carter (centre, wearing white webbing) with his company in front of the Sphinx.

AMID the carnage, destruction and death of WWI, the love story of the digger and the army nurse sits like a rose among the thorns.

Captain Herbert Carter (later Lieutenant Colonel) and Nurse Kathleen King met in Egypt in 1915.

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Before long they were both faced with the horror of Gallipoli, before they married in London and returned to Australia after the war to raise four children.

But the Great War would leave an indelible mark on the Sydney pair, a mark which still lives on today in their children and grandchildren.

“They were a very affectionate couple but because of what they had been through, it affected them, as it does to all those who have experience the horrors of war,” grandson John Carter said.

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“When they were engaged in 1916 in Egypt, Gordon was getting ready to take the 5th Pioneer Battalion to the Western Front and on to the ill-fated Fromelles disaster.

“We don’t know what it is like to see your mates get shot, blown up, mutilated, or what it was like to shoot someone else.”

Stationed on the Hospital Ship Sicilia off Cape Helles during the Gallipoli landing as part of the Australian Army Nursing Service, King nursed the wounded British soldiers as the hospital ship sailed the Mediterranean from Alexandria to Malta looking for hospitals with enough room and staff to look after the wounded.

In August 1915 Nurse King was stationed off Anzac Cove on a Hospital Ship listening to the sound of the fearful Battle for Lone Pine going on.

“She was praying that her beloved Gordon, who was fighting at Lone Pine, was OK,” John Carter said.

“As each wounded soldier was winched on board the hospital ship she hoped it was not Gordon.”

Almost 100 years on from the Gallipoli landings, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital will this week give the public a glimpse into one of their most famous nurses when they put Sister Kate King’s diary and photo album on display.

While King’s other diary sits in the Australian War Memorial alongside her husband’s, the Camperdown hospital will bring their rare collection to the public in the lead-up to Anzac Day on April 25.

The hospital’s director of museum archives, Dr Kathryn Hillier, said the diary is very rare because in times past many women’s diaries were not seen as valuable enough to pass down to the next generation.

“We’ve got 100 diaries here and only two of them are female,” she said.

“When you read the diary you see that her life changes after what she witnessed off Cape Helles. She is so shocked she has trouble writing down what she has seen.”

Originally published as Diary of an Anzac love story goes on display at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital