Oldest living WWII nurse visits

World War II nurse Mary Headrick at Queens Park with her brother-in-law Selwyn Headrick.

Sarah Harvey

MARY Headrick didn’t think twice about being posted to Papua New Guinea and Morotai Island during World War II.

A former nursing sister with the 2nd/9th Australian General Hospital, Mrs Headrick was born in Toowoomba and started her nursing career at Torres Strait Hospital when she was 18.

“Nursing was just something I always wanted to do,” Mrs Headrick said. “We never thought (about the war), we just had a job to do. We sometimes got to the stage where we’d think ‘I don’t want to get into that’, but we had to help people.

“After my time in Papua New Guinea and Morotai I was one of six nursing sisters chosen to go to Singapore to help repatriate the prisoners of war. We returned home in December, 1945.”

Mrs Headrick said she was believed to be the oldest living World War II nursing sister from Queensland. “I’m 97-plus,” she said with a smile.

“As far as I’m led to believe that makes me the oldest survivor who was born in Queensland.”

Mrs Headrick returned to Ipswich last week to have lunch with her brother-in-law Selwyn Headrick and other family members at the Queens Park kiosk.

She spoke at the 2008 launch of a war memorial at the Goodna RSL Services Club and now lives in a nursing home at the Centenary Suburbs in Brisbane’s south-west.

“My father was in the police force and my husband was in the police force, so I moved around a lot,” Mrs Headrick said of her younger years.

“I have spoken about my experiences before – people ask me to speak at different places, but I never lecture them.”