Pat Darling
Encyclopedia
Pat Darling was an Australia
n servicewoman and nursing sister with the 2/10th Australian General Hospital.
. Her grandfather, Archdeacon William Gunther, was rector of St John's, Parramatta. The second eldest of eight children, she attended bush schools before leaving school at 12 to help out at home in the farm.
She was one of the Australian nurses taken prisoner by the Japan
ese in Sumatra
during World War II
. She wrote about her three and a half years incarceration and survival in Portrait of a Nurse (published in 2001).
George Colin Darling died in 1983, aged 76.
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n servicewoman and nursing sister with the 2/10th Australian General Hospital.
Early life
Born as Janet Patteson Gunther, her great grandfather, Archdeacon James Gunther, was a missionary to indigenous Australians at Wellington, New South WalesWellington, New South Wales
Wellington is a town in inland New South Wales, Australia located at the junction of the Macquarie and Bell Rivers. The town is the administrative centre of the Wellington Shire Local Government Area. The town is 362 kilometres from Sydney on the Great Western Highway and Mitchell Highway...
. Her grandfather, Archdeacon William Gunther, was rector of St John's, Parramatta. The second eldest of eight children, she attended bush schools before leaving school at 12 to help out at home in the farm.
World War II
She trained in general nursing at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Camperdown, and worked as a private nurse until enlisting in 1940 with the 2nd/10th Australian General Hospital. She sailed to Singapore in February 1941.She was one of the Australian nurses taken prisoner by the Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese in Sumatra
Sumatra
Sumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 with a population of 50,365,538...
during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. She wrote about her three and a half years incarceration and survival in Portrait of a Nurse (published in 2001).
Family
She married Major George Colin Darling (NX101315 2/5 Infantry Battalion), a manager with the Port Kembla steelworks in 1957 and a widower with four children in 1949. She stopped nursing in the late 1940s/early 1950s. Colin Darling died in the early 1970s.Death
Janet Patteson Gunther "Pat" Darling died in 2007, aged 94.George Colin Darling died in 1983, aged 76.