Shirley’s front-line battle for medals
Shirley Wetiford’s four years in the New Zealand Army included deployment to the Malayan Emergency in 1961. Lawrence Gullery reports.
Shirley Wetiford looks lovingly at the military service medals on her blazer.
She had the coat out ready for the annual RSA Poppy Appeal on Friday, April 16, where she was with other returned service members stationed outside a supermarket in Cambridge.
The theme for this year’s appeal was ‘‘Service and Sacrifice’’ and ‘‘saluting women and the military’’.
Lance Corporal Shirley Churcher [her maiden name], Service No 38735, served in the Royal New Zealand Nursing Corps from 1959 to 1962, including 12 months in the Malayan Emergency in 1961.
Corporal Churcher, another staff nurse and two sisters (officers) were the first recruits from the nursing corps to be dispatched to activity duty, in Malaya, since World War II.
Since then nursing corps had served in Vietnam, Iraq, East Timor, Bosnia and Afghanistan.
The Malayan Emergency, from 1948 to 1960, was triggered when the Malayan Communist Party attempted to overthrow the British colonial administration.
More than 4000 New Zealand servicemen and women contributed to the Commonwealth effort to defeat the communist insurgency.
Sitting in her home in Cambridge, Shirley Wetiford said her 12 months overseas were ‘‘far too short’’ but the posting was the highlight of her four years in the New Zealand Army.
Her efforts in Malaya almost went unnoticed, at least, by the brass.
‘‘The man in charge of giving out the medals at the Trentham Army Camp wouldn’t give me one because I had not served on the front line.’’
But Wetiford argued that the soldiers she and the others nursed at the British Army hospitals had come from the front line and the nursing corps efforts needed to be acknowledged.
‘‘So I wrote to the MP for armed services and he said they got it wrong. In the end I was entitled to four medals, two for Malaya and two New Zealand service medals.’’
Wetiford, 81, joined the army in 1959.
She was living in Christchurch with her family at the time and had to ask her mother to sign a consent form because she was just short of her 21st birthday, the age when people were allowed to join.
‘‘I met up with a friend in Auckland who was going to join the army and I thought, well, I haven’t got a job so I’ll try that too.’’
They trained at Burnham Military Camp near Christchurch, completing the six-week basic training.
‘‘I was interested in a junior nursing course so I stayed on to do that while my friend went on to the camp at Papakura. When I finished the course I was able to join her.’’
Wetiford remembered being posted to Nga¯ ruawa¯ hia to work in a medical inspection room at a small army camp in Hopuhopu.
‘‘I was there for six months and then got called to see the matron of the army nursing corps, who wanted to know if I would like to go to Malaya. So I couldn’t turn that down and left for Malaya on March 15, 1961.’’
She worked in hospitals at Taiping and Kinrara which each had about 120 beds.
Wetiford only had basic medical training but found herself dealing with several serious cases of fever and watched over two major operations, something she would not have experienced in New Zealand. She arrived in Malaya near the end of the conflict but New Zealand continued to deploy armed services as part of counter-insurgency measures into the
1960s.
‘‘We were there for 12 months but the soldiers were there for two-year stints.’’
The New Zealand Army 2nd Battalion was in Malaya at the time Wetiford arrived. The soldiers were due to return home in November in
1961, when 1st Battalion was scheduled to return for another deployment.
Wetiford nursed New Zealand, Australian, British troops as well as Malayans and Gurkhas.
‘‘Some of the [New Zealand] soldiers’ families were living over there too and we would often see them come into the hospital when they needed help.
‘‘There was a special ward for children, and we spent a lot of time there looking after the children and their mothers.’’ Wetiford worked alongside the Queen Alexander Nurse Corps from England, and met nurses who had been stationed all over the world.
She also remembered Red Cross members visiting patients and their families, supplying newspapers and books from home.
It was Anzac Day on her first week in Malaya and the hospital staff organised a cake with a Kiwi design on it to recognise the occasion for the New Zealand forces.
Then came a settling-in period, becoming familiar with the shift work, the heat, the food and the unique conditions of the hospitals.
‘‘It was monsoon time and very hot and wet, it was a bit strange to start with, but we got used to it’’.
She returned home from her overseas deployment and spent one more year in the army putting to use the skills and experience she had gathered in Malaya. She now lives with her eldest son, Simon, in Cambridge, where she attends Anzac Day ceremonies every year.
Her younger son, Aaron, lives in Australia now but also served in the New Zealand Army, initially in the territorial forces. He later moved into the regular forces and was deployed to Timor with NZ Batt, Zulu Company, from November 2001 to May 2002.
‘‘I love Anzac Day. I’m very proud to wear my medals, to join in with all the other oldies, there are fewer of us now,’’ Wetiford said.
‘‘I’ve got a gammy leg now, probably from the concrete floors at the hospitals in Malaya, so I can form up but I can’t march with the rest of them any more.
‘‘But I’m looking forward to seeing everyone again.’’
The Anzac Day dawn service will be held outside the Cambridge Town Hall, at 6am, April 25. The Civic Commemorative Services will be held inside the town hall, 9am, followed by placing of wreaths at the cenotaph.