9th Australian Field Ambulance (WW2)

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Brief History

This unit was mobilised in December 1941 at Ingleburn in New South Wales. A Company remained at the Sydney Showground to service troops training there while the rest moved to Frenchs Forrest to work with the 9th Infantry Brigade Group. The unit, including A Company, moved to St Ives bar an Advanced Dressing Station that remained at Frenchs Forrest. In March they moved to Wallgrove, but by June hey had returned to St Ives. A move to Narellan followed in November, but in December the9th Australian Field Ambulance moved to Ravenshoe in Queensland to service camp sites being readied for units recovering from the Papuan campaign. In february 1943 they had a detachment at Atherton, before moving to Oonoonba in April to await transit to New Guinea. In June they moved to Port Moresby to relieve the 3rd Australian Field Ambulance.

In New Guinea they were used in small detachments, running Dressing Stations, a dysentery hospital at Lux Lane, accompanying signallers constructing a phone line from Kokoda to Port Moresby, staffing a Light Section at Nassau Bay, etc. Another section was sent to Bulldog where they serviced the engineers building a road to Wau, and another the engineers building an airfield near Nadzab. In October the unit HQ moved to Wau, while leaving the detachments at Lux Lane and Bulldog. Another detachment then moved to Dumpu to work the air evacuation port, while another ran a staging post at Wampit.

By early 1944 the main part of the unit was at Lae and the detachments were progressively closed. In August 1944 the first draft of personnel returned to Australia, with the Dressing Station at Wau handed over to 8th Australian Filed Ambulance in September. Following leave, most of the unit assembled at Rutherford in NSW from where they serviced units in the Hunter Valley until they were disbanded in June 1945

Patients

• Derrick Leonard Saw 26 Aug 1944

Notes

Content has come from The Unit Guide - Volume 4 - The Australian Army 1939-1945, page 4.067 - Graham R McKenzie-Smith - Big Sky Publishing - 2018