ANZAC Girls - Episodes 4-6 (ATOM Study Guide)

ANZAC Girls is a dramatised six-part series based on real events and five real nurses – Alice Ross King, Elsie Cook, Olive Haynes, Hilda Steele and Grace Wilson. Like the soldiers, these Anzac girls are our heroes. But they are also just ordinary girls – our sisters, our daughters, ourselves – looking for adventure, love, fun and friendship.

Beginning in the heady pre-Gallipoli days in Egypt, moving through the devastation of the Gallipoli campaign and the utterly expected casualty count, through the bitter months on the barren island of Lemnos to the long hard years of the war in Europe and the Western Front, ANZAC Girls is personal, intimate and raw.

The nurses' world may be dominated by the war, by the army and by the hospitals, but they are bright, beautiful and lively young women in the prime of their lives. They have come to do their bit and serve their country, but they have also come seeking adventure and love.

Drawing on the diaries, letters, photographs and historical achievements of many women who witnessed the brutality of war, ANZAC Girls honours the centenary of World War One with the unique and rarely told history of the war through the nurses who served amidst bombing raids, poison gas and terrible disease, saving lives and transforming the spirits of the soldiers.

Curriculum Applicability
ANZAC Girls is a relevant resource for middle and senior secondary students (Years 9–12) studying Australian History, English and Media Arts.