The Australian War Memorial Collection. Test site
An unidentified sister of the RAAF Nursing Service tends to one of the many patients aboard a C-130 Hercules aircraft on an aeromedical evacuation flight from Vietnam. This image suggests conditions were less than luxurious on the long flight home, usually via Butterworth in Malaysia. At Butterworth the patient's medical condition was reassessed, and stabilised if necessary before they were subjected to the rigours of the next long series of flights to get them back to Australia. Not many flights carried doctors, so the responsibility for the patients rested solely on the nurses.
"SqnLdr IJ Leslie, Aero-Medical Evacuation Officer undertakes the administrative work following a ward round of all patients at 1AusFdHosp listed for transfer. The purpose of the ward round was to ass
"A safety demonstration was given prior to take-off. Aeromedical Evacuations routinely took place once each fortnight but frequency was increased if required." The patients were transported from the 1
"On board the RAAF C130 Hercules aircraft. Central racking of litters is complete." The patients were transported from the 1 Australian Field Hospital in Vung-Tau, Vietnam to RAAF Butterworth base in
"On board the RAAF C130 Hercules aircraft. A member of the nursing staff from 4RAAF Hospital Butterworth (in foreground) checks the patients who have been loaded. At the rear end of the aircraft only
"The Hercules C130 arrives from RAAF Butterworth with freight which is unloaded and the aircraft prepared for casualty evacuation. The nursing staff who arrived on board were taken to 1AFH for briefin
"Sgt. [James Brown] Skewis (on left) and Cpl. [Keith John] Munns (on right) transfer the litters onto the aircraft supervised by the C-130 Load Master (name unknown)." The patients were transported fr