While Anzac Day has often primarily focussed on men and their role in war, throughout history women have also played a vital part during wartime .
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One of the countless women who did her bit for the war effort in World War II was Moree’s Norma Meyer, who enlisted in the Australian Women’s Army Service (AWAS) in 1941.
Mrs Meyer served as a signaller and was sent all over the eatern states of Australia.
“I wrote the signals concerning prisoners of war and those killed in action,” the 92-year-old said. “There was that much stuff that we had to do. As soon as we’d get it, we’d have to forget it because there was more coming in.”
With her husband Dick fighting in New Guinea, Mrs Meyer said she signed up to the AWAS to do something.
“I was bored,” she said.
“My husband was in New Guinea, my father was in the Middle East, my brother was over with England.
“We had a couple of us there, that’s why it ended so soon,” she joked.
Having access to information on all fatalities and prisoners of war, Mrs Meyer would regularly check to make sure her family members weren’t on the list, straining her eyes to read pages and pages of fine print.
“I was always reading and checking out all the prisoners of war as they came through,” she said.
“I was lucky, all mine came home safe and sound.”
Mrs Meyer knew of her husband’s location in New Guinea and was excited when she found out her unit was to be sent there.
She wanted to go overseas to be closer to him, however when one of the officers found out Mrs Meyer was married (she’d enlisted under her maiden name Dickson), she was grounded.
Although disappointed about not being allowed to serve overseas, Mrs Meyer jokes that even if she did, if her husband found out she was there, he’d have sent her straight back to Australia anyway.
“He said I’d have gone straight home,” she laughed.
During her time in the army, Mrs Meyer said she became good at keeping secrets and learnt very quickly to keep her mouth shut.
“That was the hardest part, keeping our mouths shut,” she said.
“It was very sad in places; we’d go out on leave and we’d hear these civilian parents talking about their sons and we knew that they were dead but we couldn’t say a word of course.
“That was about the hardest part of it, listening to the mothers talking about their sons and knowing that they were dead or prisoners of war and what the prisoners of war suffered, and the poor devils that were killed, because the Japanese treated them something horrible. They were starved, they were plump little boys that went in and they came out like matchsticks.
“We were watching that in reality. Couldn’t say a word but we thought an awful lot.
“It was just a matter of keeping our mouths shut and putting up with the memory.”
Mrs Meyer was discharged from the AWAS just before the end of the war in 1945 when she found out she was pregnant.
“My husband was thrilled to bits,” she said.
“I wasn’t, I wanted to see the end [of the war] - I saw the start of it and I always like to see the end of everything.
“But at the end of it we ended up with a beautiful daughter.”