Day WW2 ended was ‘time of joy, celebration'
World War 2 nurse Elsie Herriott with her 12-year-old great-granddaughter Lily Napier at the Montecillo Veterans Home and Hospital Anzac Day service yesterday. PHOTOS: PETER MCINTOSH
At 102, Elsie Herriott has lived a long life, but she still vividly remembers the moment she found out the Allies had won World War 2.
The Montecillo Veterans Home and Hospital resident is the home's only WW2 veteran, having served as a nurse in Invercargill helping returned Southland soldiers injured fighting overseas back to health.
The day the war ended, Mrs Herriott could be seen gleefully hiking down the streets, behind a pipe band, with many, many others.
"It was a time of joy and celebration, and it went mad ... then we saw the men around," Mrs Herriott said.
She was nearly 17 when war broke out and was in a supporting role at Southland Hospital in Invercargill until she turned 18 and could take up her full nursing training on the wards.
One year later, she found herself thrust into nursing men injured in battle.
By mid-1940 about 20,000 New Zealand men had left for overseas service with the Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force (2 NZEF).
They went first to the Middle East, Greece and Britain, and later many also fought in North Africa and Italy.
When the injured came back a young Mrs Herriott saw the horrors of war first hand.
Wounds were being treated with maggots — a method of debriding dead flesh — and there were blast injuries to treat.
The latter were the worst, and often involved lung damage and brain injury, and many of the men "could not cope with life".
People gather at the 2025 Anzac Day service at the Montecillo Veterans Home and Hospital.
There were good times, and many of the men were "so pleased to be back".
"They got up to all sorts of mischief — we had wheelchair races down the corridor, but we were very frightened the matron would find out."
Mrs Herriott's father, World War 1 veteran William John Nicholl, served with the NZ Mounted Rifles Brigade from 1917 and was badly wounded and spent years after the war in a nursing home.
Many of the men she helped nurse shared the same fate.
After the war in 1947, she married Larnet Sydney Herriott (Syd), a returned soldier who had served in the Italian campaign as a sergeant in 2NZEF.
As was the custom of the time, she gave up nursing.
After their six children were grown up, she returned to nursing and became the matron of Margaret Wilson Home in Timaru.
Mrs Herriott said since moving into the Montecillo Veterans Home and Hospital, she had not missed an 11am Anzac Day service, except when it was cancelled because of Covid-19.
laine.priestley@odt.co.nz
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