SHE served under shell-fire in the shadows of battle, enduring the extremes of bitter European winters and blistering heat of the Middle Eastern deserts.

In the process, Doris Annie Swinton distinguished herself as one of Australia’s most decorated World War II nurses, earning the acclaim of some of the military’s highest ranking officers.

Among her swag of accolades she was twice mentioned in dispatches, received an MBE for military services and later an OBE for her contribution to health.

In civilian life back home in Warrnambool, Ann Swinton, as she preferred to be known, left an enduring legacy as a leading light in the health and welfare sector, most notably as the city’s long-serving base hospital matron.

But for all her achievements, Matron Swinton was an intensely private woman whose wartime experiences were never shared with family members.

Now, nearly three decades after her death, a family archive is providing a glimpse into her life behind the front lines during seven years of service with Britain’s Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service (QAIMNS).

From the extensive collection of Swinton family photos, diaries, newspaper clippings, letters and memorabilia made available by Ms Swinton’s niece, Karina James, Warrnambool RSL memorabilia officer David McGinness is embarking on a project to create a lasting digital record of the matron’s service.

It coincides with a new exhibit at the RSL clubrooms to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II showcasing Ms Swinton’s original QAIMNS dress uniform.

Donated to the RSL before her death in 1986 at the age of 82, the uniform shares the display alongside those of Warrnambool service personnel, Flight Officer Keith Arnel, infantryman Col Henry and seaman R Clements.

A separate display recognises the service of Flight Lieutenant Don Taylor.

Mr McGinness said the Swinton collection was one of the most comprehensive he had seen and would help bring to life one of Warrnambool’s ‘unsung heroes’.

“She was an incredible woman. To come from a local pioneering family, take on a career in nursing and land in one of the all-time biggest conflicts where she followed the troops through the Middle East, France, Belgium, Holland and Germany and was right behind the front lines, she was definitely an unsung hero,” he said. 

Mrs James said she was delighted to see the uniform back on display, although her aunt was never comfortable in the spotlight.

“She was a very private person, extremely modest. She never spoke about her service during the war … it was like getting blood out of a stone.”

A respected and commanding figure with the physical presence to match, to Mrs James and her two sisters, however, she was simply their beloved ‘Aunty Ann’.

“Aunty Ann was more like another mother to me,” recalled Mrs James of her childhood growing up in Warrnambool.

Three of her father John Swinton’s four sisters – Ann, Nessie and Meryl – were unmarried and lived next door in the Merri Street Swinton family home.

With her own mother Mary often struggling with a debilitating condition, the aunts provided welcome family support.

“My grandparents, John and Charlotte, and aunts lived next door and we used to nip over and see them. I spent a lot of time with them in my childhood.

“Aunty Ann delivered my oldest sister, Jennifer, at home. The three of them were like a trio of little mothers to us,” said Mrs James, herself a former nurse who now lives in Melbourne.

Despite Matron Swinton’s own reticence when it came to her achievements, the family records show she was lauded by some of the military’s highest-ranking officers, among them, Lieutenant General Sir Brian Horrocks who commanded the XXX Corps of Britain’s 21st Army Group.

The corps fought from the D-Day Normandy landings of June 6, 1944 through the advance across France, Belgium and Holland until Nazi Germany’s surrender on May 8, 1945.

In charge of No. 3 Casualty Clearing Station (CCS) which served the corps, was Matron Swinton. Lieutenant General Horrocks wrote: “I am not exaggerating when I say that few individual women can have done more in this war than has Miss Ann Swinton. Australia may well be proud of Miss Ann Swinton’s record during this war. She did her share and far more than her share to win it.”

Arthur Porritt, then surgeon to the King and former Brigadier Consulting Surgeon to the 21st Army Group, was equally impressed.

“This particular unit was literally always in the forefront of battle and was many times under shell-fire. … at Arnhem (Holland) it was actually part of the attacking column and was on two occasions completely cut off by enemy troops from rear formations,” he wrote.

“Under such conditions as these, this particular unit achieved more and better work than any other similar unit in the group - a result due very largely to Miss Swinton’s exceptional personality and ability.”

Ms Swinton had trained at the then Melbourne Hospital (now Royal Melbourne), established the Alveston Private Hospital in Warrnambool with her friend Beatrice Hart, and later found herself nursing in England at the Aldershot military hospital in 1939 when war was declared.

She joined the QAIMNS, launching an eventful military career during which she rose to the rank of captain.

Among the first contingent of nurses to arrive in France with the British Expeditionary forces two weeks after enlisting, Ms Swinton was posted to a casualty clearing station at Metz in Alsace-Lorraine within earshot of the guns on the Maginot Line.

After a bitter French winter during which she writes home of nursing by the light of hurricane lamps in damp tent hospitals, wearing Wellington boots and melting ice for water, Ms Swinton escaped on the second last boat back to England during the Dunkirk evacuations of June 1940.

Heat, flies, disease and primitive conditions became her adversaries in her next postings with the Middle Eastern forces in Egypt, where she nursed troops wounded in the Battle of El Alamein, Sudan and Palestine before returning to England.

But it was on her return to France with the British Liberation Army, from the D-Day landings to victory in Europe in May 1945, that her heroism under fire and behind enemy lines was recognised with two MIDs and the MBE (military division).

In her diary entry of May 8, 1945, Ms Swinton writes: “VE Day. 4pm: Mr Churchill spoke and gave the wonderful news. Excitement in London terrific. Would like to have been there. 9pm: HM the King gave the speech. It was grand to hear him.”

On her return to Warrnambool, Ms Swinton was appointed matron of the base hospital in 1947, a position she held until 1964.

A year later, she took on the hospital’s newly created role of welfare officer, instigating the city’s meals on wheels service, facilitating a baby adoption program and a raft of other welfare initiatives with which she remains synonymous today.