Olga Anderson was trained as a nurse at the Brisbane General Hospital and enlisted in the Australian Army Nursing Service on 1 December 1941.
Olga was attached to the 117th Australian General Hospital (AGH), which set up in Toowooba, Queensland. The 117th AGH requisitioned the Glennie Anglican Girls School and Downlands College to conduct its operation.
Later, Olga served in New Guinea with the 2/8th Australian General Hospital. She was discharged on 7 January 1947 with the rank of lieutenant.
Well, I suppose nursing was sort of in our family. There were five girls in our family and five of us were nurses. My eldest sister had one certificate. The second sister had three certificates. The next one had two. I had two and the next one was an enrolled nurse.
So that's five of us… We went to Toowoomba and they ... we took over the Glennie, the private school for girls, and they also took over Downlands, the boy's school. And those were our hospitals…We used to go to the dances of a night-time, but we'd just go on picnics, I think. Steak picnics is what we did. What you call a barbecue today, I suppose…There was one lady who had a car, and we used to just go on picnics.'
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