In the present day Australian armed forces, women are trained to use high powered weapons, to drive trucks and tanks and aero planes, and to engage in combat. Women serve as officers and as ordinary soldiers, sailors and aircrew personnel.
In 1914, however, a women's place was not considered to be on the battlefield, but in the home. No women at all served with the Anzacs, other than nurses, but nurses did not have an army rank. During world war one; many women felt that they should be permitted to do more than serve as home-makers back in Australia. Women's organization sent urgent petition to the government offering to serve as cooks, ambulance scouts, stretcher bearers, motor-car drivers but all these pleas were rejected.