Olive Kelso King

[SasaYU]

 

 

Olive Kelso King is the only Australian who was in active service of the Serbian army in the First World War. Olive found herself in England just as the First World War started. In early 1915, she decided to join the Allied Polish medical service, and then moved to Scotland women's hospital. In mid-May 1916, showed her ability to be in the Serbian army driver. The new service, Olive was driving an ambulance with license plate number 3. It was in the unit Col. Romana Sondermajer, Chief of Serbian Medical Corps in Salonika front. Dedicated and courageous, extremely heroism shown during the great fire of Thessaloniki, which French soldiers accidentally caused August 1917. For the shown heroism then is awarded the Medal for Bravery Milos Obilic. At the end of 1918, Olive, with the generous support of wealthy father George and the people of Sydney, has opened more mobile canteens, providing food, clothing and medicine for the people of Serbia - testifies Ambassador Fini. - Her father's in Sydney created a fund for the establishment of Australian-Serbian canteen. More than 10,000 pounds, which is now about 600,000 euros have been collected for several months. Open the canteen in Nis, Belgrade, Kragujevac, Kraljevo ... And when you have completed the work, in March 1920, the Olive remaining money handed over to the University of Belgrade, University Children's Hospital in Sremska Kamenica and the few humanitarian organizations in Sarajevo. For humanitarian work and love shown towards Serbs, King Alexander to her, in 1920, handed over the royal Order of St. Sava. Exhibition "Sergeant Olive Kelso King - Australian in the Serbian Army" opened at the Small Gallery of the House Army in Belgrade until November 20th.

[peter monahan]

One tends to forget that, even before the days of het travel, people found themselves in the oddest places when wars broke out and often had 'fabulous adventures' [aka ' a bloody awful time'] in consequence.  Is it safe to assume Olive was the only Australian who served with the Sebs?