WOMAN AS A SHIP’S RADIO OPERATOR

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 88, Issue 36, 12 February 1944, Page 4

WOMAN AS A SHIP’S RADIO OPERATOR

LIVED IN WANGANUI SPECIAL TRAINING AS NURSE The distinction of being the first woman seagoing radio operator in a New Zealand ship belongs to Miss Gladys M. Yorke, of Parnell, Auckland, and formerly of Wanganui, chief radio officer in the Union Steam Ship Company’s steamer Tamahine, which is on the Wellington-Pic-ton run. Miss Yorke is believed to be the first woman seagoing radio operator in the Southern Hemisphere. She trained as a nurse and lived with her parents m King’s Avenue, Gonville. She left New Zealand for America, where she studied the science of diet. She also visited Europe to further this study. After two years abroad she returned and took up specialised work in dietetics.

For a time Miss Yorke was sister in charge of the children’s ward at the Wanganui Public Hospital where she introduced the science of die-, with excellent results. This was during the period waen Mis?. Kenny was matron. Later she took up private nursing, specialising in cases* which required special diet. She nursed in a number of Wanganui homes and there are innumerable people who owe their lives to her thorough knowledge of nursing and dietetics. Miss Yorke was in Wanganui during the infantile epidemic. She left about 1927 for a second visit to America to study the violet ray system of treatment, and on returning to New Zealand she took up private practice in Auckland, taking her mother to the northern city to live, her father having passed away in Wanganui. Mrs. Yorke died more than a year ago. When war broke out and nurses were called for overseas Miss Yorke volunteered, but was not accepted. She then determined to become a radio operator and started studying. She obtained an amateur’s certificate but illness intervened for two years. \. nile she was convalescent she continued her studies Then she was able to get her 2nd-class operators certificate and later her first-class, issued by the Postmaster-General, whose department conducts the examination. The day after she obtained her certificate she secured her present appointment. Miss Yorke wears an officer’s uniform, but with skirt instead of trousers, and the ordinary officer’s cap with the company’s badge. On the tunic sleeves are th® gold stripes of a chief radio operator. She lives aboard ship. Miss Yorke hopes later to secure a similar post on a Home-going boat so that she can get nearer the war zone.