[8] She sailed with five other nurses: Mary Finlay, Evelyn Conyers, Jane Lempriere, Hilda Ridderwold Samsing, and Jessie McHardy White.

[9] The nurses sailed with the 8th Battalion aboard HMAT Benalla on 19 October 1914, arriving in Egypt on 4 December.

2 Australian General Hospital at Mena, 12 miles east of Cairo at the foot of the pyramids, under the direction of Sister Nellie Gould.

Almost everyone on the nursing or medical staff has a relation or friend at the front so you dread the latest news...[10]In May 1915, Matron Bell offered Kitchin and Hilda Samsing the opportunity to travel back to Australia with convalescent patients.

After living through the heat of a Mediterranean summer – a bitterly cold European winter meant the thick woollen uniforms so oppressive in Egypt – and the source of conflict with the hierarchy[13] were welcome in France.

Kitchin was admitted with bronchitis to hospital in Rouen in December 1916, and was then evacuated to England on HMHS Aberdonian in January 1917.

A persistent cough saw her spend further time at St Alban's Convalescent Home for Australian Nurses in February 1918.

Of this time, Kitchen wrote: The Great offensive has started, God grant it may be a victory for us, though the casualties are bound to be awful for both sides...a great anxiety overshadows us night and day and one feels that for he few we know or belong to us in that awful maelstrom it is impossible to entertain much hope.

[16]After the armistice, Kitchin successfully applied for education leave to attend a course at the Royal Sanitary Institute in Buckingham Palace Road.

To return home, Kitchin joined the nursing staff aboard HS Kanowna, arriving back in Melbourne on 23 October 1919.