ANMC

Caroline Mary Ennis - VFX38751
Caroline Mary Ennis	Rank Lieutenant Service Number VFX38751 Unit 2/10th Australian General Hospital Cause of Death Lost at Sea - Presumed Drowned Place of Death Bangka Island, Indonesia Date of Death 14 February 1942 Age 28

Caroline Mary Ennis was born on 13 August 1913 in Swan Hill, Victoria, daughter of Hugh Martin Ennis and Mary Josephine Ennis (née Carter) of Moyhu, Victoria. Known as ‘Carrie’ to her family, she was the eldest of four children (or possibly three; sources differ). The family moved shortly afterwards to Charters Towers in Queensland, where her father died in 1922, after which the family returned to Victoria.

An early nursing photo of Caroline. Courtesy Northeast Health Wangaratta

Caroline trained to be a nurse at Beechworth Hospital and passed her Nurses Board exam in either March or April 1936. In 1940 she worked at Wangaratta Hospital with Dorothy Elmes, later killed on Radji Beach in the Bangka Island Massacre.

On 20 August 1940, while living in Cheshunt, Victoria, Caroline enlisted in the Australian Army Nursing Service. On 11 January 1941, she was attached to the 2/10th Australian General Hospital (AGH) and assigned the rank of Staff Nurse. On 1 February 1941, Caroline embarked from Sydney with the 2/10th AGH aboard the Queen Mary, bound for Malaya.

Arriving in Singapore on 18 February, Caroline was detached for duty between the 2/10th AGH, the 2/9th Field Ambulance and the 2/4th Casualty Clearing Station, treating the ill and wounded across the peninsula. She was working at the 2/4th CCS when the Imperial Japanese Army invaded Malaya. In late January 1942, in the face of the swift southward progress of the Japanese, the 2/4th CCS was forced to withdraw to Singapore, where Caroline, now promoted to the rank of Sister Group 1, joined the 2/13th AGH, the only Australian hospital left in Malaya.

On 12 February, along with 64 other Australian nurses and many civilians, Caroline was evacuated from Singapore aboard the SS Vyner Brooke. On Saturday 14 February the Vyner Brooke entered Bangka Strait, which runs between Sumatra and Bangka Island, en route to Palembang in Sumatra. Not long after 2.00 pm the ship was bombed and strafed repeatedly by Japanese aircraft and sank within 30 minutes.

As the bombs exploded the nurses prepared for evacuation, treating the wounded as best they could, before abandoning ship with the rest. Some were helped into lifeboats, others clung to rafts. Those who could swim made for nearby Bangka Island.

Caroline managed to find a place on a raft with seven other nurses, Mary Clarke, Millie Dorsch, Iole Harper, Betty Jeffrey, Gladys McDonald, Olive Paschke and Merle Trenerry. The raft drifted away from the wreckage, caught in the currents. Aboard the raft Caroline assumed responsibility for two small children, a boy Betty had plucked out of the sea and a girl who took to calling Caroline “Auntie.”

They drifted all Saturday night. Betty Jeffrey and Iole Harper had volunteered to lighten the raft by swimming alongside it, but on Sunday morning they became separated from it. Betty and Iole, who would eventually make it ashore, “watched the raft grow smaller, with Mary Clarke and Gladys McDonald sitting on either side of Olive Paschke, and Millie Dorsch and Merle Trenerry in the water alongside hanging onto the trailing ropes. And there, back-to-back with her matron, sat Caroline Ennis, cradling the two small children in her lap. The raft and its occupants were never seen again” (On Radji Beach, p.187). Caroline was 28 years old.

Of the 65 nurses aboard the Vyner Brooke, 12 were lost at sea and 32 survived the sinking, making it to Bangka Island only to be interned as prisoners of war. Twenty-four eventually returned to Australia. The remaining 22 nurses survived the sinking and came ashore at Radji Beach, Bangka Island. All but Vivian Bullwinkel perished in the Bangka Island Massacre.

In March 1943 Caroline was promoted posthumously to the rank of Lieutenant.

At the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, Caroline is commemorated on the Roll of Honour among some 40,000 others from the Second World War. In Cheshunt, a tree planted in 1959 in memory of Caroline stands next to one planted in memory of Dorothy Elmes. In front of each is a plaque. Another memorial plaque is mounted at Wangaratta Hospital. It reads:

In memory of
Lieut. Dorothy Gwenda Elmes
And
Lieut. Caroline Mary Ennis
Australian Army Nursing Service
Who paid the supreme sacrifice overseas for King and Country
1939–45

"Lest We Forget"

Sources

‘Australian Nurses of the Vyner Brooke’, WikiTree, https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Australian_Nurses_of_the_Vyner_Brooke.

‘The Sinking of the Vyner Brooke’, Australian War Memorial, https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/E84734.

‘Nurses from WWII’, Northeast Health Wangaratta, https://www.northeasthealth.org.au/ww2-nurses/.

‘SS Vyner Brooke Passenger List’ (June 2017), Malayan Volunteers Group, https://www.malayanvolunteersgroup.org.uk/uploads/1/0/7/3/107387685/ss_vyner_brooke_passenger_list_june__2017.pdf.

Sister Dorothy Elmes & Sister Caroline Ennis Memorial, Places of Pride, National Register of War Memorials, an initiative of the Australian War Memorial, https://placesofpride.awm.gov.au/memorials/264863.

‘The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (VFX38751) Sister Caroline Mary Ennis, 10th Australian General Hospital, Australian Army Nursing Service, Second World War’ (8 May 2028), Australian War Memorial, https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C2610696.

On Radji Beach (2010), Ian W. Shaw.

Olive Dorothy Paschke - VFX38812
Matron Olive Paschke	Rank Major Service Number VFX38812 Unit 2/10th Australian General Hospital Cause of Death Lost at Sea - Presumed Drowned Place of Death Bangka Island, Indonesia Date of Death 14 February 1942 Age 36

Matron Olive Paschke MBE, Herald & Weekly Times Limited portrait collection, State Library of Victoria

Matron Olive Paschke was one of 65 Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS) nurses and over 250 civilian men, women and children evacuated on the SS Vyner Brooke from Singapore on Thursday 12 February 1942, three days before its fall to the Imperial Japanese Army. On Saturday 14 February, the Vyner Brooke was bombed by Japanese aircraft near Bangka Island and sank within 30 minutes.

Of the 65 AANS nurses aboard, 12 were killed in the bombing or lost at sea. After leaving the sinking ship, Matron Paschke, along with Sisters Clarke, Trenerry, McDonald, Dorsch and Ennis, was washed out to sea on a life raft and never seen again.

Fifty-three nurses were washed ashore on Bangka Island, of whom 31 were interned by Japanese troops and taken to the town of Muntok. The remaining 22 nurses, together with civilians and injured Allied soldiers, had arrived in a lifeboat on Radji Beach, where they joined other survivors of the sinking.

On Monday 16 February 1942, after most of the civilian women and children had earlier walked into Muntok, the AANS nurses and the remaining civilians and Allied soldiers were killed, by Japanese soldiers, despite their efforts to surrender. The Allied soldiers were bayoneted, and the nurses were ordered to march into the sea and were shot. Only Sister Vivian Bullwinkel and a lone British soldier survived the massacre. The soldier later died, but Vivian joined the other 31 AANS nurses in internment.

Ada Joyce Bridge - NFX76284
	Rank Lieutenant Service Number NFX76284 Unit 2nd/13th Australian General Hospital Cause of Death Murdered as a POW of Japan in the Bangka Island massacre Place of Death Bangka Island, Indonesia Date of Death 16 February 1942 Age 34

Ada Joyce Bridge (known as Joyce) was born on 6 July 1907 in Scone, NSW. She had an older brother and was the daughter of William Thomas Bridge and Ada Matilda Bridge (née Thurlow). William was a descendant of Joseph Bridge, a convict from Lancashire, England who arrived in NSW in 1806 on the Fortune. Joyce's family home was ‘Stoney Creek’ in Belltrees, about 30 km from Scone.

As a young girl, Joyce loved the country life at Stoney Creek. She and her brother rode their horses about 5km to the public school at Belltrees until they reached 6th class. The outdoor life tanned her skin and emphasised her brown eyes and short brown hair. Those who knew Joyce at this time described her as a happy girl, who enjoyed her life to the full.

She had a ready smile which often turned into an infectious chuckle…… She was not very tall, but her figure was slim; her arms were strong and her hands were gentle……Joyce was socially very popular, and being an excellent dancer, she enjoyed the local dances.’ ‘. (p5 One Life is Ours….)

She applied to St Luke's Hospital at Darlinghurst Sydney, was accepted as a trainee nurse and commenced on 1 February 1930 and graduated in 1934. She sat for her Nurses Registration Exam on 23 May 1934 and passed all subjects.

A friend who graduated with Joyce remembered her “as a very pleasant companion, very bright with a great sense of humour. She was a genuine friend, a typical country girl who took pride in her work and was very good nurse.” (p8 One Life is Ours….)

She left St Luke's some time after graduation and joined the Toshack’s Nursing Club based in Kings Cross Sydney and undertook private nursing. During this time she shared flats in the area with a number of her colleagues from St Luke’s.

Joyce came from a very patriotic family and enlisted in the Australian Army Nursing Service on 8 April 1941 and was called up 19 August 1941. She was posted to the 2/13th Australian General Hospital (AGH) and travelled to Singapore aboard the Australian Hospital ship Wanganella arriving on the 15 September 1941.

Initially, Joyce and nine other sisters were attached to 2/10 AGH at Malacca in Malaya, where they stayed for three weeks. But life was not all nursing and hard work. ‘Joyce and her friends found new and enjoyable off-duty activities; shopping in the village, sampan picnics, golf, swimming and tennis, as well as the usual social activities in the sister’s mess. She enjoyed her work in the wards, gaining experience of nursing in the tropics and becoming acclimatised’. (p15 One Life is Ours….)

All ten sisters then returned to Singapore to commence work at 2/13 AGH, which was located at St Patrick's School. Between 21-23 November 1941 the entire hospital was moved across the Strait to Tampoi Hill on the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula. However, due to the swift progress of the Japanese invasion force, most of the hospital staff was evacuated back to Singapore in late January 1942.

She survived the sinking of the “SS. Vyner Brooke" but tragically was amongst the nurses massacred on Radji Beach (On Radji Beach p. 218).

A small book was written in 1989 by Joan Crouch entitled “One Life is Ours: the story of Ada Joyce Bridge”. The local newspaper in 1954 described her as “ … a popular and brave district servicewoman …” and on 27 May 1954 The Scone Advocate published an article about the dedication by the Scone & District Country Women's Institute of its new Baby Health Centre and Assembly Hall, “ … with all conveniences in Kelly Street, part of the land on which the Cottage stands ( facing Kingdon Street) …”, to Joyce Bridge with a most warm description of her “ … To those who knew her in private life there remains the memory of a lovely girl with laughing brown eyes, unafraid to face the horrors of war in her eagerness to help nurse the wounded and suffering …”.

In the Forward to One Life is ours…. Vivian Stratham (Bullwinkel) wrote “When approached to write a Forward…., I felt very privileged.

‘I met Joyce, as we knew her, for the first time when our Unit… formed in 1941 and posted overseas to Malaya. The Unit had a short but intensive life during which the weaknesses and strengths of individuals were quickly recognised.

It was during this time that our respect, esteem and affection grew daily for Joyce’s commitment, skills and dedication. Joyce faced every crisis with cheerfulness and fortitude.’

‘One cannot but feel resentment and so very sorry that such a young, lovely and defenceless Australian Nurse, wearing a Red Cross Armband, was murdered in such a cruel and calculated way. A young woman who had so much to give the community and humanity….”.

A very fitting tribute to a lovely Australian country girl.

Today the baby centre has been absorbed into the wider medical facilities of the town of Scone, but the Country Women's building remains where a portrait hangs of Joyce Bridge. Sadly the original medals issued to her posthumously which hung in the Assembly Hall were stolen some years ago, but have been replaced with miniatures .

Vivian Bullwinkel - VFX61330
	Rank Lieutenant Colonel Service Number VFX61330 Unit 2/13th Australian General Hospital Cause of Death Natural Causes Place of Death - Date of Death 3 July 2000 Age 84

18/12/1915 – 3/7/2000

Sole Survivor of a Massacre

After a bullet from a Japanese machine gun tore through her body, Australian nurse Vivian Bullwinkel floated face down in the sea and feigned death. She was the sole survivor of the 1942 Bangka Island Massacre, in which 22 nurses were forced to wade into the ocean at gunpoint and then shot in the back.

Early Years

Vivian was born on 18 December 1915 at Kapunda, South Australia. She trained as a nurse at Broken Hill Hospital then continued her career in Victoria. She volunteered for service in 1941, joining the Australian Army Nursing Service.

“I felt if my friends were willing to go and fight for their country, then they deserved the best care we could give them,” she said in a later interview.

War Service

Assigned to the 2/13th Australian General Hospital, Vivian set sail for Singapore on the AHS Wanganella. After a few weeks with the 2/10th AGH, Vivian rejoined the 2/13th in Johore Baharu, where she remained until Japanese troops began to work their way down the Malayan peninsula, at which time the 2/13th was evacuated to the relative safety of Singapore. As it became likely that Singapore too would fall into Japanese hands, the nurses were ordered to leave. Vivian was in the last group of 65 Australian nurses to leave Singapore bound for Australia on the SS Vyner Brooke.

Evacuation from Singapore

The Vyner Brooke was a small ship designed to carry only 12 passengers; however, when it left Singapore 265 passengers were aboard. The Vyner Brooke travelled along, hugging the coast of the islands. On 14 February 1942 Japanese aircraft bombed the ship. It began to sink. The nurses assisted passengers to evacuate. Over the next three days, some would drown, some would drift ashore on life rafts and others would make it to shore in various locations on Bangka Island. Vivian joined the group on Radji Beach. There were men, women and children on the beach. The nurses cared for the sick and injured and remained with them. A decision was made to give themselves up, so a group of men walked into Muntok to do just that.

The Massacre

When the men returned with Japanese soldiers they could not have know what would happen next. All the men were ordered around a bluff where they were bayoneted and shot. The Japanese soldiers returned and ordered the nurses to walk into the water whereupon they were machine-gunned. As they marched into the sea, Irene Drummond called to her sisters “Chin up girls, I am proud of you. I love you all.” All of them fell, but one would not die. Vivian Bullwinkel would survive the massacre. She recalled that being shot was like being kicked by a mule and that she thought that being shot meant that you were dead. Floating in the water amidst the bodies of her friends she discovered that she was still alive. She feigned death until the Japanese had left the beach, then dragged herself up the beach, tended the gunshot wound as best she could, then took shelter in the jungle near a stream, where she fell asleep. Vivian was woken by a voice. It was Private Cecil Gordon Kinsley, a severely injured British soldier.

Twelve Days in the Jungle

Vivian found a water canteen, filled it with water from the stream for Private Kinsley. She dressed his wounds with what she could find. Finally she decided to seek help from the nearby villagers. The men of the village declined to assist her for fear of recrimination. The women of the village were more helpful and left her food on more than one occasion. Several days passed and they both decided to give themselves up to the Japanese. Private Kinsley requested one more day of freedom. When asked why, he told Vivian that it was his birthday and he wanted to spend the day in freedom. She agreed to his wishes. Vivian and Private Kinsley spent 12 days in the jungle.

Surrender

Vivian used the water canteen, slung over her shoulder to hide the bloodstained bullet hole in her uniform. They were walking towards Muntok, they were met by a car carrying a Japanese Naval officer, who drove them into Muntok where Vivian was reunited with 31 of her fellow nurses. Private Kinsley would die from his wounds a few days later.

Prisoner of War

Initially Vivian and the nurses were held in the Coolie Lines near the prison in Muntok. They then travelled to Palembang under horrendous conditions. After eighteen months in Irenelaan they would be sent by boat again back to Camp Menjelang in Muntok. The nurses lived under awful conditions. They had little food to eat and coupled with Beri-Beri, malaria, TB and Bangka fever, four more nurses would die in Muntok. The nurses were then sent back to Sumatra to Loebok Lingau to a camp called Belalau. A boat journey followed by a long train journey. Four more nurses would succumb to disease during their time in this camp.

Liberation

On the 16th of September 1945 the nurses would be liberated. On hearing this news, Matron Annie Sage and Sister Jean Floyd flew to Lahat, to greet the surviving Australian nurses, at the camp that was hidden in the jungle. Matron Annie Sage had lipsticks for all of the girls as she expected to find 65 nurses. Instead she was confronted with 24 painfully thin and unwell nurses. 24 women whose suffering had been unimaginable.

Return to Singapore and Home

The nurses returned to Singapore where they were treated for illnesses, and given time to recuperate from their malnutrition.

Having put on some weight, they were ready to be seen by the Australian public. They left Singapore on the 5th October 1945 on the AHS Manunda.

On their arrival back in Australia, they were greeted by many well-wishers offering fruit and bouquets. They still had so much to recover from though.

Home Again

Vivian and the other prisoner of war nurses were at home at last. What would the next chapter of their lives be like?

For Vivian it was letters and visits to the family of the murdered girls on Bangka Island. This was an amazing testimony to the woman that she was.

She was discharged from the Army in 1947, and was awarded the Royal Red Cross (2nd Class). She took some time to recover from the ordeal through which she had been as a prisoner of war. Vivian then commenced work at the Repatriation Hospital in Melbourne for a time.

In 1947, Vivian travelled to Tokyo for the War Crimes Tribunal and stated her recollections of the massacre and subsequent treatment by the Japanese in the prisoner-of-war camps.

Conception of the Nurses Memorial Centre

Betty Jeffrey and Vivian Bullwinkel travelled around the state of Victoria talking about their experiences as POWs and how they were fundraising to support the establishment of a nurses’ memorial centre in memory of their fallen comrades. They didn’t want just a stone edifice to memorialise their fallen friends: they wanted a living memorial that would offer nurses a place to meet and a place that would support continuing education. They had thought about this concept when they were prisoners in Sumatra. On the 19th of February 1950 the establishment of the War Nurses Memorial Centre would become a reality.

Civilian Life

Vivian was appointed Matron of Fairfield Infectious Diseases Hospital in 1959. She was involved with many nursing related ventures that included the positions of President of the College of Nursing Australia and member of Council for the Australian War Memorial. She was an instrumental player in Operation Babylift where Vietnamese orphans we brought to Australia in 1975 by Australian nurses who cared for them in flight.

In September 1977 she married Colonel Francis (Frank) Statham and moved to Perth. She remained in touch with all of the ex-POW friends.

She continued to be an active voice for veterans throughout her life. Here she is on the left, marching with other military nurses in the 1955 Anzac Day parade in Melbourne.

Vivian was awarded both the Order of Australia and the MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) for her bravery.

Honours

Over the years Vivian received many awards. In 1947 she was awarded an ARRC (Associate of the Royal Red Cross), in 1973 an MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) and in 1993 an OA (Officer of the Order of Australia). She was also awarded the Florence Nightingale Medal and an Efficiency Decoration.

In 1993 she, along with seven of the other POW nurses, would travel back to Bangka Island, Indonesia to unveil the memorial to the nurses who had died there during the war and to those who had been prisoners of war.

Vivian died on the 3rd of July 2000 aged 84 years. Her service to Australia and to the nurses who died and were prisoners of war during World War II and to the nursing profession will never be forgotten.

This portrait in the Australian War Memorial depicts her wearing her grey nurse’s uniform, red cape and sister’s veil. Among her medals, she is wearing the Florence Nightingale Medal, the world’s highest honour available to nurses.

On the 75th anniversary of the tragedy in February 2017, a commemorative coin bearing an image of the SS Vyner Brooke was struck by the Royal Australian Mint.

At that time, the director of the Australian War Memorial, Brendan Nelson, paid tribute to this outstanding heroine by saying this: “From a generation that produced so many remarkable Australians, Vivian Bullwinkel was a giant among them.”

Rest in peace, Vivian Bullwinkel Statham.

Florence Casson - SFX13418
	Rank Lieutenant Service Number SFX13418 Unit 2nd/13th Australian General Hospital Cause of Death Murdered by Japanese troops on Bangka Island Place of Death Bangka Island, Indonesia Date of Death 16 February 1942 Age 38

6/3/1903 – 16/2/1942

Sister Florence ‘Flo’ Rebecca Casson, SFX 13418, was the daughter of Henry and Mary Casson of Willaston, South Australia. She was born in Warracknabeal, Victoria on 6 March 1903. Flo trained as a nurse, and the first record of her nursing career is at the Royal Adelaide Hospital in 1935 in a group photo titled 'Matron Draw with Night Nurses'.

Soon after she must have moved up in her career, as she became the Matron at a number of small country hospitals, including those at Jamestown and Port Pirie, and the Soldiers' Memorial Hospital in Pinaroo, a small South Australian country town near the South Australian–Victorian border.

On 7 February 1941 Flo Casson enlisted at Keswick, South Australia with the Australian Army Nursing Service and travelled to Malaya with the 2/13th Australian General Hospital.

After service in Malaya and Singapore she boarded the SS Vyner Brooke, and at the time of the bombing attack on the ship she was located in the saloon with other nurses where she was hit with a bomb blast, along with Rosetta Wright and Clare Halligan (On Radji Beach, p.153). The blast caused severe damage to her legs, one of which was possibly fractured, and she had to be assisted up to the main deck. Somehow her friends managed to get her into the second lifeboat that was launched with severely wounded nurses on board.

This lifeboat drifted ashore at Radji Beach later that night. Sister Vivian Bullwinkel and Sub-Lt Jimmy Miller, Royal Naval Reserve (Engineer Officer on the Vyner Brooke) walked along the beach to where a large bonfire had already been lit by survivors in order to obtain assistance with carrying the wounded nurses to the main camp.

Flo Casson and Rosetta Wright were the most seriously wounded. As described in Ian W. Shaw's On Radji Beach (p. 200), “They were both strong and brave women, but their wounds were severe. Again, shell splinters had caused the damage, with both women suffering deep wounds to the buttocks and upper thighs. They were unable to walk, and had to be fed and helped with their toilet functions. The wounds appeared to have caused nerve damage, perhaps fractures, and they needed more specialised treatment than any that could be provided on the beach. […] Miller eventually put together a rescue party and set off. The journey to the second lifeboat and back with its survivors took over two hours, and the wounded nurses were in agony on the return journey, having to be half-dragged, half carried for most of the distance. Their pain was obvious and it, in turn, increased the distress of the other survivors.”

When dawn broke on Sunday 15 February 1942, Flo was probably lying on a makeshift stretcher in the shade of the jungle on Radji Beach with the other wounded. They were being cared for by Matron Drummond and her nurses and a Chinese doctor who had also survived the sinking (possibly a Dr Chan), plus a group of survivors numbering about 70.

It seems that Flo and a few other more seriously wounded were later that day transferred to a fisherman’s uninhabited hut further down the beach towards the headland. Flo spent another night on the beach being cared for by her companions with what little they had in the way of medical supplies.

At dawn on Monday 16 February the survivors were joined by another lifeboat and rafts with many wounded people from ships that sank in the Bangka Strait during the night. The sheer volume of wounded seems to have tipped those in authority to sending the women and children and a few walking-wounded men on a trek towards the nearest town. The nurses were also invited to join that group but declined.

The nurses knew that it was their duty to stay with and look after the wounded, regardless of their difficulties.

So Flo was amongst the group of nurses destined to be executed by the Japanese. Once the Japanese had executed firstly the officers and then the second group of other ranks and civilian men they turned their attention to the nurses. Forming the nurses into a line facing the sea, with Flo and her wounded friends being supported at the righthand end of the line by other sisters (On Radji Beach, p. 216), the Japanese carried out one of their most abhorrent war crimes against Allied women on record.

On Radji Beach (p. 217) states that “Flo and Rosetta and Clare and the sisters supporting them fell under the gun, grouped together in death as in life."

So life was taken from Flo at the age of 39 years after several decades of unselfishly caring for others in need.

Flo Casson is memorialised by a plaque at Pinaroo Soldiers Memorial Hospital, where the Health Promotion Room is also named after her. There is also a plaque at the Royal Adelaide Hospital and at Moonta cemetery in South Australia. At the grave of her parents, Flo is remembered by a plaque inscribed with her name and that of her brother, himself a former POW.

Mary Elizabeth (Beth) Cuthbertson - VFX38746
	Rank Sister Service Number VFX38746 Unit 2/13th Australian General Hospital Cause of Death Murdered as a POW of Japan in the Bangka Island massacre Place of Death Bangka Island, Indonesia Date of Death 16 February 1942 Age 31

5/3/1910 – 16/2/1942

Sister Mary Elizabeth (Beth) Cuthbertson, daughter of William Melville Cuthbertson and Lilian Beatrice Cuthbertson (née Hooper), of Ballarat, Victoria. 2/13th Australian General Hospital, Australian Army Nursing Service. Sr Cuthbertson, along with 64 other Australian nurses and over 250 civilian men, women and children, was evacuated from Singapore, three days before the fall of Malaya, aboard the SS Vyner Brooke. On 14 February 1942 the Vyner Brooke was bombed by Japanese aircraft and sunk in Bangka Strait, off the coast of Sumatra. Twelve Australian nurses were killed, and 31 of the nurses who survived the sinking were captured as prisoners of war, eight of whom later died during captivity. The remaining 22 nurses, including Sr Cuthbertson, aged 31, were washed ashore on Radji Beach, Bangka Island, where they, along with 25 British soldiers, surrendered to the Japanese. On 16 February 1942 the Japanese bayoneted the soldiers and ordered the nurses to march into the sea, where they were shot. The only survivors of the massacre were Sister Vivian Bullwinkel and a British soldier. Both were taken as prisoners of war, but only Sr Bullwinkel survived the war.

Irene Melville Drummond - SFX10594
	Rank Matron Service Number SFX10594 Unit 2nd/13th Australian General Hospital Cause of Death Murdered by Japanese troops at Bangka Island Place of Death Bangka Island, Indonesia Date of Death 16 February 1942 Age 36

26/7/1905 – 16/2/1942

Matron Irene Drummond SFX10594 was the senior Australian on the beach on that fateful day and her extraordinary courage will always be remembered.

''Chin up, girls. I'm proud of you all and I love you all.'' So Matron Drummond called out as she walked into the water to her death on Radji Beach.

Irene Melville Drummond was born on 26 July 1905 at Ashfield, Sydney, daughter of Cedric Drummond, marine engineer, and his wife Katherine, née Melville, both Queensland born. Educated at Catholic schools in Adelaide and in Broken Hill, New South Wales, Irene returned to Adelaide, trained as a nurse at Miss Laurence's Private Hospital, qualified in obstetrics at the Queen's Home and worked at Angaston Hospital.

In 1933 she moved to the Broken Hill and District Hospital where she proved to be a compassionate and extremely competent nurse, well liked and respected by her superiors and colleagues. She served as a surgical sister, assistant matron and acting matron. In Ian W. Shaw's book On Radji Beach (p. 14), Irene is described as being “like a mother hen fussing over her chicks and greeting all with a cheery smile and a friendly squeeze of the shoulder.”

Irene Drummond joined the Australian Army Nursing Service at Keswick, South Australian on 23 July 1940, although her Oath of Enlistment in the Australian Imperial Force is dated 8 November 1940. She was called up for full-time duty with the 2/4th Casualty Clearing Station in January 1941. Next month she sailed for Singapore to join the 2/9th Field Ambulance. Briefly back with the 2/4th CCS, she was promoted to Matron on 5 August and posted to the 2/13th Australian General Hospital in September.

When the Japanese invaded Malaya on 8 December, the hospital was situated near Johor Bahru. In January 1942 it was hurriedly moved to St Patrick's School, Singapore. Despite chaotic conditions brought on by the hasty retreat, enemy air raids and increasing admissions of battle casualties, Drummond's quiet efficiency helped to ensure that the wards were operational within 48 hours.

By early February 1942 surrender to the Japanese appeared likely. Throughout January, Major General Gordon Bennett had repeatedly refused to allow the evacuation of AANS personnel. It was not until 10 February that they began leaving, five days before the capitulation. By 12 February only Drummond, Matron Olive Paschke of the 2/10 AGH, and 63 members of their staffs remained in Singapore. Although the nurses had begged to be allowed to stay with their patients, they were put on board the small ship SS Vyner Brooke for the perilous voyage to Australia.

It is now well known history that on 14 February in Bangka Strait off Sumatra the ship was hit by bombs. The nurses helped other passengers to abandon ship. Scooping up a small Chinese boy as the Vyner Brooke sank, Drummond escaped in a lifeboat.

A group of survivors, including Drummond and 21 fellow nurses, came ashore at Radji Beach, Bangka Island. They were joined by civilians and servicemen from other sunken ships. Having discovered that the island was already in the hands of the Japanese and that no help could be expected from the local population, on 16 February the party resolved to surrender. One of the Vyner Brooke’s officers was sent to nearby Muntok to negotiate with the Japanese.

While he was away Drummond suggested that the civilian women and children should leave for Muntok. Her suggestion undoubtedly saved many lives. Shortly after the civilians departed, a Japanese officer and about 20 soldiers arrived at the beach.

Ignoring pleas that the remaining group was surrendering, the Japanese separated the men from the women. The men were marched in two groups around a small rocky headland to another area where they were shot and bayoneted. The Japanese returned to the nurses who had been left sitting on the beach and ordered them to walk into the sea.

All knew their fate as they entered the water in silence. The Japanese soldiers opened fire with a machine-gun. Irene Drummond was one of the first to die.

Matron Drummond was posthumously promoted to the rank of Major on 23 March 1943 and later to Lieutenant Colonel and was mentioned in dispatches in 1946. The citation read “The King has been graciously pleased to approve that the following be Mentioned in recognition of gallant and distinguished services in Malaya in 1942” (Supplement to the London Gazette, no. 37671, p. 3919, 1 August 1946).

At the Australian War Memorial in Canberra are two original letters written by Matron Drummond to her sister in Australia. The letters are handwritten and dated 17 December 1941 and 5 February 1942. They describe the war conditions in Malaya following the outbreak of war with the Japanese.

Dorothy Gwendoline (Buddy) Elmes - NFX70526
	Rank Sister Nursing Corps Service Number NFX70526 Unit 2/4th Casualty Clearing Station Australian Army Medical Services Cause of Death Died as Prisoner of War Place of Death Bangka Island, Indonesia Date of Death 16 February 1942 Age 28

27/4/1914- 16/2/1942

Dorothy Gwendoline Elmes was born at Armadale, Victoria to Robert and Dorothy Jean Elmes on 27 April 1914. She would grow up in Melbourne and Cheshunt in Victoria’s King Valley.

She would train at Corowa Community Hospital and would graduate in May 1939. By all accounts she was a very popular girl.

She enlisted in Paddington, NSW on 17 December 1940. Embarkation was on the Queen Mary in early February with other members of the 10th Australian General Hospital. She disembarked in Singapore on 18 February. On 10 January 1942 she was attached to the 2/4th Casualty Clearing Station of the AANS. Eventually she was to travel to Singapore to await evacuation. She was evacuated on the SS Vyner Brooke. Eventually she would make land at Radji Beach on Bangka Island. On 16 February she would be killed with 20 other nurses by the Japanese on Radji Beach with only Vivian Bullwinkel surviving the massacre.

Her mother wrote, “My Darling little Bud, Oh dear I wish I knew where you are in the world...” on 2 March 1942, but Dorothy had already died on Radji Beach.

Lorna Florence Fairweather - SFX13431
	Rank Staff Nurse Service Number SX13431 Unit 2/13th Australian General Hospital Cause of Death Executed by Japanese in the Bangka Island massacre Place of Death Bangka Island, Indonesia Date of Death 16 February 1942 Age 29

Lorna Florence Fairweather was born in Stirling West, South Australia, on 31 January 1913, the daughter of Percival Sidney Howard Fairweather and Florence Annie Fairweather.

Lorna worked as a paediatric nurse at the Somerton Crippled Children's Home and lived with her parents in Broadview, Adelaide. On 2 July 1941 she was called up for duty in the Australian Army Nursing Service and on 28 August left Adelaide for Melbourne. On 2 September Sister Lorna Fairweather embarked with the 2/13th Australian General Hospital on the Wanganella, bound for Singapore.

On 12 February 1942, three days before the fall of Malaya, Lorna, along with 64 other Australian nurses and over 250 civilian men, women and children, was evacuated from Singapore on the SS Vyner Brooke. The Vyner Brooke was bombed by Japanese aircraft and sunk in Bangka Strait on 14 February 1942.

Of the 65 nurses on board, 12 were lost as sea while 32 survived the sinking and were captured as prisoners of war, of whom eight later died during captivity. Sister Fairweather, aged 30, was one of the remaining 22 nurses who also survived the sinking and were washed ashore on Radji Beach, Bangka Island, where they surrendered to the Japanese, along with 25 British soldiers.

On 16 February 1942 the group was massacred. The soldiers were bayoneted and the nurses were ordered to march into the sea where they were shot. Only Sister Vivian Bullwinkel and a British soldier, Private Cecil Gordon Kinsley, survived the massacre. Both were taken as prisoners of war, but only Sister Bullwinkel survived the war.

Source: Virtual War Memorial Australia.

Peggy Everett Farmaner - WFX3438
	Rank Sister Service Number WFX3438 Unit 2nd/4th Casualty Clearing Station Cause of Death Murdered as a POW of Japan in the Banka Island massacre Place of Death Bangka Island, Indonesia Date of Death 16 February 1942 Age 28

8/3/1913 -16/2/1942

"Don’t worry about me mother” wrote Peggy Farmaner on 2 February 1942. Two weeks later she was cruelly executed by Japanese soldiers on Radji Beach, Bangka Island.

Sister Peggy Everett Farmaner, WFX 3438, born in 1912 was a member of the 2/4th Casualty Clearing Station.

A newspaper article records that she” … was the daughter of George Frederick Farmaner and Flora Susan Farmaner of 9 Lapsley Place, Claremont, Western Australia and part of an old pioneer family well known in that area. She was educated at Methodist Ladies College and St Mary’s Church of England Grammar School, from where she matriculated. She did her nursing training at Perth Hospital.

“When war was declared she was in Sydney but immediately returned to her home State to enlist. In August 1940 she left on the ‘Queen Mary’ for Malaya. She worked with four other nurses at a Clearing Station in the most forward area of North Johore. The Nurses then moved to Kluang where they established a hospital on a rubber estate. On January 20, 1942 they were again evacuated at two hours notice, were moved to another place, which within 12 hours was found to be the wrong place. From here they moved to Singapore…

“The last letter her parents received from her was written on February 9, 1942. She was killed a week later, ’God knows the position is desperate but I am strangely unperturbed. Don’t worry about me, mother’ she wrote …”.

"Her death was absolutely devastating for everyone," says Peggy's grandniece, Susan Thomson. Peggy completed her primary school education at MLC, and then attended St Mary's Anglican Girl's School for her senior years. After leaving school Peggy trained as a nurse, and when war broke out signed up to the 2/4th Casualty Clearing Station in Malaysia.

Tom Hamilton, the doctor who headed the 2/4th CCS, described her as "a pretty little Western Australian, who was full of fun."

When war was declared on the Japanese on December 8, 1941, after the attack on Pearl Harbour, the 2/4th CCS was relocated to the Oldham Hall School.

After the ship sank Peggy reached the lifeboat with Matron Drummond and grabbed a trailing rope (p.169, On Radji Beach) and so reached Radji beach. She was one of the Australian nurses forced into a line facing the sea and murdered by Japanese troops at the beach.

Peggy Farmaner is included in the memorial to all the nurses unveiled in 1999 by Mrs Vivian Statham (nee Bullwinkel) and Wilma Young at Honour Avenue (at the lake near the tennis court of the Botanical Gardens), Kings Park, Bicton, WA. Her plaque is number M264.

Perhaps the best memorial to Peggy is reported to have occurred when the surviving nurses returned to Australia on the ‘Manunda’, “When the nurses spent the night at Hollywood Military Hospital, in Perth, the reception-rooms were banked with flowers.

“For each nurse was a special gift of a posy from the garden of the late Sister P. Farmaner, one of those who died on Bank Beach.

Her mother brought the flowers to her daughter’s comrades …

Clarice Isobel Halligan - VX47776
	Rank Sister Service Number VX61329 Unit 2nd/13th Australian General Hospital Cause of Death Murdered as a POW of Japan in the Banka Island massacre Place of Death Bangka Island, Indonesia Date of Death 16 February 1942 Age 37

17/10/1904 – 16/2/1942

Sister Clarice ‘Clare’ Isobel Halligan, VX 47776, 2/13th Australian General Hospital was born in Ballarat, Victoria on 17 September 1904, the third daughter of Joseph Patrick Halligan and Emily Watson Chalmers, who were married in Ballarat in 1898. They had eight children, the first in 1899 and the eighth in 1918. Clarice was the first of the siblings to die on 16th February 1942 at the age of 37 years.

Clarice’s father Joseph Patrick Halligan, started work at Ballarat Brewery and left to join Abbotsford Brewery, in Melbourne. The family at that time lived in a lovely Victorian House in the grounds of the Brewery in Abbotsford. Later on, they all moved to Kew.

Joseph rented stables in a back block, where a horse and jinker (2 wheeled cart) were kept for travel around Melbourne and for Joseph to travel to work. The children had a carefree childhood and played down at the Yarra River in Kew where they swam and bought ice cream from a punt on the River. They all went to school in Kew. They also went for escapades into the expansive grounds of the Kew Mental Asylum.

Clarice was a member of the Church of England. She had very strong faith as shown by a life committed to helping others and her work as missionary in New Guinea. She was Confirmed at the Holy Trinity Church in Kew Melbourne on the 5th August 1917 and her Confirmation Certificate is in the possession of her family.

Her family are very fortunate to have many Certificates of her very extensive training as a Nurse, but the oldest record dates to when Clarice was very young; nearly 12 years old. It is a Victorian Education Department Pupil’s Cookery Certificate dated 30th June, 1916. This is for a Six Month Course of Instruction in the Theory and Practice of Elementary Cookery, Richmond, Vic.

Another Certificate is the Australian Nursing Federation Certificate of Registration dated 3 October 1929 Certifying that Clarice Isobel Halligan, has been admitted to Membership of the Australian Nursing Federation as a General Nurse.

Clarice trained at the The Melbourne Hospital and Women’s Hospital Melbourne (combined training school for Nurses). The family have a Certificate dated 3rd October, 1927 certifying that Clarice Isobel Halligan had been trained at these Hospitals for three and a half years in Medical, Surgical and Nursing and six months in Midwifery.

There is also a Record of Service dated 5th June 1928 from the Lady Superintendent of Royal Melbourne Hospital recording that Clarice worked for three and a half years at this hospital in various men’s and women’s, medical, surgical, isolation, eye, ear, nose and throat wards, on day and night duty, in the casualty and out-patient department and in the operating theatres. She also worked in the gynaecological wards at the Women’s hospital. Clarice clearly had much experience.

Other qualifications included

(1) Training in Mothercraft and Infant Welfare required by the Victorian Baby Health Centres Association, qualifying her to take charge of a Baby Health Centre.

(2) Special course of training in Infant Welfare Nursing.

(3) Registration as a Midwife by the Nurses’ Board of South Australia

In 1934 Clarice went to Papua New Guinea as a Missionary and kept a diary but unfortunately only one now remains in the possession of the family. Paper was obviously in short supply in New Guinea and this diary was written in pencil on her brother’s school work book. It is assumed by her family that she may have written many diaries that were mistakenly thrown out by relatives who did not know that diaries were hidden in between school work. The diary starts with DOGURA, PAPUA NEW GUINEA - 31.07.1934 (DIARY and says

“As you probably know I am one of the newer missionaries, having landed in Papua on the last day of July, 1934……”

From stories related by relatives, Clarice worked in Melbourne for the Grey Sisters, an Order of Anglican Sisters who looked after poor people in Abbotsford. She then went to Neerim South as the Matron of the local hospital, where her parents went to meet the Doctor who was thinking of marrying Clarice. But for one reason or another Clarice’s parents deemed him unsuitable for marriage to their daughter. Something was wrong with his foot; maybe what used to be called a “club foot”!

According to her Record of Service Clarice joined the Australian General Hospital on 20 December 1940 and was allocated to the 7 AGH. She immediately went on leave without pay and returned to duty on 31 January 1941 and was the attached to the Camp Hospital at Seymour Victoria.

On the 11 July 1940 she enlisted in the Australian Army Nursing Service at the Australian Army Medical Corp Depot in William St Melbourne. She sailed on the 30 July 1941 and disembarked at Singapore on the 14 August 19/41. Clarice had wanted to go to the Middle East but ended up in Malaya. Initially Clarice was seconded with 10 other Nurse to the 2/10th Australian General Hospital at Malacca in Malaya.

Clarice returned to the 2/13th Australian General Hospital that was initially located at St Patrick's School on Singapore Island. Between 21-23 November 1941 the entire hospital was moved across the Straits to Tampoi Hill on the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula. Due however, to the swift progress of the Japanese invasion force, most of the hospital staff was evacuated back to Singapore in late January 1942.

With the 65 other Australian Nurses Clarice was on board the SS Vyner Brooke when it was bombed by the Japanese and sunk on 14 February 1942. Clarice was badly injured by a bomb blast at the same time as Rosetta Wight and both

“ … suffered deep shrapnel wounds to the back of their thighs and buttocks, wounds that penetrated to the bone …. Partially in shock and bleeding profusely, both women were unable to move …”(p.153, On Radji Beach).

Fellow nurses helped her up to the deck and into what would be the second lifeboat to be launched. This lifeboat however overturned as it hit the sea and throwing out most of its passengers out ( p.160, On Radji Beach). Nevertheless, Clarice managed to hold onto the upturned craft. She must have been in excruciating pain for many hours before the sea currents eventually washed the upturned lifeboat and its survivors ashore at one end of Radji.

Clarice's wounds, whilst bad, were apparently not quite as severe as those of the other two wounded nurses and she was “… able to walk and simply needed some stitching and some medication to be guaranteed a full recovery …” ( p.199-200, On Radji Beach). But there is no doubt that she would have been in agony as she managed to make the journey along the coast to where the first lifeboat had lit a bonfire.

Clarice would have been in real pain during the next two days until the time the Japanese troops arrived at Radji beach. The soldiers proceeded to execute firstly the officers and serviceman and then the crew and civilian men on the beach before in an unbelievable act of totally senseless brutality they lined up the nurses near the waters edge. Clare and the other wounded nurses were on the left of the line facing out to sea. The soldiers opened fire with their machine gun.

Thus ended the life of a woman in the prime of life who had been dedicated to caring for others in pain and suffering.

One the final entries on Clarice’s Offical Record states

“Deceased whilst POW. Executed by Japanese”

An example of the impact on families of the uncertainty of their loved one’s fate can be seen in letters on Clarice’s file and her Officiers Record of Service at the Australian War Memorial Canberra. Clarice died in February 1942 and it was not until September/October 1945 that her death could be really confirmed, following the release of the surviving 24 Nurses from captivity as POWs. Prior to that the Nurses were ‘presumed killed’ which still gave their families some hope that they were alive.

On 2 September 1944 Clarice’s mother wrote to the Army for “a Certificate, or otherwise a statement of authortity” to enable her to sell Clarice’s car. Further correspondance followed and the Army thought her mother wanted a Death Certificate. But her mother wrote on 28 September that

“We don’t wish to apply for a Certificate of Death ……..as we still have some hope that our daughter may still be alive.”

How sad are those words and any slender hope would be shattered 12 months later.

Undoubtedly, similar sentiments were being experienced by the families of the other 41 Nurses from the SS Vyner Brooke who died during or after the sinking, were executed on Radji Beach, or died whilst a Prisoner of War of the Japanese. And we should not forget the anguish and uncertainty of the familes of the Nurses who did return home.

Nancy Harris - NFX76285
	Rank Sister Service Number NFX76285, NX76285 (N108167) Unit 2/13th Australian General Hospital Cause of Death Murdered by Japanese soldiers in the Bangka Island Massacre Place of Death Bangka Island, Indonesia Date of Death 16 February 1942 Age 29

Sister Nancy Harris, NX 76285, was a member of the 2/13th Australian General Hospital. She was aged 29 years when she died.

Nancy Harris was born on 15 January 1913 in Guyra, NSW. She was the daughter of Dr John Solomon Harris and Florence Cecily Harris of North Sydney, NSW. In 1928 Nancy attended Presbyterian Ladies' College in Pymble.

On 5th April 1941, Nancy enlisted in the Australian Army Nursing Service and was attached to the 2/13th Australian General Hospital.

Nancy left South Australia in August 1941 and sailed for Malaya on the HS Wanganella, arriving 15 September. The 2/13th Australian General Hospital was initially located at St Patrick's School in Singapore, but from 21–23 November the entire hospital was moved across the Johor Strait to Tampoi Hill on the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula. Due to the swift southward progress of the Japanese invasion force, however, most of the hospital staff were evacuated back to Singapore in late January 1942.

Along with 64 other Australian nurses and many civilians, Nancy was evacuated from Singapore on 12 February aboard the SS Vyner Brooke. On 14 February the ship was bombed by Japanese aircraft and sank in Bangka Strait, off the coast of Sumatra.

Nancy Harris

Of the 65 nurses on board, 12 were lost at sea while 31 survived the sinking, made it to nearby Bangka Island and ended up interned in Japanese prisoner-of-war camps in Sumatra. Twenty-four returned to Australia in 1945.

Nancy Harris was one of the remaining 22 nurses who survived the sinking and came ashore at Radji Beach, Bangka Island. They were joined by civilians, Commonwealth servicemen and merchant sailors, including many wounded, from the Vyner Brooke and other sunken ships.

On 16 February the group resolved to surrender to the Japanese authorities, and a deputation was sent to nearby Muntok to negotiate. All but one of the civilian women followed behind.

Several hours later a party of Japanese troops arrived at the beach.

Ignoring pleas that the remaining group was surrendering, the Japanese soldiers separated the men from the women. The men were marched in two groups around a small headland to another area, where they were shot and bayoneted. The Japanese soldiers returned to the 22 Australian nurses and the British civilian woman, Carrie Rose Faraday Betteridge, who had stayed behind to care for her wounded husband, and ordered them to walk into the sea.

All knew their fate as they entered the water. The Japanese soldiers opened fire, and all but Vivian Bullwinkel died.

Ellen Louisa (Nell) Keats - SFX11647
	Rank Nursing Sister Service Number SFX11647 Unit 2nd/10th Australian General Hospital Cause of Death Murdered as a POW of Japan in the Banka Island massacre Place of Death Bangka Island, Indonesia Date of Death 16 February 1942 Age 26

1/7/1915-16/2/1942

Sister Ellen Louisa ‘Nell’ Keats, SX 11647 was member of the 2/10th Australian General Hospital. Nell was born on 1 July 1915 at ‘Gunyah’, a private nursing home at North Unley a suburb of Adelaide. She was the daughter of Mr and Mrs C. C. Keats of Dulwich, South Australia.  She had twin younger brothers and one was later listed as ‘Missing’ during the War.

Nell attended St Peters Collegiate Girls School, Adelaide. In 1927 she is listed as passing her pianoforte exam for the School Exams and in 1932 she passed the ‘Invalid Cookery Examination’ conducted by the School of Mines; by then she would have been about 16-17 years of age.

Nell commenced her training at Parkwynd Private Hospital in 1933, transferring to Adelaide Hospital to complete the course, and it is reported that Nell was an excellent nurse. In 1937 she passed her final exam for the Nurses Board of South Australia and was employed at the Adelaide Hospital as a staff sister (Health Museum of South Australia).

Nell enlisted with the Australian Army Nursing Service on 18 December 1940 and was called up for service on 3 February 1941. A studio portrait of Nell in her nursing military uniform taken in 1941 prior to her departure with the AANS shows a serious, pleasant faced young woman of 5 foot 3 inches in height. A similar impression is given in her paybook photo at the Australian War Memorial.

On 19 May 1941 Nell embarked on HMAT Zealandia arriving in Singapore on 9 June 1941. She immediately traveled to Malacca in Malaya where the 2/10th AGH was located. From time to time Nell and other nurses from the 2/10th AGH were seconded for duty with the 2/13th AGH. Nell was with this unit when due to the swift progress of the Japanese invasion force in Malaya, most of the hospital staff was evacuated back to Singapore in late January 1942. On 25 January she rejoined her fellow nurses of the 2/10th AGH who were also back on Singapore Island.

According to the documents in the Australian War Memorial lodged by Mavis Hannah, Nell’s letters home from Malaya to her mother “… were positively upbeat …” (On Radji Beach p.80). ‘Writing to her mother in Adelaide on 20 December 1941, she said “Each night we have community singing in the Mess, which I enjoy very much, and tonight I am going to the pictures to see Waterloo Bridge…….We are still not very busy as we haven’t started receiving casualties”.

On the back of the studio mounted portrait of Nell in her nurse’s uniform is a nice and succinct but sad synopsis of Nell’s life . After outlining her nursing career it says:

“ ………..In February, 1942, she was amongst the group of sixty-five nurses evacuated from Singapore on the “Vyner Brooke”. The ship foundered off the coast of Sumatra as the result of enemy action. Sister Nell Keats was one of the number posted as “missing”. It is now known that she lost her life, after being taken prisoner”.

It is not known how Nell came to be on Radji Beach after the sinking of the SS Vyner Brooke on that fateful day in 1942. Perhaps she was in one of the lifeboats or just floated in her life jacket with the currents. We know for certain that Nell Keats was one of the group of fine, brave and noble women murdered by Japanese soldiers on Radji Beach on 16 February 1942 after the sinking of the SS Vyner Brooke.

One of the final notations on Nell’s Record of Service says

“Deceased while POW. Executed by Japanese”

Along with seven other nurses from the ‘Vyner Brooke’ who lost their lives at sea and on Radji beach, Nell Keats is memorialised on a brass plaque in the Royal Adelaide Hospital Chapel and on other Memorials around Australia and overseas.

Janet (Jenny) Kerr - NFX76279
	Rank Sister Service Number NFX76279 Unit 2nd/13th Australian General Hospital Cause of Death Murdered as a POW of Japan in the Bangka Island massacre Place of Death Bangka Island, Indonesia Date of Death 16 February 1942 Age 31

8/8/1910 – 16/2/1942

Sister Janet ‘Jenny’ Kerr, NX 76279 was a member of the 2/13th Australian General Hospital. Jenny was born in 1910, the daughter of John James Kerr and Ida Maud Kerr (née Ellwood) of Woodstock, near Cowra in NSW. Most records show either one or the other of Mr and Mrs Kerr as Jenny’s parents and the reason for this is that they were divorced in 1930.

Jenny followed her mother’s footsteps into the nursing profession and graduated as a nurse from St George Hospital in Kogarah, Sydney. Her mother was the matron of Woodstock Hospital in Central West NSW. As reported in the Queensland Times on 11 May 1946, Jenny was a theatre sister at St George Hospital for many years, and in 1946 a plaque to the memory of ‘Sister Janet Kerr’ was unveiled at the hospital.

Sister Janet Kerr enlisted in the Australian Army Nursing Service on 21 August 1941, and her paybook photo shows a serious-looking woman with brown hair and brown eyes. As with other nurses in her unit, she left Australia in August 1941 and sailed for Malaya and Singapore on the Hospital Ship Wanganella, arriving on 15 September 1941.

She was part of the 2/13th Australian General Hospital that was initially located at St Patrick's School on Singapore Island. Between 21–23 November 1941 the entire hospital was moved across the Johor Strait to Tampoi Hill on the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula. Due, however, to the swift progress of the Japanese invasion force, most of the hospital staff was evacuated back to Singapore in late January 1942.

There is little on public record of Jenny’s life but it is well known that she was on the SS Vyner Brooke and made it to Radji Beach, presumably on one of the two lifeboats which arrived there and further along the coast. Jenny, aged 31 years, was among the group of nurses murdered by Japanese troops on Radji beach on 16 February 1942.

‘Jenny Kerr, a no-nonsense girl from near Young in NSW was sitting alongside Vivian, and turned to her and said “Bully, they have murdered them all…….” (On Radji Beach p214). Shortly after, the nurses and one civilian lady Mrs Betteridge walked into the sea and were callously slaughtered by the Japanese.

The newspaper record of the time, Cootamundra Herald 5 October 1945) states “STOCKINBINGAL [this is in the same area as Woodstock] Janet Kerr … was well known and highly esteemed by everyone here. She is a sister of Mrs Ken Kerr and a niece to Mrs T. Ellwood and Mr and Mrs J. Ellwood senior. She trained at St. George’s Hospital. Kogarah, and enlisted at the beginning of the War. She spent many holiday periods here at the hotel with her brother. Her mother, Mrs Kerr, lives at Woodstock…”.

Jenny is also commemorated on the Roll Of Honour at Woodstock, near Young in NSW where there is a beautiful memorial to her in the town’s main street. The memorial was unveiled by Sir John Northcote, the Governor of NSW on 19 November 1954.

Plans for this Memorial were first announced in The Lyndhurst The Shire Chronicle (NSW) on 2 April 1952 that reported

‘A memorial park is to be established at Woodstock in honour of the late Sister Jenny Kerr who was killed by the Japanese during the last war. Already an amount of 136 pounds has been donated towards the project. A public meeting was held at Woodstock recently to initiate the appeal. The meeting was largely attended. A committee was elected to raise funds for the memorial. Mr. Reg Hailstone was voted President of this committee. The Memorial will take the form of a children's park and playground and will be called the Jenny Kerr Memorial Park. It is to be built on a vacant land adjacent to the Post Office’.

Also in Woodstock is a Memorial Park and playground; the Jenny Kerr Memorial Park with a permanent ‘sign’ which was installed and unveiled on ANZAC Day 2015. There is a photo of Jenny Kerr, what is said to be the wreck of the ‘Vyner Brooke’, and the story of her war service and the massacre on Radji Beach.

Interestingly, during the late 1950s and early 1960s there was a photo of Jenny Kerr above the door to the Matron’s office at St George’s Hospital because she was held in great respect and affection by the nurses of that era (ex nurse Mrs. Jan Hodgson nee McDonald). Sadly this photo appears to have been lost over the years.

Undoubtedly, the memory of a wonderful Australian nurse, Sister Jenny Kerr, and the massacre of the nurses will live on through these lovely memorials.

Mary Eleanor (Ellie) McGlade - NX76275
	Rank Sister Service Number SFX11647 Unit 2nd/13th Australian General Hospital Cause of Death Murdered as a POW of Japan in the Banka Island massacre Place of Death Bangka Island, Indonesia Date of Death 16 February 1942 Age 39

2/7/1902 16/2/1942

Sister Mary Eleanor ‘Ellie’ McGlade, NX 76275 2/13th Australian General Hospital overcame a very difficult childhood to lead a fulfilling and meaningful life in caring for others.

Ellie was born on 2 July 1902 in Armidale in the New England area of country NSW, to Francis Aloysius and Agnes Beatrice McGlade. Soon after her birth her mother passed away. It seems that she died for post natal reasons as in later life Ellie “… specialised in an area that would perhaps allow her to help young mothers in a way that her mother had not been helped …” (On Radji Beach, p.45).

Ellie was orphaned when only 3 after her father passed away in 1905. She went to live with her aunt Mrs Walter Scott of Wallalong near Maitland in the Hunter Valley area of NSW and Mrs Scott became her guardian. From her pre-school years Ellie “… attended St Ursula’s Convent in Armidale NSW as a boarder, at first sleeping in a cot beside Mother Berchman’s bed”.

St Ursula’s was founded in 1882 by a group of exiled Usuline nuns from Daderstadt in Germany. Operating as a boarding and day school for girls, St Ursula’s was owned and operated by the Usuline nuns until the mid 1970s. The magnificent Convent Chapel, for which Ellie donated the Crucifix was opened in 1930.

As she grew older St Ursula’s became a beloved childhood home for Ellie with which she stayed strongly connected for the rest of her life. When completing her Intermediate Certificate in 1920 she won prizes for singing, violin, piano, and Christian doctrine and had already begun to care for girls who fell ill.

The School report of 1921 noted that ‘owing to the kind solicitude of their College Infirmarian no one has a chance to get seriously ill before she is reported and nursed back to normal by the indefatigable Ellie’. On leaving school Ellie visited relatives in Scotland and Ireland, returning to begin training as a nurse at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney.

Ellie graduated in 1927 with Certificates in General Nursing, Cooking and Dispensing and became a Mothercraft nurse in the Hunter Valley. McGlade often visited St Ursula’s Convent in Armidale and was well remembered there even after she left school. The 1927 School magazine remembered Ellie as a’ winsome toddler… playing about with Rex, the collie, or her family of dolls’ and later ‘as a girl of amiable disposition, still loved by those who surround her … untiring and unselfish in her care of the sick…”.

Ellie appears in the 1927 and 1929 NSW Register of Nurses as Mary Eleanor McGlade of Wallalong, Hinton, so it seems that after her graduation she returned to base herself in the small town of Wallalong in the Hunter Region of NSW.

In 1930 as a young nurse Miss Ellie McGlade donated the Crucifix for the new Ursuline Convent Chapel when it was being built at Armidale. A decade later as a mature woman, good fortune at last came Ellie’s way. The Newcastle Sun on 22 February 1940 reported that a nursing sister Mrs [sic] E. McGlade “… who gave her address as Wallalong a small township north of Morpeth, where she was at the time attending one of her many cases…” won fourth prize of 300 pounds in the State Lottery.

In January 1941 McGlade enlisted in the Australian Army Nursing Service. Called up on the 8 August Ellie was posted to the 2/13th Australian General Hospital and she embarked for Singapore and Malaya on the Hospital Ship Wanganella, arriving in September 1941. Ellie’s her Paybook photo shows a lovely woman with an intelligent, attractive face and it also says that she had brown hair and grey eyes.

In Malaya she worked with the 2/13th AGH in Tampoi, near Johore. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and the fall of Singapore became inevitable, most Australian personnel were evacuated from the island, but the 2/13th AGH remained until 12 February when they too were evacuated.

Ellie McGlade was one of 65 Australian nurses who left Singapore aboard the Vyner Brooke, but two days later the ship was bombed by the Japanese and many lives were lost. Those who could swim, or on rafts or in lifeboats made for the nearby Banka Island. It is not known how Ellie made it to Radji Beach, but there she was with her 21 other nursing friends on that fateful day on 16 February 1942.

The fact that she was brutally murdered by the Japanese troops who captured Ellie and the other AANS nurses on Radji Beach is incomprehensible to the civilised mind. With her other Nursing friends and Mrs Betteridge, a civilian women, Ellie was ordered to walk into the water where all the ladies were so cruelly executed, except for Vivian Bullwinkel, the one survivor.

Sister Ellie McGlade is commemorated on the War Memorial on the high Street, Wallalong and also on the Roll of honour at the Australian War Memorial. At the Last Post Ceremony on 12 February 2016 her photograph was displayed at the Pool of Reflection at the AWM.

The Australian War Memorial in Canberra has a collection of biographical notes relating to Ellie. The notes cover her early years at Armidale, her training at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital at Camperdown Sydney, her service with the 2/13th AGH and the events surrounding the “SS Vyner Brooke” sinking and the Radji Beach killings. There is also a newspaper cutting of a Memorial Service for Ellie whose memory continues to live on; a truly remarkable woman whose loss was widely felt.

Kathleen Margaret Neuss - NFX70527
	Rank Sister Service Number NFX70527 Unit 2nd/10th Australian General Hospital Cause of Death Murdered by Japanese troops at Bangka Island Place of Death Bangka Island, Indonesia Date of Death 16 February 1942 Age 30

16/10/2011 – 16/2/1942

When Australian Army nurse Kathleen Neuss sat down to write a letter home from Singapore on 6 February 1942 she couldn’t have known it would be her last. “Guess you will be thinking I’ve gone up in smoke,” she quipped. “There is plenty of it about.”

Ten days later she was dead, one of 22 Australian nurses who were ordered into the sea at Radji Beach and shot by Japanese soldiers during the infamous Bangka Island massacre.

Sister Kathleen ‘Kath’ Margaret Neuss NFX 70527, was born on 16 October 1911 at Mollongghip, near Ballarat in Victoria. Kath was the second daughter of John Henry Neuss and Mary Catherine Neuss (née Perry). Kath’s paternal grandfather was George Neuss, a German immigrant, and her maternal grandfather was Samuel Perry, a veteran of the Eureka Stockade in 1854.

In 1913, when Kath was 18 months old, her parents packed all their possessions, travelled to Sydney by boat, then train to Glen Innes in northern NSW and finally by Cobb & Co coach to uncleared land her father had selected for farming about 32 kms northwest of Inverell.

Life was very hard for the young family. Her father had to clear the land and build their first ‘house’ of three rooms with an iron roof and walls lined with hessian and papered with wallpaper. The ceilings were also of hessian. Their only water tank was a 500 hundred gallon tank at the side of the house. Kath’s parents called their new home 'Kalimna' after the Victorian coastal town where they spent their honeymoon. All water for washing and cooking had to be carried by bucket. Kath’s elder sister Jessie ('Jess') had also been born in Mollongghip, and over the next decade another four siblings were born at Inverell.

Kath Neuss was initially educated at Bannockburn Public School. Her father would take Jess and Kath on a horse to school and each afternoon the girls would walk the four miles home. During a severe drought in 1915–16 Jess and Kath returned to Victoria for about 18 months and went schools at Mollongghip and Rocky Lead where their respective grandparents lived.

Back at 'Kalimna', as the family increased a sulky was acquired which, driven by the eldest child, then took the kids to school. Often the children travelled to school by horse; two to each horse with the youngest in front.

In 1926 Kath sat and passed an examination that enabled her to go to Inverell High School in 1927 and 1928. She would board with an Inverell family during the week and then return home each weekend, travelling by horse and sulky – very tiring for a young teenager. Kath initially wanted to be a school teacher but did not pass the teachers entrance examination, a big disappointment to her. After leaving school she trained as a private nurse in Inverell and then at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney, graduating as a Registered Nurse in 1939.

Kath Neuss enlisted in the Australian Army Nursing Service on the 6 January 1941 and was posted to the 2/10th Australian General Hospital. On 4 February the SS Queen Mary sailed from Sydney, destination Singapore. On board were elements of the 8th Division AIF and 51 Australian nurses, including Kath who served in Malaya and Singapore. For part of her time Kath was seconded to the 2/13th Australian General Hospital.

In a strange coincidence, as part of the 2/13th Battalion 9th Division AIF her younger brother Bill had sailed on the Queen Mary for the Middle East on 20 October 1940. The 9th Division disembarked at Bombay in India and the Queen Mary returned to Sydney to take the nurses to Singapore. Bill's pre-embarkation leave in Sydney on 18 October was the last time Kath saw her brother, but letters from Kath in Malaya and Singapore to Bill remain. The last letter to Bill was dated 16 January 1942, exactly one month before Kath died.

Kath was a tall, fun-loving and gregarious woman with brown eyes and dark hair. She had a wicked sense of humour, was full of life, and her letters home from Malaya and Singapore tell of young woman enjoying her experiences overseas. The nurses had a very good social life and in many of her letters Kath talks about a very close friend, Lieutenant Jock Pringle of the 2/18th Battalion. In a letter dated 2 January 1941 Kath wrote:

Jock is still at the Convalescent Depot and hating it still. He too had a move on Monday. I spoke to him on Sunday evening and he was very miserable. Said the medical unit were worse than the police to get out of their clutches. Said they were acting as though it was a concentration camp.

In a very sad and tragic irony, both Kath and Jock were executed by the Japanese, exactly one week apart: Jock on Singapore Island after he surrendered to the Japanese when his composite unit was overrun on 9t February and Kath at Radji Beach on 16 February.

Kath wrote many letters and about 20 remain; these give a terrific insight into Kath. They almost ‘bring her alive’. In a letter dated 5 October 1941 Kath compared the airforce people with the slog of the soldiers:

"The RAAF are entirely different to the AIF. Most of them have been here over 12 months and most of the time in Singapore which is certainly a very artificial city. And naturally they adopt some of its atmosphere and some of its eastern flourish. The right wine with right soup and the right soup with the right fish and at the right time, to say nothing of a spray of flowers to act as a guide to your place. And their ability to guide you onto the rarest dishes is as though they have been used to it for years. Their conversation is rare though as they want to live very much for every moment. One lad I met was being instructed to fly a Hudson and his instructor was in the party. The instructor said that when you flew with ‘Jeep the learner’ he always felt that the “Grim Reaper” was in the cockpit. “No” said Jeep “there's Lady Luck there too, ready to seduce the Grim Reaper”.

‘Rather a naughty story, but subtle I thought. They are bright lads and never let the show have a dull moment. One lad, I’ll never forget him, ordered an Emu for dinner. The poor waiter unabashed said “We haven't one Sir”. “Well” said Jacko “you should have one”. He said “Sorry sir we did have one but it's all used” and went on with his job.”

She was missing out on a lot of weddings of her friends in Australia and on 2 November 1941 she wrote

“Can’t bear to think of many more weddings over there without me being present. You had better wait or there will be a fuss”.

In the same letter Kath wrote

“Had a very gay weekend. The Air Force lads who passed through here the previous weekend on the way to Frasers Hill arrived back on Thursday. Bleating that it was too lonely up there. So Pat and I had the job of comforting them.”

At the time of boarding the “SS Vyner Brooke” Kath was aged 31. Along with Winnie May Davis and her very close friend Pat Gunther, she was ordered amongst the various duties of the Australian Army nurses on board, to be responsible for the forward part of the ship (On Radji Beach P148). When the ship was bombed she “… received a nasty shrapnel wound from the bomb that hit aft. Struck in the left hip, she struggled to walk and had to be helped onto the deck by Wilma and Mona…” (ORB, p.154).

When the time came for evacuating the ship and the second lifeboat was being filled with the elderly, mothers and children and the more seriously wounded nurses, Kath Neuss had to be practically carried all the way into the lifeboat (ORB P159). Pat Gunther gave her tin hat to Kath ‘in case she needed to bail water from the lifeboat, saying, ‘we’ll see you on shore’. (Portrait of a Nurse P21) Kath gave her life jacket to Pat. The rest is history; Pat survived as a POW.

Presumably landing on Radji Beach in the lifeboat, Kath was definitely executed by the Japanese on the beach along with the other Australian Army Nurses. Whether she was amongst those told to walk into the water and killed or whether she was amongst the wounded on stretchers brutally bayoneted to death is unclear. She is remembered on the Inverell Roll of Honour and a tree is planted at the RSL branch in Inverell in her memory.

Florence Aubin Salmon - NFX70991
	Rank Nursing Sister Service Number NFX70991 Unit 2/10th Australian General Hospital Cause of Death Murdered as a POW of Japan in the Bangka Island massacre Place of Death Bangka Island, Indonesia Date of Death 16 February 1942 Age 26

20/10/1915- 16/2/1942

Sister Florence Aubin Salmon, NFX 70991, was a member of the 2/10th Australian General Hospital, and was born on 20 October 1915 in Sydney. She was the daughter of John Henry Salmon and Florence Alexandria Salmon (née Aubin) of Punchbowl, Sydney and belonged to the Methodist Church.

Sadly, despite the historic profile of the Radji Beach war crimes, not much is known about Florence’s life. Her pay book photo in the Australian War Memorial shows a smiling woman with the description of "dark hair, hazel eyes."

The records at the Australian War Memorial have virtually nothing else about Florence Salmon. Nevertheless, from a report in the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper on 26 June 1938 it is known that she passed her Nurses Registration Board exam whilst at the War Memorial Hospital at Waverley in Sydney, notably at the same time as Winnie May Davis.

Winnie was one of the younger and most popular nurses and sadly died of illness and malnutrition on 19 July 1945 while a prisoner of war at a remote camp in Sumatra.

Florence initially enlisted in the Australian Army Nursing Service at Victoria Barracks in Sydney on 22 February 1941. Her record shows that it was for home service and that she was at Bathurst, NSW. On 9 May 1941 she was called up as a reinforcement for the 2/10th Australian General Hospital that was then stationed at Malacca in Malaya. After joining the 2/10th AGH, Florence went back to her old unit at Bathurst until she went on a week’s pre-embarkation leave on 30 June 1941.

Florence sailed to Singapore on 24 July and disembarked on 17 August and travelled immediately to join her new unit at Malacca. At various times she was seconded to work with the 2/4th Casualty Clearing Station. She was with the 2/10th AGH when most of the hospital staff were evacuated back to Singapore in late January 1942, due to the swift advance of the Japanese invasion force.

Little is known about Florence’s last voyage on the SS Vyner Brooke apart from the fact that, after somehow attaching herself to either a raft or lifeboat, she made it to Radji Beach. With the other Australian nurses she proceeded to care for the wounded and injured on the beach.

Two days later, on 16 February 1942, this lovely, caring young woman in her mid 20’s was brutally executed by the Japanese soldiers on Radji Beach with 20 Australian Army nurses and the other civilians and military personnel.

Esther Sarah Jean (Stewie) Stewart - NX70936
	Rank Sister Service Number NX70936 (N104880, NX70501) Unit 2nd/10th Australian General Hospital Cause of Death Murdered as a POW of Japan in the Bangka Island massacre Place of Death Bangka Island, Indonesia Date of Death 16 February 1942 Age 37

8/3/1913 -16/2/1942

Sister Esther Sarah Jean Stewart (more commonly Jean or Stewie), NX 70936 was a member of the 2/10th Australian General Hospital. Jean was born in Terrace Street Spring Hill Brisbane on 15 October 1904 to Charles Lloyd Stewart and Sarah May Jean Stewart (nee Mann).

Some sources say Jean came from Coolangatta and her mother certainly lived there in later years. Jean moved to Sydney when she was older and worked as a nurse. Jean had a very strong Christian faith and was a devout Presbyterian

At the time of her enlistment in the Australian Army Nursing Service Jean was living at “Greenholme” 209 Victoria St Darlinghurst Sydney.

One summary of Jean’s life, which seems to be a little at odds with other research, is that “…Unfortunately, she did not have any close relatives as her next of kin was a solicitor whom she had no relationship with named Andrew Muir. Jean had nothing holding her back from going on an adventure like travelling to Asia to work. She had no partner, no immediate family, she seemed like a very independent woman who was determined to make a change in her life and use her skills as a trained nurse to help injured soldiers. However, the adventure was tragically short-lived……”
(“Soldiers Story/Eulogy prepared by Alex White).

This interpretation of Jean’s life seems to have been partially influenced by information in her Record of Service, the digitised copy of which is now available. But as can be seen from the newspaper reports, Jean was in fact greatly loved by her mother Sarah.

Her father had died in 1938 and with Jean the only child now working as a nurse in Sydney, her mother seemed to be all alone at Coolangatta in Queensland. Perhaps Jean may have been estranged, for whatever reason, from her mother and that could be why she noted on her Attestation Form when she enlisted that her next-of-kin was Andrew Purdie Muir a Solicitor in Brisbane.

Jean enlisted in the Australian Army Nursing Service at Victoria Barracks, Sydney 25 April 1941 and was posted to the 2/10 Australian General Hospital which had earlier arrived in Singapore on the Queen Mary in February 1941. Jean’s pay book photo shows a cheery, smiling, open faced woman with light brown hair and hazel eyes. There is also a photo from ancestry.com of Jean as a younger woman, perhaps about 20 years of age, showing a sweet faced young woman.

On 19 May 1941 Jean embarked on HMAT Zealandia arriving in Singapore on 9 June 1941. She immediately travelled to Malacca in Malaya where the 2/10th AGH was located. Jean must have quite ‘run down’ and working very hard as on 30 July she was admitted to hospital suffering from Herpes Simplex. She was back with her unit in a week.

How Jean came to be on Radji Beach after the sinking of the SS Vyner Brooke on that fateful day in 1942 is not known. Perhaps she was in one of the lifeboats or just floated in her life jacket with the currents. We know for certain that Jean Stewart was one of the group of fine, noble women murdered by Japanese soldiers on Radji Beach on 16 February 1942 after the sinking of the SS Vyner Brooke. One of the final notations on Jean’s Record of Service says

“Deceased while POW. Executed by Japanese”.

Soon after the surviving nurses were repatriated to Australia in late 1945 there appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald on 6 October 1945 this insertion in their “Roll of Honour” column

“… STEWART – A tribute of love to NX 70936 Sister Jean Stewart, dear friend of Mrs. Cathro (Urana) , Mrs Cheek, and Mrs Edwards (Newcastle)……..”

This suggests that if Jean was short on family she certainly had good friends. Also interestingly, in contrast to the earlier summary of her life indicating that Jean was some sort of orphan, there appeared in several newspapers after the War evidence of clear actions by Jean’s mother to ensure her daughter was remembered and which give us a much clearer picture of the progression of Jean’s life.

The Courier Mail newspaper in Brisbane on 29 January 1946 says “… Mother perpetuates memory of Heroic Army nurse Shot by Japs … Coolangatta and Tweed heads are perpetuating the memory of Matron Esther Stewart, of Brisbane whose last words when she and 20 other Army Nursing sisters were being slaughtered by Japanese machine guns on the beach at Banka Island, off Sumatra, four years ago were: “Girls take it, don’t squeal!”…

“Her mother, Mrs Jean Stewart of Dixon Street, Coolangatta, has presented a memorial electric clock to the local sub-branch of the Returned Soldier’s league. At the unveiling service the President (Mr. A. Thomas) said that the only survivor of the massacre (Sister Vivien Bullwinkel) of Adelaide had told Mrs Stewart of her daughter’s last words as she and other nurses were being shot down…..

"The late Matron Stewart was born at New Farm, Brisbane and was educated at the New Farm and Roma Schools. She entered the nursing profession at Toowoomba, and subsequently trained at the Diamantina Hospital Brisbane and the Royal Prince Alfred and Crown Street Women’s Hospital, Sydney…..”

As outlined in another post, in the Tweed Daily newspaper on 20 February 1946 in the “Roll Of Honour” classified listings the following was written

“STEWART – In loving memory of NX 70956 Sister Esther Sarah Jean Stewart, only child of Mrs Jean Stewart (nee Mann), who was murdered by the Japanese at Banka Island, February 1942.”Lest We Forget“

If I could have my dearest wish,
And all earth’s treasures too;
And pick from Heaven what I may,
Dear Jean, I would ask for you
Many a lonely heartache, many a silent tear,
But always a beautiful memory,
Of a daughter I loved so dear.
I keep forever in my heart. Mother”

There is a further report in the Tweed Daily newspaper of the Coolangatta War Memorial being built in front of the Council Chambers – the memorial to stand 11 feet high in the form of a cross and containing two drinking fountains and to be lit by electricity. Jean ‘Stewie’ Stewart is also memorialised on the memorial to AANS nurses who gave their lives in the Second World War at Kapunda memorial Gardens, Dutton park, South Australia; the ‘Memorial garden for Nurses’ at Augusta Western Australia and, as with all the nurse at the Kranji War Memorial in Singapore .

Jean was most certainly never forgotten by her mother who died in 1959. Attached to her Record of Service is a letter dated 12 July 1951 from the Manager of the Commercial Bank of Australia Limited, Coolangatta branch to the Records Officer at Army Headquarters. The letter says

“We have been requested to contact you at the request of the abovementioned’s Mother Mrs S. M. J. Stewart, Coolangatta, as she is anxious to obtain as a Keep-sake The King’s Letter which she understands is forwarded to all Next-of-Kin..

“The Late Sister Stewart’s War Medals have been received by our customer, but it would be appreciated if you could obtain and forward for delivery to Mrs Stewart the Letter referred to.”

Perhaps the original of The King’s Letter had been already sent to Andrew Muir her nominated next-of-kin. The Army did, however, on 24 July 1951 very promptly reply to the Bank Manager attaching a “copy of the Royal message of condolence, which was forwarded to the next-of-kin of members of the Australian Military Forces who gave their lives for their country”.

The Australian War Memorial in Canberra holds a Bible owned by Sister Jean Stewart. The Bible was presented to her on 1 May 1916 on the occasion of departing Kent Street Congregational Sabbath School in Brisbane. In the Bible are personal inscriptions by Jean, a newspaper cutting from the Sydney “Daily Telegraph” dated 17 September 1945, giving details including Jean’s name in the casualty list, of the Bangka Island massacre in February 1942.

Mona Margaret Anderson Tait - NFX76281
	Rank Nursing Sister Service Number NFX76281 Unit 2/13th Australian General Hospital Cause of Death Murdered as a POW of Japan in the Bangka Island massacre Place of Death Bangka Island, Indonesia Date of Death 16 February 1942 Age 27

6/2/1915 – 16/2/1942

Sister Mona Margaret Anderson Tait NX 76281 2/13th Australian General Hospital, was born on 6 February 1915 in Booval Queensland and was the daughter of Robert Tait and Maggie Alexandria Tait (nee Ripley). Her father had been born in Scotland and immigrated to Australia as a young man. She had one sister Auriel Ripley Tait who was born in 1917 and only died in 2005. Sometime after her sister was born the Tait family of four moved to Newcastle.

Mona Tait trained as a nurse at Cessnock District Hospital which is close to Newcastle. Later, she was the Sister in charge of the X-ray department at Canberra Hospital for three years prior to enlisting in the Australian Army Nursing Service on the 13 January 1941. For eight months she was attached to Victoria Barracks in Sydney before being sent to Malaya.

As with other nurses in her Unit she left Australia in August 1941 and sailed for Malaya and Singapore on the Hospital Ship Wanganella, arriving on 15 September 1941. She was part of the 2/13th Australian General Hospital that was initially located at St Patrick's School on Singapore Island. Between 21-23 November 1941 the entire hospital was moved across the Straits to Tampoi Hill on the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula. Due however, to the swift progress of the Japanese invasion force, most of the hospital staff was evacuated back to Singapore in late January 1942

There is little on the public record about Mona’s life. But it is well known that she was on the SS Vyner Brooke and made it to Radji Beach, presumably on one of the two lifeboats which arrived on the beach and further along the coast. Mona, aged just 27 years, was murdered by Japanese troops with the other Australian Army nurses at Radji Beach on 16 February 1942.

A memorial to Mona was installed at the Cessnock District Hospital where she trained. The Cessnock Eagle and South Maitland Recorder newspaper wrote on 11 October 1946

‘”The Secretary (Mr J Brown) informed the Hospital Board that he had received information to the effect that Sister Mona Tait had lost her life in the war against the Japanese. Although Sister Tait was not a member of the hospital staff at the time of her enlistment, she had received her training at the institution. Mr. Brown said that from the information he had received, Sister Tait, together with…… other nursing Sisters, had been shot by the Japanese………. Because of the fact that Sister Tait had received her training at the Cessnock Hospital, the Board decided that it would be fitting to pay a tribute to her memory, and towards this end a memorial bed and plaque will be installed in the new maternity ward as a token of remembrance.”

Mona is also remembered through the RSL Mona Tait and May Hayman Memorial Fund. Income from the fund’s investments is donated to the University of Canberra to purchase books for its nurses Library.

‘This Fund commemorates the bravery of two Nursing Sisters, formerly of the Canberra Community Hospital, both of whom were murdered by Japanese troops during World War II. Sister Mona Tait was killed on the shores of Banka Island whilst attached to the 8th Australian Division and May Hayman was killed when she was attached to an Anglican Mission in Papua New Guinea. The Fund was initiated by staff of the old Canberra Hospital but after some time they requested it be transferred to the RSL National Trustees’.

Sisters Tait and Hayman were also commemorated by a plaque at Royal Canberra Hospital. When the hospital closed in 1991 the plaque was removed to the RSL Headquarters in Campbell ACT.

The Australian War Memorial has in its collection a letter written by Mona Tait to Anne Burrows in Canberra in February 1942, just before she was killed on Radji Beach. In the letter she mentions meeting Frank Burrows, Anne's brother, who died tragically as a POW on the Burma-Thai railroad.

Like all the victims of Japanese brutality on that terrible day in February 1942, the memory of Mona Tait, a lovely, brave, smiling Australian women, lives on.

Rosetta Joan Wight - VX61329
	Rank Nursing Sister Service Number VX61329 Unit 2/13th Australian General Hospital Cause of Death Murdered as a POW of Japan in the Bangka Island massacre Place of Death Bangka Island, Indonesia Date of Death 16 February 1942 Age 33

3/12/1908- 16/2/1942

Sister Rosetta Joan Wight, VX 61329, was a member of the 2/13th Australian General Hospital. She was born on 3 December 1908, the second eldest of four children, to Leslie Rivers Wight and Rosetta Frances Wight (née Brown) of Fish Creek, a small rural town southeast of Melbourne in Victoria.

Rosetta’s father Les was born in Kensington, London and immigrated with his family to Australia as a child. His own father died in Melbourne when Les was only 14, but it was not until Les was 39 that he married Rosetta’s mother, also named Rosetta.

Four children followed in the next five years, so it was a pretty busy Wight household in which Rosetta lived. The growing family moved from suburban Melbourne to Fish Creek in early 1908, and Leslie worked as a farmer. So it would have been a pretty carefree life enjoyed by Rosetta and her siblings.

Tragedy through war service was to cruelly strike Rosetta’s family a generation before the Radji Beach atrocities of February 1942. William Brown was her mother’s younger brother and Rosetta’s uncle. In 1916 he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force, and after training his unit went to France. He was killed in Belgium on 20 September 1917. Being nearly nine, the tragedy would certainly have hit young Rosetta hard, as it would her whole family. But no one could foresee the immense sadness that would confront the family a generation later.

Little is known of her schooling. There is however a record in Melbourne's Argus newspaper of 30 March 1935 that Rosetta J. Wight passed her Nurses Board exams whilst at Bendigo Hospital in Central Victoria. From the electoral roll it is also known that in 1931, when Rosetta was about 23, she was living in Toorak in Melbourne and her occupation was stated as ‘nurse’.

On the 8 August 1941 Rosetta enlisted in the Australian Army Nursing Service and her paybook photo shows a cheery-faced country girl. It is believed that in late August 1941 Rosetta sailed for Malaya on the hospital ship Wanganella, arriving on 15 September 1941. She was posted to the 2/13th Australian General Hospital, which was initially located at St Patrick's School on Singapore Island. From 21–23 November 1941 the entire hospital was moved across the strait to Tampoi Hill on the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula. Due, however, to the swift progress of the Japanese invasion force, most of the hospital staff was evacuated back to Singapore in late January 1942.

There is little else of her life recorded until the attack on the SS Vyner Brooke on 14 February 1942, following its departure from Singapore on 12 February. Rosetta was one of the 65 Australian Army Nursing Service nurses on the ship. She was severely wounded during the attack on the ship, and in Ian W. Shaw's book On Radji Beach (p. 153) there is a long account of her suffering during the last two days of her life. This is quoted below because it is appropriate to understand what was inflicted on this dedicated nurse, whose sole purpose in life was to care for others.

Immediately after the bombs hit the ship,

the worst of the injuries appeared to be those suffered by Sister Rosetta Wight, who was one of the older nurses, and Clare Halligan. The two nurses had been in the rear of the saloon near the passageway to the cabins when the bomb landed behind them. Both had been facing towards the front of the boat and suffered deep shrapnel wounds to the back of their thighs and buttocks, wounds that penetrated to the bone.

Unable to move, they were half carried to the upper deck by fellow nurses and were loaded into the second lifeboat with the frail elderly and mothers with children.

Tragically, this lifeboat overturned as it landed in the sea, and all aboard had to hold onto the upturned craft until around 10pm on that Saturday night when it was washed ashore on Bangka Island. They were at least a couple of kilometres from where the first lifeboat had much earlier rowed ashore at Radji Beach and where its occupants had lit a beacon bonfire.

Vivian Bullwinkel and Jimmy Miller walked from the second lifeboat to the bonfire to obtain help for the injured. Only Eric German, an American civilian who was destined to survive the killings, and a young English teenager offered their help. So, in agony, Rosetta was half carried and half dragged by the small rescue party led by Jimmy Miller. It took over two hours to cover the couple of kilometres to reach the bonfire location, whereas it had taken Vivian and Jimmy about half an hour a little earlier.

Rosetta appears to have been placed on the high side of the beach in the shade of the coconut trees on the edge of the jungle. She and the other wounded were being cared for by Matron Drummond and her Australian Army Nurses and a Chinese doctor who had also survived the sinking.

When dawn broke on Monday 16 February the survivors were joined by another lifeboat and rafts with many wounded people from ships that were sunk by the Japanese in the Bangka Strait during the night. The sheer volume of over 80 survivors and wounded seems to have tipped those in authority to seek help from the Japanese.

While Sub-Lieutenant William Sedgeman, Royal Naval Reserve and First Officer of the SS Vyner Brooke, was away to surrender the group to the Japanese, Matron Drummond decided to send the women and children and a few walking-wounded men on a trek towards Muntok, the nearest town. This group in fact passed the Japanese soldiers coming to Radji Beach with Bill Sedgeman.

The nurses knew it was their duty to stay with and look after the wounded, regardless of their difficulties.

So, Rosetta was amongst the group of nurses destined to be killed by the Japanese. Once the Japanese had executed firstly the officers and then the second group of other ranks and civilian men they turned their attention to the nurses. Forming the nurses into a line facing the sea, with Rosetta and her wounded friends being supported at the righthand end of the line by other sisters (On Radji Beach, p. 216), the Japanese carried out one of their most abhorrent war crimes against Allied women on record.

This group of noble, caring women fell together under the impact of the Japanese machine-gun bullets, and the life of this open-faced country girl from Victoria was most cruelly taken on Radji Beach.

Rosetta Wight is commemorated with 28 other Royal Australian Army Nursing Service personnel on the Bendigo Base Hospital Honour Roll at Pall Mall, near the Soldiers Memorial Institute in Bendigo, Victoria.

Perhaps the real memory of Rosetta Joan Wight can be appreciated by the many family trees on ancestry.com that include her name and details.

On one tree there is even a photo of a page describing the killings from the biography of the only nurse who survived the massacre, Vivian Bullwinkel.

Vivian Bullwinkel - VFX61330
	Rank Lieutenant Colonel Service Number VFX61330 Unit 2/13th Australian General Hospital Cause of Death Natural Causes Place of Death - Date of Death 3 July 2000 Age 84

18/12/1915 – 3/7/2000

Sole Survivor of a Massacre

After a bullet from a Japanese machine gun tore through her body, Australian nurse Vivian Bullwinkel floated face down in the sea and feigned death. She was the sole survivor of the 1942 Bangka Island Massacre, in which 22 nurses were forced to wade into the ocean at gunpoint and then shot in the back.

Early Years

Vivian was born on 18 December 1915 at Kapunda, South Australia. She trained as a nurse at Broken Hill Hospital then continued her career in Victoria. She volunteered for service in 1941, joining the Australian Army Nursing Service.

“I felt if my friends were willing to go and fight for their country, then they deserved the best care we could give them,” she said in a later interview.

War Service

Assigned to the 2/13th Australian General Hospital, Vivian set sail for Singapore on the AHS Wanganella. After a few weeks with the 2/10th AGH, Vivian rejoined the 2/13th in Johore Baharu, where she remained until Japanese troops began to work their way down the Malayan peninsula, at which time the 2/13th was evacuated to the relative safety of Singapore. As it became likely that Singapore too would fall into Japanese hands, the nurses were ordered to leave. Vivian was in the last group of 65 Australian nurses to leave Singapore bound for Australia on the SS Vyner Brooke.

Evacuation from Singapore

The Vyner Brooke was a small ship designed to carry only 12 passengers; however, when it left Singapore 265 passengers were aboard. The Vyner Brooke travelled along, hugging the coast of the islands. On 14 February 1942 Japanese aircraft bombed the ship. It began to sink. The nurses assisted passengers to evacuate. Over the next three days, some would drown, some would drift ashore on life rafts and others would make it to shore in various locations on Bangka Island. Vivian joined the group on Radji Beach. There were men, women and children on the beach. The nurses cared for the sick and injured and remained with them. A decision was made to give themselves up, so a group of men walked into Muntok to do just that.

Bangka Island

The Massacre

When the men returned with Japanese soldiers they could not have know what would happen next. All the men were ordered around a bluff where they were bayoneted and shot. The Japanese soldiers returned and ordered the nurses to walk into the water whereupon they were machine-gunned. As they marched into the sea, Irene Drummond called to her sisters “Chin up girls, I am proud of you. I love you all.” All of them fell, but one would not die. Vivian Bullwinkel would survive the massacre. She recalled that being shot was like being kicked by a mule and that she thought that being shot meant that you were dead. Floating in the water amidst the bodies of her friends she discovered that she was still alive. She feigned death until the Japanese had left the beach, then dragged herself up the beach, tended the gunshot wound as best she could, then took shelter in the jungle near a stream, where she fell asleep. Vivian was woken by a voice. It was Private Cecil Gordon Kinsley, a severely injured British soldier.

Twelve Days in the Jungle

Vivian found a water canteen, filled it with water from the stream for Private Kinsley. She dressed his wounds with what she could find. Finally she decided to seek help from the nearby villagers. The men of the village declined to assist her for fear of recrimination. The women of the village were more helpful and left her food on more than one occasion. Several days passed and they both decided to give themselves up to the Japanese. Private Kinsley requested one more day of freedom. When asked why, he told Vivian that it was his birthday and he wanted to spend the day in freedom. She agreed to his wishes. Vivian and Private Kinsley spent 12 days in the jungle.

Surrender

Vivian used the water canteen, slung over her shoulder to hide the bloodstained bullet hole in her uniform. They were walking towards Muntok, they were met by a car carrying a Japanese Naval officer, who drove them into Muntok where Vivian was reunited with 31 of her fellow nurses. Private Kinsley would die from his wounds a few days later.

Prisoner of War

Initially Vivian and the nurses were held in the Coolie Lines near the prison in Muntok. They then travelled to Palembang under horrendous conditions. After eighteen months in Irenelaan they would be sent by boat again back to Camp Menjelang in Muntok. The nurses lived under awful conditions. They had little food to eat and coupled with Beri-Beri, malaria, TB and Bangka fever, four more nurses would die in Muntok. The nurses were then sent back to Sumatra to Loebok Lingau to a camp called Belalau. A boat journey followed by a long train journey. Four more nurses would succumb to disease during their time in this camp.

Liberation

On the 16th of September 1945 the nurses would be liberated. On hearing this news, Matron Annie Sage and Sister Jean Floyd flew to Lahat, to greet the surviving Australian nurses, at the camp that was hidden in the jungle. Matron Annie Sage had lipsticks for all of the girls as she expected to find 65 nurses. Instead she was confronted with 24 painfully thin and unwell nurses. 24 women whose suffering had been unimaginable.

Return to Singapore and Home

The nurses returned to Singapore where they were treated for illnesses, and given time to recuperate from their malnutrition.

Having put on some weight, they were ready to be seen by the Australian public. They left Singapore on the 5th October 1945 on the AHS Manunda.

On their arrival back in Australia, they were greeted by many well-wishers offering fruit and bouquets. They still had so much to recover from though.

Group portrait of AANS nurses with Colonel Annie M Sage, Matron-in-Chief of the AANS, on board the AHS Manunda on its arrival in Fremantle

Home Again

Vivian and the other prisoner of war nurses were at home at last. What would the next chapter of their lives be like?

For Vivian it was letters and visits to the family of the murdered girls on Bangka Island. This was an amazing testimony to the woman that she was.

She was discharged from the Army in 1947, and was awarded the Royal Red Cross (2nd Class). She took some time to recover from the ordeal through which she had been as a prisoner of war. Vivian then commenced work at the Repatriation Hospital in Melbourne for a time.

In 1947, Vivian travelled to Tokyo for the War Crimes Tribunal and stated her recollections of the massacre and subsequent treatment by the Japanese in the prisoner-of-war camps.

Vivian Bullwinkel giving evidence at the Tokyo War Crimes Trials in December 1946

Conception of the Nurses Memorial Centre

Betty Jeffrey and Vivian Bullwinkel travelled around the state of Victoria talking about their experiences as POWs and how they were fundraising to support the establishment of a nurses’ memorial centre in memory of their fallen comrades. They didn’t want just a stone edifice to memorialise their fallen friends: they wanted a living memorial that would offer nurses a place to meet and a place that would support continuing education. They had thought about this concept when they were prisoners in Sumatra. On the 19th of February 1950 the establishment of the War Nurses Memorial Centre would become a reality.

Civilian Life

Vivian was appointed Matron of Fairfield Infectious Diseases Hospital in 1959. She was involved with many nursing related ventures that included the positions of President of the College of Nursing Australia and member of Council for the Australian War Memorial. She was an instrumental player in Operation Babylift where Vietnamese orphans we brought to Australia in 1975 by Australian nurses who cared for them in flight.

Vivian at Fairfield Hospital

In September 1977 she married Colonel Francis (Frank) Statham and moved to Perth. She remained in touch with all of the ex-POW friends.

She continued to be an active voice for veterans throughout her life. Here she is marching with fellow AANS POWs Betty Jeffrey and Beryl Woodbridge in the 1955 Anzac Day parade in Melbourne.

Lieutenant Colonel Vivian Bullwinkel (front left), Lieutenant Betty Jeffrey (front centre) and Lieutenant Beryl Woodbridge (front right) marching on Anzac Day in 1955

Vivian was awarded both the Order of Australia and the MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) for her bravery.

Honours

Over the years Vivian received many awards. In 1947 she was awarded an ARRC (Associate of the Royal Red Cross), in 1973 an MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) and in 1993 an OA (Officer of the Order of Australia). She was also awarded the Florence Nightingale Medal and an Efficiency Decoration.

In 1993 she, along with seven of the other POW nurses, would travel back to Bangka Island, Indonesia to unveil the memorial to the nurses who had died there during the war and to those who had been prisoners of war.

Vivian died on the 3rd of July 2000 aged 84 years. Her service to Australia and to the nurses who died and were prisoners of war during World War II and to the nursing profession will never be forgotten.

This portrait in the Australian War Memorial depicts her wearing her grey nurse’s uniform, red cape and sister’s veil. Among her medals, she is wearing the Florence Nightingale Medal, the world’s highest honour available to nurses.

'Matron Vivian Bullwinkel' by Shirley Bourne (1962). This portrait of Vivian was a finalist in the 1962 Archibald Prize for portraiture. It hangs at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra

On the 75th anniversary of the tragedy in February 2017, a commemorative coin bearing an image of the SS Vyner Brooke was struck by the Royal Australian Mint.

At that time, the director of the Australian War Memorial, Brendan Nelson, paid tribute to this outstanding heroine by saying this: “From a generation that produced so many remarkable Australians, Vivian Bullwinkel was a giant among them.”

Commemorative coin marking the 75th anniversary of the sinking of the SS Vyner Brooke

Rest in peace, Vivian Bullwinkel Statham.

Agnes Betty Jeffrey - VX53059
	Rank Lieutenant Service Number VX53059 Unit 2nd/10th Australian General Hospital Cause of Death Natural Causes Place of Death - Date of Death 13 September 2000 Age 92

15/5/1908 – 13/10/2000

Sisters Jenny Greer (left) and Betty Jeffrey recovering in a Dutch hospital in 1945 from the malnutrition they suffered while prisoners of war in Sumatra. Throughout this ordeal, Sister Betty Jeffrey kept a secret diary, later published as White coolies (1954). In her diary Jeffrey recorded the physical and mental battle for survival, the unrelenting obsession with food, the death of friends, and the fading of hope.

Biography

By Emily Malone, July 2020

Agnes Betty Jeffrey was born in Hobart, Tasmania on 14th May 1908. Second youngest in a family of six, she preferred to be known as Betty, not liking the name Agnes. Whilst growing up her family moved often, as her father was an accountant at the General Post Office frequently transferred interstate to set up new accounting methods. Her family finally came to live in East Malvern, Victoria where Betty stayed for the rest of her life, close to some of her siblings.

Betty attended Warwick Girls College in East Malvern and gained her Intermediate and Leaving Certificates. At school she excelled at playing tennis and was good at swimming and athletics. Upon leaving school she worked as a Sports Mistress at a Girls School and as a typist for a firm of accountants.

At the age of 29 Betty began nursing training at the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne. She had always wanted to begin a career in nursing, but had not been impressed with hospitals interstate and so had put off training for many years, with her mind set on training at the Alfred Hospital. Betty graduated with her General Nursing Certificate in 1939. In 1940, at the Royal Women's Hospital, Betty received her Midwifery Certificate. Aged 33 she joined the Australian Army Nursing Service, excited by the opportunity to travel and aid the war effort. She was posted to Darley Military Camp, Victoria with five other nurses to set up a Camp Hospital.

In 1941, Betty was posted to Malacca, in Malaya to join the 2/10th Australian General Hospital. At this stage there wasn't any war in the Pacific, so it seemed to be a safe place for the nurses. Being fit and healthy and with no responsibilities at home, going overseas and representing her country was exciting and something Betty wanted to do. In May, she left Melbourne for Malacca aboard the ship Zealandia. After the nurses had been in Malacca for several months the war in the Pacific commenced and their hospital was now heavily involved. In early January 1942 the hospital evacuated to Singapore and the 2/10^th Australian Hospital converted a school into a hospital where the nurses worked tirelessly to care for the sick and wounded under constant danger and air raids.

On 13 February 1942 the order was given for the nurses to evacuate Singapore as the Japanese forces closed in. None of the nurses wanted to abandon there patients and initially they refused to leave. Carrying only a few possessions, Betty and her 64 nursing colleagues were taken by a fleet of ambulances to St. Andrew’s Cathedral. They waited while there was an air raid and when it was over they were taken to the wharf to board the small steamer ship Vyner Brooke.

The Vyner Brooke, with just four cabins and built to carry only 12 passengers plus its crew, left Singapore under the cover of darkness with a few hundred civilians and soldiers on board. After dodging bombing attacks from Japanese planes and ‘hiding’ in the Bangka Strait, on 14 February 1942 the Vyner Brooke was attacked from the air. One bomb hit the bridge and another went straight down the funnel. The planes machined gunned the deck and the lifeboats. Many lifeboats filled with water and sank. The ship took on water very quickly and sunk approximately 10 miles (16kms) from Bangka Island, Sumatra.

Betty, a strong swimmer, slid down a rope over the side of the ship just as it was going down and was burned from the rope along her hands, skinning her fingers. In the water, Betty clung to a raft containing Matron Paschke, head of her Unit, who was a non-swimmer. After hours, the raft drifted very close to a pier but was carried out by a storm. Betty realised that the load was too heavy so she and another nurse, Iole Harper, and two men hopped out of the raft to swim beside it. Suddenly the raft was caught in a current, which missed Betty and those swimming beside it, and carried it out to sea. Betty and Iole never saw Matron or those sisters again. Of the sixty-five nurses on board the Vyner Brooke twelve were drowned.

Betty and Iole swam together in the sea and mangrove swamps for three days. After the first 28 hours they realised that they didn't know each other's name, so they stopped, formally introduced themselves and then continued swimming. Finally they were found, exhausted and delirious, by a Malay fisherman who took them to his village to feed and care for them, explaining they were on Bangka Island, now in Japanese hands, and were advised to give themselves up.

For the next three and a half years Betty and 31 other Australian Army Nursing Sisters were held captive as prisoners of war in and around Sumatra. Fellow captives, including nuns, missionaries and Dutch and English civilian women and children, endured appalling conditions in the prison camps. Water for drinking came from one tap, which could only drip. Bath water trickled into a large trough called a tong, which the women stood beside and splashed tiny amounts of water over themselves. They were fed rice twice a day, which was from the market floor and had teeth, hair, stones, bugs and dirt in it. They were sometimes given a little sugar or salt with their rice and perhaps a piece of vegetable the size of a 5 cent coin or a tiny pink splinter which they were told was pork. They went to bed hungry.

Many of the nurses had only the clothes on their backs – and no shoes, having removed them before diving off the Vyner Brooke. Their treatment by prison guards was often cruel. Some nurses had to walk for hours to collect clean water for the guards’ crops of sweet potatoes, while they themselves were forced to drink water that was often putrid and contaminated. Red Cross parcels carrying food and medical supplies were also kept from the prisoners.

In camp, Betty wanted to keep her mind active. She was worried that when she returned home she would forget all the things that happened to her. In a 1983 interview when asked about her diary, Betty recalled: “I didn’t want my brain to rust. I wanted to remember how to read, write and spell but there was nothing to write on or write with. I found a pencil on a rubbish heap and I thought, well I’m getting started, but no paper. On my way to a working party, outside the camp, near the guard house I saw a little exercise booklet and thought that’s exactly what I want. I hope it is still there when I come in and it was. I grabbed it and no one saw. After that I kept it as my diary. I knew I had to keep it hidden”.

Betty hid the diary under the bench on which she slept in the hut. She rolled it in rags and hid it in a bottle amongst rats and spiders, a place where she thought her captors definitely wouldn't look. Had the Japanese soldiers found the diary Betty would have been executed and the diary been burnt. Other nurses knew about the diary because Betty needed someone to keep watch for the Japanese guards while she was writing in it.

To cope with the atrocious circumstances the nurses found themselves in, Betty and her friends attempted to establish a routine. Each woman was designated as a cook, a cleaner, or a gardener. In August 1942 a ‘shop’ was allowed into camp once a week. It was a cart belonging to a local man, containing fruit, sugar and a tiny amount of butter, tea, coffee beans and sandshoes. The shop was only good if you had money, so the nurses set to work. The Dutch women in camp had money, but the nurses had been shipwrecked and lost everything. Betty very quickly became the camp ‘hairdresser’, cutting people’s hair with a pair of nail scissors.

When morale was particularly low in the camp Norah Chambers who attended the Royal Academy in London and was classically trained and Dutch Missionary Margaret Drybrugh formed the Vocal Orchestra. These incredibly talented women wrote music to classical symphonies from memory on scraps of paper. Betty would watch and listen to the orchestra practice. She would hum the tunes to herself. Norah asked if she could read music and Betty responded that she could and so Betty was made a fist alto in the vocal orchestra. The concerts transported the captives to another place where they were not hungry and being held prisoner.

During her time in camp, Margaret Dryburgh composed the Captive's Hymn which was sung in camp each Sunday at Church services held. This song is still sung at many commemorative services today.

To keep up morale, the nurses celebrated their birthdays and gave one other presents, using whatever they could find in the camp or make. Christmas was also an important time in camp and the prisoners made cards and gifts for one another, using any type of paper they could get their hands on. Many of the gifts Betty received were sketches.

On 15^th August 1945, the Second World War ended. The women being held captive in the prison camp were not told of this until 24^th August. During their first few days of freedom the men from the men’s camp were allowed to mix with the women’s camp and see their wives and children. More food became available and the women were given lipstick, clothes, materials and shoes. The Australian Red Cross supplies that had been sent to the camp were made available and medical supplies, letters from the internee’s families, writing paper and materials that had been withheld in a store room were now passed around the camp.

Only 24 Australian Army nurses were released from the final prison camp when the war finally ended and the nurses were rescued. Betty weighed just 32 kilograms. The nurses were flown to Singapore and were hospitalised immediately. They were desperate to get home.

On 5^th October 1945, 24 nurses left Singapore on the hospital ship Manunda. Betty was very sick on the way home and wasn’t able to celebrate properly.

On 24^th October 1945 Betty arrived home in Melbourne. She spent one night at home with her family, catching up on news. She was so unwell and after celebrating her arrival home, she was admitted to the Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital where she remained for two years, suffering tropical diseases and tuberculosis.

In 1947 Betty was discharged from hospital. Together with Vivian Bullwinkel she fulfilled a promise made in captivity, to honour their colleagues who had died and create a memorial so they would not be forgotten. They travelled around Victoria, speaking at towns to raise funds in order to establish a Nurses Memorial Centre in Melbourne. Betty and Vivian, together with the support of Wilma Oram raised 78,000 pounds. An overall amount of 120,000 pounds was finally raised so the Nurses Memorial Centre could become a reality. This Centre was to be not just a place to remember the passing of the fallen nurses, but a place to meet, gather and continue the ongoing professional development of nurses through education.

On 14 May 1949 (Betty’s birthday) the Nurses Memorial Centre was opened and Betty was asked to be its first administrator. Betty lived at the Centre and enjoyed her position despite the very long hours which were often 9am – 10.30pm. Betty also established the Betty Jeffrey Auxiliary to raise additional funds for the Nurses Memorial Centre to enable the purchase of equipment.

In May 1950 Betty took a leave of absence from the Nurses Memorial Centre to travel to England with Vivian Bullwinkel. In May 1951 they were presented to King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in the Throne Room at Buckingham Palace. They were trained to curtsy correctly. They were also received by Her Majesty Queen Mary at her home, Marlborough House. Betty said this was an unforgettable and wonderful experience. Queen Mary wanted to know all about the Nurses Memorial Centre as she had sent an autographed photograph of herself there.

In 1954 Betty became unwell again and was in and out of Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital often for 9 – 11 weeks at a time. She was advised by the medical team to retire from the Nurses Memorial Centre. This was very difficult for her as she loved her job.

In May 1954 Betty’s book White Coolies was published after a suggestion her diary kept during her time as a prisoner should be made into a book. The book was originally called Diary of White Coolie but the publishers thought the name too long. Betty agreed to publish her experiences as she wanted to explain to her family what it had been like being a prisoner of war.

In 1955 an adaptation of White Coolies was recorded for radio and was broadcast across Australia.

In the early 1960s Betty was a golf caddy to Victorian champion, Burtta Cheney; an old friend. They were both members at Huntingdale Golf Club. It helped Betty to become fit once again. During this time she also worked on the ex-Prisoner of War (POW) and Nurses Memorial Centre committees.

During the 1970s and 1980s Betty was a frequent guest speaker on ex-service personnel and prisoner of war subjects. She continued to attend ANZAC Day and commemoration services. She was also invited to open many memorials and was Patron and Member of the ex-POW and Relatives association and a committee member for many years. White Coolies kept her busy during this period, she wrote dozens of articles about the book and answered hundreds of letters regarding being a prisoner or war.

In 1979 Betty travelled back to Sumatra for the making of the BBC Documentary “Women in Captivity” by producer Lavinia Warner, who is also the author of Women beyond the Wire. Dame Margot Turner and Betty were flown to Palembang Sumatra to be filmed for the documentary. This was what she called her ‘journey backwards’. Going back to Sumatra after 34 years.

In 1987 Betty was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for her services to ex-servicemen and women.

During 1996, Betty became an advisor to Bruce Beresford, director of the film Paradise Road which was largely based on White Coolies. The film was released in 1997.

Early in 2000, the latest edition of White Coolies was re-printed. This was its nineteenth edition. In June 2000, Betty was awarded with a Life Membership of the Returned Services League, presented to her by President, Bruce Ruxton and Major General Peter Cosgrove.

Betty passed away, aged 92, on 13 September 2000. Her life was remembered at a family funeral, and a moving memorial service arranged by the Returned Nurses Association.

Regarded with great fondness by her friends, Betty Jeffrey's dignified manner and sense of humour has been recalled by many who knew her during the war. The camaraderie amongst the nurses together with her wit, imagination, ability to embellish a story and fabulous sense of humour all contributed to Betty surviving three and a half harrowing years as a Prisoner of War, and this can be seen in her dairies, the poems she wrote and the sketches she drew while in captivity. Her sense of humour, conscientious, caring, innovative and generous spirit remained with her throughout her years, as did her strong friendships with the returned nurses. It was her wish to keep the memory of the nurses who did not return alive, and so now this task is passed onto us. Lest we forget.