Hi all, Just reading in the Australian War Memorial files and came across something I hadn't thought about for quite a while. The contribution that the "medical corp" makes to all wars. Surgeons, nurses, medic's etc. Their must be many stories worthy of a place here. I will start it off with one from the files of the AWM. Who’s who in Australian Military History Captain Vivian Bullwinkel, AO, MBE, ARRC Date of birth: 18 December 1915 Place of birth: Kapunda, SA Date of death: 03 July 2000 Place of death: Perth, WA P03960.001 Vivian Bullwinkel P03960.001 Vivian Bullwinkel, sole survivor of the 1942 Banka Island massacreWho’s who in Australian Military History Captain Vivian Bullwinkel, AO, MBE, ARRC Date of birth: 18 December 1915 Place of birth: Kapunda, SA Date of death: 03 July 2000 Place of death: Perth, WA P03960.001 Vivian Bullwinkel P03960.001 Vivian Bullwinkel, sole survivor of the 1942 Banka Island massacre (Malay Archipelago, in the Java Sea, western Indonesia), was born on 18 December 1915 at Kapunda, South Australia. She trained as a nurse and midwife at Broken Hill, New South Wales, and began her nursing career in Hamilton, Victoria, before moving to the Jessie McPherson Hospital in Melbourne in 1940. In 1941, wanting to enlist, Bullwinkel volunteered as a nurse with the RAAF but was rejected for having flat feet. She was, however, able to join the Australian Army Nursing Service; assigned to the 2/13th Australian General Hospital (2/13th AGH), in September 1941 she sailed for Singapore. After a few weeks with the 2/10th AGH, Bullwinkel rejoined the 13th AGH in Johor Baharu (Malaysia). Japanese troops invaded Malaya in December 1941 and began to advance southwards, winning a series of victories and, in late January 1942, forcing the 13th AGH to evacuate to Singapore. But the short-lived defence of the island ended in defeat, and, on 12 February, Bullwinkel and 65 other nurses boarded the SS Vyner Brooke to escape the island. Two days later, the ship was sunk by Japanese aircraft. Bullwinkel, 21 other nurses and a large group of men, women, and children made it ashore at Radji Beach on Banka Island; they were joined the next day by about 100 British soldiers. The group elected to surrender to the Japanese, and while the civilian women and children left in search of someone to whom they might surrender, the nurses, soldiers, and wounded waited. Some Japanese soldiers came and killed the men, then motioned the nurses to wade into the sea. They then machine-gunned the nurses from behind. Bullwinkel was struck by a bullet and pretended to be dead until the Japanese left. She hid with a wounded British private for 12 days before deciding once again to surrender. They were taken into captivity, but the private died soon after. Bullwinkel was reunited with survivors of the Vyner Brooke. She told them of the massacre, but none spoke of it again until after the war lest it put Bullwinkel, as witness to the massacre, in danger. Bullwinkel spent three and half years in captivity; she was one of just 24 of the 65 nurses who had been on the Vyner Brooke to survive the war. Bullwinkel retired from the army in 1947 and became Director of Nursing at Melbourne’s Fairfield Hospital. She devoted herself to the nursing profession and to honouring those killed on Banka Island, raising funds for a nurses’ memorial and serving on numerous committees, including a period as a member of the Council of the Australian War Memorial, and later president of the Australian College of Nursing. In the decades following the war, Bullwinkel received many honours and awards, including the Florence Nightingale Medal, an MBE and the AM. She married in 1977 and returned to Banka Island in 1992 to unveil a shrine to the nurses who had not survived the war. Vivian Bullwinkel died on 3 July 2000. Picture available at this sight: www.awm.gov.au/people/1906.asp
Try another excellent book, "We Band of Angels," about the nurses who were on Bataan and Corregidor. They had an incredible ordeal. It's on the bibliography of my web page. I can't remember the publisher and author offhand.
TRAGIC EVIDENCE OF YEARS OF NEGLECT and starvation in Sumatra is seen in the emaciated condition of Australian nursing sisters now being cared for in Singapore. Sister K. Blake, of Lindfield, Sydney, one of the liberated sisters, is shown receiving a banana from Matron I. M. Brown, Wangaratta (V). WW2 Nominal Roll
Hi Spidge, Very strange that you posted this thread at this time, as I am about to receive a DVD of a 1978 British program "This is Your Life", (thanks to a forum member), the central figure being Brigadier Dame Margot Turner, D.B.E., R.R.C., QHNS who was in the camp with Vivian Bullwinkel, A camp survivor I had the pleasure of having a pub lunch with was Mavis Allgrove nee Capt. Mavis Hannah, who, could she have been able to swim might of made it to the life boat, then along with her colleagues been marched into the water and shot, however after four days floating in the Banka straights she was picked up and put down on Banka Island and was then one of the sixty five originals in the camp, arrangements were made over lunch that after her holiday my wife and myself were to visit her to see her video of the memorial to her colleagues on Banka Island, the dedication of which she attended, this was not to be as she sadly passed away on holiday in Australia, I am very keen to see the This is Your Life DVD as I believe it made a big mark on people at that time, as towards the end of the program the camp survivors that were in the studio were asked to sing the Captives Hymn, written in the camp for the camp choir, they soon got into full voice, and reduced the audience to jelly, The program researchers at that moment realised, there was an even bigger story still to be told a went on to produce Tenko for television and the book Woman Beyond The Wire. It was a great privilege, to share lunch with Mavis, I have put a picture here. I have been trying to find a copy of Paradise Road for reasonable money here in the UK, video only at £20 (zone 2) is it available on DVD do you know, I am guessing you have seen it, so the music will make sense to you no doubt,. regards lofty
Hi Lofty, Actually first posted this in June 2005 - It was bumped up today. Regarding Paradise Road, I have checked around online however can only raise (Zone 4) but of no use to you unless you know the remote tricks. Q: What is regional coding, and what does it do? Is it possible to change the regional coding of my DVD player? A: Regional coding limits which countries a disc can be used in. A disc coded for North America (region 1) will not generally play back on a player sold in Australia (Region 4), and vice-versa. Often this situation can be remedied via a few keystokes on your remote control - www.videohelp.com/dvdhacks has a lot of interesting information along those lines. E-Bay may be your best alternative however £20 is highway robbery. Let me know how you go. Cheers Geoff
On Radji Beach Ian Shaw When Singapore fell dramatically to the Japanese on 15 February 1942, hundreds of people scrambled to the docks to flee. Amongst the evacuees were 65 Australian nurses who boarded a coastal freighter named the Vyner Brooke. They only made it as far as the waters off Muntok Island near Sumatra. There, Japanese bombers sank the small ship. Those who survived the sinking drifted for up to three days before making landfall on one of the many beaches on Muntok. A group of about 60 shipwreck survivors, including 22 nurses, gathered at Radji Beach. They voted to surrender to the Japanese rather than slowly starve to death, but the Japanese patrol that found them did not accept their surrender. Instead, it divided the Europeans into three groups and killed them all in turn. The Australian nurses were in the third group, and 21 of them died in a hail of bullets as they walked, abreast, into the sea. Miraculously, there was one survivor, Vivian Bullwinkel, who brought the truth about this appalling atrocity to light, and who went on to experience the internment camps, starvation and disease that took away many of her friends.
I have a tremendous debt of gratitude to the Nurses that cared for me in the long months I spent in hospital. At Poole. Lytchett Warwick. Croydon. Shaftesbury. Bovington. And at the convalescent home: Lake House, the Elizabethan Manor that was owned by the Cunard family Now owned by "sting" In every case I was moved without the chance to say Thank you Nurses.... For I owe them so much. Also all the kind people I met, and who enriched my life during my recuperation from the severity of my injuries. Sapper
I can only reiterate the thanks of Sapper in my treatment to recovery from the many nurses in Ancona - Bari and Catania and other medics- they were all first class and full of caring - even the one who gave me the mepacrine for malaria- with a boiled sweet to follow ... Cheers
Hi all, Thanks for the help from Spidge and Spider, I have obtained a "DVD of Paradise Road"and am looking forward to watching it, I have found a picture of Vivian Bullwinkel, taken, quite obviously during a happy time in her life, so have included it here, also the words to the Captives Hymn, it was written in the camp by Mareret Dryberg who died sadly in April 1945. regards lofty
Nurses... laying on my stretcher, this English Nurse advanced towards me with a half pint bottle with a needle the size of a knitting needle. A gigantic syringe. I said "You are not going to stick that in me?" She said "Got to,..its an anti gas gangrene injection .stops you getting gangrene in your wounds."f After I had a lump on my arm bigger than a cricket ball.
Enjoyed hearing about Aussie nurses. We are going to Sydney on Monday and hope to isit the Centaur memorial near Brisbane, she was a hospital ship sunk by a japanese sub, I-77, in May 1943. I have some information on American nurses in Phlilipines in my book GI Nightingales. also a question. A am looking for info/photo of a Lt. Noreen Wright, army nurse supposedly killed in Med or European theater. No luck so far. One of her former US Amry patients is asking.
Paradise Road (1997) 122 min - Drama | History | War - 11 April 1997 (USA) Fact-based recounting of a group of women who are imprisoned on the island of Sumatra by the Japanese during World War II and used music as a relief to their misery. Director: Bruce Beresford Writers: David Giles (story), Martin Meader (story), and 2 more credits » Stars: Glenn Close, Frances McDormand and Pauline Collins
PA Dutchman, bit on here about Paradise Road, regards lofty http://www.ww2talk.com/forum/general/4983-nurses.html edit threads now merged D
Thank you, being so new I am not always sure I should mention something, but then you would hate to see something like this missed. It is quite a story I have watched it several times.
I have a photo of my Aunt who was an Army Surgical Room Nurse and remained in that vocation until she retired. Both her brothers, my father Raymond and my Uncle Richard, fought in the US Army Air Corp and US Navy through the entire war. My Grandmother, their mother, worked in the Mack Trucks Factory here in Allentown through out the war making trucks for the war. She was not a Rosy the Riveter making aircraft but she did make her share of putting together Mack Trucks for the war. I know in all of the Theaters of the War women were vital to the final victory. Russia had women tank commanders, fighter pilots, and some infantry troops. One of the most famous Russian Rail Road Engineers during World War Two was a woman who on many occasions brought the tools of war to the men on the front under impossible conditions.
