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Vivian Bullwinkel, sole survivor of the 1942 Banka Island massacre, was born on 18 December 1915 at Kapunda, South Australia.

The following extract of Sister Florence Casson's (KIA) record, details the events surrounding the Bangka Island massacre.

The 2/13^th Australian General Hospital of the Australian Army was sent to Singapore (September 1941) but was re-located to Malaya in November 1941.

With allied defeat imminent on the island of Singapore in early February, 1942, Australian Army Command ordered the evacuation of the nursing sisters from the three Australian hospital units there. The 2/13^th AGH, the 2/10^th AGH and the 24^th Casualty Clearing Station.  All the sisters left Singapore on 12^th February 1942 on board the British Merchant Ship “SS Vyner Brooke”. The ship was carrying the 65 sisters of the three Australian hospital units and some 250 other evacuees. These included many wounded British soldiers, British civilian government staff and their families and some Dutch nationals. The Vyner Brook was attacked and sunk by Japanese bombers on the 14^th February 1942 very close to the southern coast of Sumatra.

Three Australian nurses were killed in the bombing attack. Some reports state that Sister Casson was severely wounded during the attack, but still reached the shore.

Stranded on a beach of Bangka Island located off the Sumatran coast (Present day Indonesia), with no food or medical supplies the group was forced to surrender to the Japanese forces. On the 16^th of February 1942 fifteen Japanese soldiers divided the survivors by gender into two groups. The men were marched to an area out of view. The nurses heard a quick succession of shots before the Japanese soldiers came back, sat down in front of the women and cleaned their bayonets and rifles.

Twenty two captured Australian army nursing sisters and one British civilian lady were forced at bayonet point by Japanese soldiers to wade into the sea, leaving ten or twelve stretcher cases on the beach. Fully aware of their fate, the nurses put on a brave face. Their Matron, Irene Drummond, called out: "Chin up, girls. I'm proud of you and I love you all." They were then ruthlessly machine gunned by these troops. Only one woman, (Captain) Sister Vivian Bullwinkle (born Kapunda, South Australia, Army Number VFX 61330) survived, after feigning death and with a bullet through her spleen, she was later held as a POW for the rest of the war.

The bodies of the 22 women shot dead (including the British civilian), was never found. They are commemorated on the Singapore Memorial located in the Kranji Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery.

A portrait of Sister Vivian Bullwinkel by renowned war artist Ivor Hele hangs in the Kewsick Barracks Officers Mess 

For more reading click Australia War Memorial link on left of this page ..

The world knows the horrific details of the tragedy of what is known as the Radji Beach massacre, mainly through the detailed testimony of Sister Vivian Bullwinkel, the sole survivor of the Australian Army Nurses who were executed on that fateful day, 77 years ago on 16 February 1942.

Lieutenant Colonel Vivian Bullwinkel VFX61330 was born on 18 December 1915 in Kanundra, 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. 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, Vivian and 64 other Australian Army Nurses boarded the SS Vyner Brooke to escape the island.

It is history that the ship was sunk off Bangka Island on February 14, 1942. She, along with 52 of the Nurses, landed safely on various parts of the Island. 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 2 days by about 100 British military personnel. 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 many wounded waited on the beach.

"The chief engineer [of the ship] came back with about 15 Japanese," Sister Bullwinkel later wrote. "The British soldiers... were taken around a small point out of sight. There was no sound. Then the Japanese came back wiping their bayonets. We [the nurses] just looked at each other. We didn't have any emotion about it.

"The Japanese indicated we should go into the sea. We walked into the sea. We knew what was going to happen. All I can remember thinking was, 'I am sorry mother will never know what has happened to me but it will be nice to see dad again'.”

Sister Bullwinkel, who was shot in the abdomen, feigned death: "It sort of penetrated that I wasn't dying right there and then. I stayed low until I couldn't stay low any longer." She was the only one of the 22 to survive.

She hid with Private Kingsley, a wounded British soldier, for 12 days before deciding once again to surrender. They were taken into captivity in Muntok, 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.

During her later years at Fairfield Sister Bullwinkel organised a rescue mission to evacuate Vietnamese war orphans from Saigon and supervised their convalescence before adoption to Australian families.

Her many honours included the Florence Nightingale Medal, Officer of the Order of Australia, Member of the Order of the British Empire, 1939-1945 Star, Pacific Star, War Medal and Australian Service Medal. Vivian returned to Banka Island in 1993 to unveil a Memorial to the Nurses who had not survived the war

Sister Bullwinkel, who retired from the army in 1947 and later achieved the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Citizens Military Forces, married Colonel Francis Statham in 1977. She died on July 3, 2000, aged 84.

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Reference: www.awm.gov.au/people/P10676383/
The Canberra Times
Public records