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Today we remember Eileen Mary Ita Short, on her birthday.
Eileen Mary Ita Short was born on 15 January 1904 in Maryborough, Queensland. She was the daughter of Bridget Mary Smith (1868–1922), born in Nanango, Queensland, and Henry (‘Harry’) Short (1852–1926), a farmer, born in Ford, Northumberland, England. Bridget and Harry married on 7 December 1898 and had three other children, John (‘Jack’, b. 1899), Isabel (b. 1901) and Clarence (‘Clarrie’, b. 1909).
Eileen and her siblings grew up in Wooroolin, which their father represented on Kingaroy Shire Council for many years. She began attending Wooroolin State School on 26 September 1910, where she joined John and Isabel. Curiously, in the school’s register the Short children are recorded as being Roman Catholic. Years later, when Eileen enlisted, she stated her religion as Presbyterian.
In February 1915 it was reported in the Brisbane Courier that Eileen and her sister, Isabel, had donated clothing to the Belgian Relief Fund – suggestive surely of a concern on Eileen’s part for the welfare of others.
In 1923 Eileen enjoyed a “prolonged visit to the Old Country” with her father, who was born in Northumberland in northern England. They embarked for home on 6 October aboard the Jervis Bay.
At around this time Eileen decided that nursing would be the thing for her, and in December 1924 she was appointed a probationer at Kingaroy General Hospital. She gained her registration in general nursing on 11 December 1930 and then worked as a sister in charge at Maitland Hospital in New South Wales before returning to Kingaroy General in February 1932 to take up relieving duty. She subsequently trained in midwifery at the Crown Street Women’s Hospital in Surry Hills, Sydney, gaining her registration on 2 Aug 1934. By 1936 Eileen had returned once again to Kingaroy General. In 1937 she was appointed matron of the Isisford District Hospital in Isisford, in outback Queensland. In 1938 Eileen was vice president of the Hospital Ladies’ Guild.
Following the outbreak of war in Europe, Eileen became active on the Isisford and District Patriotic Committee and volunteered for the Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS). On 21 August 1941 she was called up for duty with the AANS and attached to the 2/13th Australian General Hospital (AGH) at the rank of Staff Nurse. She was going overseas.
Eileen must have anticipated her call-up, for on 9 August there was a large attendance at the Isisford Shire Hall to farewell Eileen. Mr H. G. Behan, chair of the Isisford Hospital Committee, noted that “Matron Short would be exposed to the dangers of war” and praised her “splendid assistance both to the hospital guild and the Isisford and District Patriotic Committee.” She had acquitted herself well, he said, and would do the same “when doing her bit to make Australia safe.” He praised Eileen’s conscientious courage; “only that night,” he said, “she had delayed her arrival at the function to attend to a patient at the hospital.” As a farewell gift she was given a “wallet of notes” and promised a wristwatch.
Eileen was due to sail from Sydney, but before she did so she wrote to the hospital committee thanking them for granting her leave of absence for the duration of the war. Little did they – or Eileen herself – know just how long that would be.
On 27 August, Eileen travelled down to Sydney to board the Wanganella with her Queensland 2/13th AGH colleagues, whose number included Valrie Smith, Blanche Hempsted and Sylvia Muir. The Wanganella, resplendent all in white, departed Sydney on 29 August and called into Melbourne and Fremantle, where it picked up more AANS members of the unit. On 15 September Eileen arrived in Singapore.
The 2/13th AGH was based at St. Patrick’s Boys School in Katong on Singapore Island. Eileen spent a month here before being detached to the 2/4th Casualty Clearing Station (CCS) on 14 October. The 2/4th CCS was based in a psychiatric hospital in Tampoi, near Johor Bahru on the Malay peninsula, and had been tasked with preparing a hospital for the 2/13th AGH eventually to move into.
In due course the hospital was sufficiently ready for the 2/13th AGH to take over. On 23 November, the unit crossed Johor Strait and moved into the Tampoi site, and on the same day Eileen rejoined. The 2/4th CCS moved further north to Kluang.
The calm of Eileen’s first three months was broken on the morning of 8 December, when the Imperial Japanese Army invaded Malaya. Troops entered northern Malaya and Singapore was bombed. Japanese forces quickly demoralised and defeated the British and Indian troops garrisoned in the north and surged southwards. By late January 1942, the 2/13th AGH had returned to St. Patrick’s, and by early February Japanese forces were in control of the entire Malay peninsula. Singapore itself was under heavy attack.
It was decided that AANS nursing staff should be evacuated, and on 10 February, with Japanese forces now on Singapore Island, six nurses left aboard the Wah Sui. The following day 59 more departed on the Empire Star. It must be stated that they had refused to go and had to be ordered. Then, on Thursday 12 February, the final 65 nurses, among whom was Eileen, were evacuated aboard Vyner Brooke.
In the early afternoon of Saturday 14 February, the Vyner Brooke was bombed by Japanese aircraft as it was entering Bangka Strait. The Imperial Japanese Army had just launched an invasion of Sumatra and Bangka Island and were attacking every ship they found. In a short time, some 27 bombs were released. Most missed but eventually one entered through the ship’s funnel and exploded in the engine room. The ship lifted and rocked with a vast roar. Then another struck the ship, and another, and the Vyner Brooke was doomed. It began to sink and within 30 minutes was beneath the waves.
After treating the wounded as best they could, and helping women, children, the elderly and the wounded into the available lifeboats, Eileen and her colleagues abandoned ship wearing the life jackets they had been issued with. Some found their way onto lifeboats – or just as likely trailed behind – while others clung to rafts and debris. Those who could swim made for nearby Bangka Island.
Somehow Eileen made it ashore in the vicinity of Muntok, the largest town in this part of the island. She was taken by Japanese soldiers to a large cinema, into which had been herded many hundreds of survivors from the scores of ships sunk by Japanese aircraft.
In the cinema Eileen met other AANS nurses who had survived the bombing and reached land. They were taken to abandoned workers’ barracks on the edge of town, and there they stayed for two weeks. They were 31 in number. Then, towards the end of this time, Vivian Bullwinkel of the 2/13th AGH arrived. She was the only survivor of a horrific massacre that had taken place on 16 February on Radji Beach, not far from Muntok.
Of the 65 AANS nurses evacuated from Singapore aboard the Vyner Brooke, 12 were lost at sea and 21 had died on Radji Beach. Eileen and her remaining 31 colleagues became prisoners of war of the Imperial Japanese Army.
Over the next three-and-half years, the AANS nurses and hundreds of civilian women and children were moved from one internment camp to another in Sumatra and Bangka island, each worse than the previous. They were stalked by malnutrition, disease and arbitrary Japanese cruelty. Eight of Eileen’s colleagues died, all in their final nine months of imprisonment.
Finally, on 15 August 1945, Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s surrender. Nine days later, the nurses were informed that they would be going home. On 16 September, Eileen and her 23 comrades flew out of Sumatra to Singapore. Eileen – or ‘Shortie’ as she was affectionately called by the nurses – weighed little more than 22 kilograms.
After a period of recuperation in Singapore, on 5 October the nurses boarded the Manunda bound for Australia. They arrived in Fremantle on 18 October to a rapturous welcome. The ship continued to Melbourne and then Sydney.
Eileen spent the next five or so months recovering in hospital and in convalescent care. In January 1946, she was well enough to travel with her brother to Ruthven homestead, near Isisford, for a short holiday, but then needed more recovery.
Nonetheless, in time Eileen’s health returned, and she went back to work. After her discharge from the army on 4 April 1946, she returned to rural and remote nursing, resuming her role as matron at Isisford District Hospital. In early 1948, she moved to Richmond, around 400 kilometres north of Isisford, where she took a position as matron of Richmond District Hospital. Then in March 1949 she left Richmond, possibly to take up an appointment as matron of Augathella District Hospital.
By 1954 Eileen had retired from nursing and was living at ‘Mingara’, in Duleen, near Dalby in Queensland’s Western Downs region. In November of that year, she gave a talk at the local Rotary Club about her experiences as a POW in Sumatra.
In the winter of 1968, Eileen attended a national reunion of ex-POWs, organised by the Ex-Prisoners-of-War Association of Australia and held at Surfers Paradise on Queensland’s Gold Coast. Here she met up with nine of her former AANS POW colleagues. It must have been quite a reunion.
Eileen died on 25 April 1975 – Anzac Day – at the Dalby General Hospital. She was 71 years old. At her funeral, members of the Dalby R.S.L. formed a guard of honour outside St. Mark's Lutheran Church. The pallbearers were ex-prisoners of war. For Shortie, that was entirely appropriate.
In memoriam Eileen, on her birthday. Lest we forget.
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Lieutenant Eileen Mary Short QFX22911- 2/10th Australian General Hospital - Wooroolin WW11 Honour Board
Eileen Mary Short was born 15 Jan 1904 at Maryborough, Qld, daughter of Henry & Bridget Short. The short family lived on the farm, Por 43, which farm backed on to the Logan and Ritchings properties and was sold to Jack Sophus Jessen about 1938. Henry Short selected this property in 1895 so was one of the very early settlers.
Eileen and her siblings, John, Isobel & Clarence were educated at Wooroolin State School. (Pupil number 228) then Eileen trained as a Nurse at Kingaroy General Hospital. The Kingaroy General Hospital Booklet 1914 - 1981 states that Eileen was also a sister on the hospital staff for some years. The memorial to her in the White Room at the Kingaroy RSL states that she was a Sister at Mailtland and Matron Isisford Hospital.
In1941 Eileen joined the Australian Army in Toowoomba. A fabulous photo of Eileen, together with Vi McElnea and Val Smith, waving out of a train carriage window at Brisbane on the occasion of leaving to join the AANS was featured in the Courier-Mail 24 Aug 1941.
When the nurses in the 2/10 Australian General Hospital left Australia they were posted to Singapore, where they served until mid-February 1942 when they were ordered to leave due to the threat of the advancing Japanese army.
The nurses left Singapore on the small and inadequate coastal steamer, the Vyner Brooke. The ship, which was packed with sixty five nurses and more than two hundred civilians and military personnel, set sail for Sumatra via the Bangka Strait. Two days later the Vyner Brooke was bombed by Japanese aircraft and sank. Many Nurses either drowned or were shot by the Japanese but the remaining thirty two nurses were interned as POWs for three and a half years. Eight nurses died in the POW camps, and twenty four nurses eventually returned home to Australia. There is a photo of Eileen in the AWM Archives that shows her lying in a hospital bed in Singapore after her release from the truly awful Belalau camp – she has become a tiny, emaciated figure. She was discharged from the AANS in early April 1944.
After regaining her health Eileen served as Matrons of hospitals at Richmond, Augathella and Isisford. Her last years were spent on her property Karinya at Duleen near Dalby.
Eileen died at Dalby General Hospital on Anzac Day 1976 at the age of 71 years. Members of the Dalby RSL formed a guard of Honour outside St Mark’s Lutheran Church and the pall bearers were ex-prisoners of war.
Lest We Forget