MATTERS OF INTEREST

BANGKA ISLAND MEMORIAL SERVICE

The Hon. J.M. GAZZOLA (15:26): This year marks the 70^th celebration of many nation-defining events when the country confronted the realities of war. This year we have celebrated, or will celebrate, a number of events, including the bombing of Darwin on 19 February 1942; the sinking of HMAS Yarra and HMAS Perth on 28 February 1942; the invasion of Rabaul; the commencement of the battle for Kokoda; the sinking of the SS Vyner Brooke and the subsequent massacre of many of the survivors on the beach at Bangka Island.

It was in memory of these events in 1942, and because of them, that prompted the then Labor Prime Minister, the Hon. Bob Hawke, to state in 1988:

It was the turning point in the making of modern Australia. In the fire of that tremendous crisis were forged all the elements which have shaped our national life and destiny to this day...Above all, 1942 was the year in which Australians first achieved a genuine sense of national identity and national unity.

One event we have celebrated is the Bangka Day Memorial Service held on 19 February at the South Australian Women's Memorial Playing Fields. The story leading to this service actually started 70 years ago with the sinking of the SS Vyner Brooke off the coast of Bangka Island near Sumatra and the subsequent massacre of most of the survivors, including 21 Australian nurses. It is truly an amazing but terrible story.

Just prior to the fall of Singapore on 12 February 1942, the SS Vyner Brooke set sail from Singapore for Batavia (now Jakarta) with about 250 people (many of them injured servicemen), including 64 Australian nurses of the 2/13 Australian General Hospital. After initially eluding Japanese air attacks on ships and boats fleeing Singapore, the ship was bombed and sunk off the coast of Sumatra in the Bangka Strait.

Within a period of 48 hours, the Japanese sunk around 70 ships in the Bangka Strait as they fled Singapore. On board the SS Vyner Brooke, the nurses, under the resolute and disciplined leadership of matrons Olive Paschke and Irene Drummond, had undertaken to care for all passengers during the trip and, in the event of a sinking, had vowed to be the last off.

The study by Ian Shaw in his account On Radji Beach—the source of much of this matter of interest—documents the horrors that confronted the nurses and their bravery and sense of duty under fire. A total of 100 or so survivors, including 22 nurses, made it to shore on Bangka Island. The island had been occupied by the Japanese and, with no food, water or hope, the decision was made to surrender to the enemy.

On surrendering, the survivors were separated. The men were murdered in the jungle abutting the shore and the nurses were ordered to walk into the sea where they were machine-gunned. Amazingly, one nurse survived: Sister Vivian Bullwinkel, and although injured she and another male survivor surrendered to the Japanese. For the remainder of the war she was interred in a prison camp and, with the end of the war, she was finally able to tell the story of the massacre on Bangka Island.

This remarkable story of compassion, bravery, comradeship and self-sacrifice brings us to Adelaide and a ceremony of remembrance that has been celebrated since 1955. This event occurs at the South Australia Women's Memorial Playing Fields, St Marys, established in 1953 to encourage women's sport. In 1956, the playing fields were then dedicated in memory of the contribution made by women in all services during World War II, with particular focus on the Bangka Island massacre.

It takes a number of dedicated people to bring such a vision to fruition and to maintain that vision. The South Australian Women's Memorial Playing Fields Trust was established in 1967 and it overseas the memorial focus and the Bangka Day Memorial Service held at the May Mills Pavilion on the site. In closing, the ceremony and playing fields are a living memorial to those deserving women in war who paid such a tragic price in the pursuit of their duty.