Captain Vivian Bullwinkel and Lieutenant Agnes Betty “Jeff” Jeffrey

In February 1942, with Japanese bombing raids hitting Singapore day and night, Australian nurses were ordered to evacuate. Vivian Bullwinkel and Betty Jeffery were among the last group of 65 nurses evacuated on the small and overcrowded ship SS Vyner Brooke along with civilian women and children. Two days after leaving Singapore, the ship was sunk. Vivian and Betty survived, but their journey to safety took different paths.

Vivian was one of 22 nurses who washed ashore on a nearby island. Lacking food or shelter, they surrendered to a party of Japanese soldiers, believing they would be given protection. Instead the soldiers ordered them into the water and opened fire. Badly wounded, Vivian was the only survivor. She later recalled that they “all knew what was going to happen to them, but no-one panicked: they just marched ahead with their chins up”.

Left for dead, without food or protection, Vivian surrendered to Japanese soldiers 12 days later. In a prison camp in Palembang, Sumatra, she was reunited with other survivors from the Vyner Brooke, including Betty. Swapping stories of survival, Vivian learned of Betty’s 16-hour ordeal, clinging to a life raft drifting in the sea. Betty surrendered to the Japanese after having shared the water with sharks and then spending a night in a mosquito-infested swamp.

For the next three and a half years, they were kept as prisoners under appalling conditions. Friends and family in Australia had no idea of their whereabouts. Food and medical supplies were hopelessly inadequate, but the nurses devoted themselves to caring for each other, and the women and children in the camp. Vivian and Betty survived their years in captivity, and remembered their friends who had not been so fortunate.

Read more about Vivian and Betty.

Activities

1. During her time as a prisoner of war, Betty managed to steal some exercise books and a pencil from the Japanese guard house. Over the next few years, at great risk, she secretly recorded her experiences. Why might Betty have felt it was so important to keep a diary?

2. Made by Sister Pat Gunther, this drawing shows the inside of the nurses’ hut in the prisoner-of-war camp. What does it tell you about their experience? You may wish to respond creatively, with a poem, letter or diary entry. 

3. After the war, Vivian and Betty devoted themselves to honouring those killed on Banka Island, raising funds for a memorial which was unveiled there in 1993. This photo shows Vivian at the ceremony. How might she have felt about returning to Banka Island? Who would she have been thinking about?

Related objects

Rising Sun Badge