The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (VFX47776) Sister Clarice Isobel Halligan, 13th Australian General Hospital, Royal Australian Army Nursing Service, Second World War.

The Last Post Ceremony is presented in the Commemorative area of the Australian War Memorial each day. The ceremony commemorates more than 102,000 Australians who have given their lives in war and other operations and whose names are recorded on the Roll of Honour. At each ceremony the story behind one of the names on the Roll of Honour is told. Hosted by Craig Berelle, the story for this day was on (VFX47776) Sister Clarice Isobel Halligan, 13th Australian General Hospital, Royal Australian Army Nursing Service, Second World War.

VFX47776 Sister Clarice Isobel Halligan, 13th Australian General Hospital, Royal Australian Army Nursing Service
Executed 16 February 1942

Today we remember and pay tribute to Sister Clarice Isobel Halligan.

Clarice Halligan, known as Clare, was born on 17 September 1904 in Ballarat, Victoria, one of eight children born to Joseph and Emily Halligan.

Clare grew up in the Melbourne suburb of Kew, and after her schooling trained as a nurse. She was living with her parents at the family home when she enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force on 11 July 1940. She was taken on strength with the Australian Army Nursing Service and attached to the 7th Australian General Hospital. She spent some time at camps in Melbourne before embarking for Singapore in July 1941. There she was attached to the 10th Australian General Hospital, and was serving in Malaya in 1942 when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

Once the fall of Singapore became inevitable, most Australian personnel were evacuated from the island. Halligan was serving with the 13th Australian General Hospital , and was one of 65 Australian nurses who left Singapore aboard the Vyner Brooke on 14 February. Two days later the ship was bombed by the Japanese and many lives were lost. Sister Halligan sustained deep shrapnel wounds from the blast, and was treated by her fellow nurses before being helped into a raft. Others joined the lifeboats, and those who could swim made for the nearby Banka Island.

Halligan’s raft reached the beach and she was tended to. Some of the survivors travelled to the nearest port to formally surrender to the Japanese, but 22 Australian nurses remained on the beach to tend the wounded.
On the morning of 16 February a group of Japanese soldiers arrived, and ordered the wounded around a headland, where they were killed. The rest of the survivors were ordered to walk into the sea. When the water reached their waists, the Japanese opened fire with machine-guns. Of the 22 Australian nurses ordered into the sea, all but one were killed, including Clare Halligan. She was 37 years old.

Sister Clarice Isobel Halligan is commemorated on the Singapore Memorial, and her name is listed on the Roll of Honour on my left, along with some 40,000 others from the Second World War.

This is but one of the many stories of service and sacrifice told here at the Australian War Memorial. We now remember Sister Clarice Isobel Halligan, who gave her life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Christina Zissis
Editor, Military History Section