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AANS │ Lieutenant │ Second World War │ Malaya │ 2/4th Casualty Clearing Station

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FAMILY BACKGROUND

Dora Shirley Gardam was born on 24 August 1910 in Abbotsham, just south of Ulverstone in northern Tasmania. Always known as Shirley, she was the eldest child of Dora Ermengarde (Ermine) Bickford (1880–1942) and Richard Alfred Gardam (1885–1959). Ermine was born in South Yarra in Melbourne. Richard was born in Port Sorell, Tasmania. He was a state-school teacher and was moved periodically around northern Tasmania by the Education Department.

Ermine and Richard were married on 2 October 1909 in East Devonport. The following year, while they were living in Abbotsham, Shirley was born. In 1913 Richard was transferred to Mount Farrell, and in November 1914 Dorothy Helen, known as Nancy, was born in Devonport. In 1918 Richard James was born in Launceston, followed in 1920 by Kathleen Mary, who was born in East Devonport. By now the family was living in Evandale, just south of Launceston.

In February 1924 Richard was appointed headmaster of Lilydale State School, located 30 kilometres north of Launceston, and here the family stayed for the next 12 years or so. Shirley and her siblings attended their father’s school, and at the end of 1925 Shirley passed her Merit Certificate examination.

TEACHING

Shirley herself developed an interest in teaching – as her sister Nancy would a few years later – and in 1926 began to help at her father’s school. Her interest developed and in late November 1929 she successfully sat an examination for women candidates for the position of uncertificated teacher and was placed at Ayr State School, around 60 kilometres to the east of Lilydale. She resigned in May 1930.

Shirley was active in her church community. In mid-1928, and again in 1929, 1930 and 1931, she assisted on the flower stall at the Lilydale Presbyterian Church’s annual fair held at the Druids’ Hall. On at least one of those occasions, she also helped to provide musical entertainment at the end of the day.

By 1931 Shirley was working at Lilydale State School as an uncertificated teacher. In May of that year, she and the other assistant or uncertificated teachers, Misses A. Finlay and Nancy Proctor, were given a vote of thanks by the school community and presented with bouquets.

At the end of 1931 Richard was transferred to St. Leonards, a town a short distance east of Launceston. At his final break-up and prize-giving day at Lilydale, Richard was thanked for his work over the previous seven years, and more generally for the work of his family in the Lilydale community. He commenced as headmaster at St. Leonards in January 1932.

NURSING

In time Shirley decided to leave the teaching profession. She instead pursued a career in nursing and began at the Launceston Public Hospital (also known as the Launceston General Hospital) as a probationer. In April 1934, having completed her probationary period, she was accepted as a trainee and signed an agreement for four years’ training. Also accepted at that time was a nurse probationer by the name of Mollie Gunton. Seven years later Shirley and Mollie would serve with the 8th Division in Malaya.

In 1937 Richard Gardam was appointed headmaster of Youngtown State School, and Shirley’s training was almost complete. In June that year she passed her Nurses’ Registration Board examination and on 9 September was presented with her nurse’s certificate at the monthly meeting of the Launceston General Hospital Board. She was congratulated by the chairman, who remarked that it would be an ‘open sesame’ to her wherever she pursued nursing duties.

Subsequently Shirley worked as a staff sister at St. Margaret’s Private Hospital in Launceston and as a relieving sister at the Launceston General Hospital.

In 1939 Shirley trained as a maternity nurse at the Queen Victoria Hospital in Launceston. She completed her training on 1 October and gained her certificate. She was now a double-certificated nurse.

Armed with her twin certificates, Shirley travelled to Sydney and worked as a staff nurse at the Randwick Military Hospital (previously known as the 4th Australian Repatriation Hospital and later as the Prince of Wales Hospital). By now Australia had entered the Second World War, and thousands of women and men across the country had enlisted for service. Sometime between December 1939 and June 1940 Shirley treated one such enlistee, Pte. George Virtue of the 3rd Battalion, 14th Brigade, who had been admitted to Randwick following a serious training accident at Dapto, in Wollongong. Sixty years later, in September 1999, George wrote to the army to request a copy of Shirley’s service records. Her skilled nursing and kind-heartedness had left a lasting impression upon him.

ENLISTMENT

On 20 June 1940, having returned to Launceston, Shirley applied to join the Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS). She wanted to do her bit for the war effort. She was recommended as a suitable candidate by the principal matron of the AANS in Tasmania, Muriel Folder, and by the Deputy Director of Medical Services of the 6th Military District (Tasmania), and on 4 September her application was approved by the matron-in-chief of the AANS. By now Shirley had moved to Hobart and was (perhaps) working at the Repatriation General Hospital. On the same day that the matron-in-chief approved her AANS application, Shirley attended the Hobart recruitment office at Anglesea Barracks on Davey Street and filled out her Attestation Form for service with the Second Australian Imperial Force (2nd AIF). She also had a medical. Another nurse was in the recruitment office filling out her papers that day – Mina Raymont, a South Australian who had been working in Hobart for a while. Shirley and Mina would end up attached to the same medical unit in Malaya and would share the same tragic fate.

Shirley signed her attestation form on 14 October, thus completing her enlistment, and was attached at the rank of staff nurse to the Emergency Unit of the AANS. On the same day she was posted to the 111th Australian General Hospital (AGH), which was based in a section of the Royal Hobart Hospital.

On 29 November Shirley was posted to the camp hospital at Brighton army camp, 25 kilometres north of Hobart. On 31 December, while still at Brighton, she was attached to a medical unit for overseas service with the 2nd AIF – the 2/4th Casualty Clearing Station (CCS).

2/4TH CASUALTY CLEARING STATION

The 2/4th CCS was being raised in Hobart under the command of Lt. Col. Thomas Hamilton, a Melbourne surgeon, and was about to transfer to Brighton. Together with the 2/10th AGH, the 2/9th Field Ambulance and other, smaller medical units, the unit was due to sail to Malaya with the 22nd Brigade, 8th Division. Known as ‘Elbow Force’ and numbering nearly 6,000 personnel, the 22nd Brigade was being deployed to the British colony at Britain’s request to join British and Indian troops as tensions rose with Imperial Japan. On 22 September 1940 Japan had begun to move into French Indochina after signing an agreement with Vichy France. Five days later it signed the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy.

On 10 January 1941 Shirley was joined at Brighton by Mina Raymont, who had also been attached to the 2/4th CCS as a staff nurse. On 25 January the two nurses sailed with the unit to Melbourne, where they were based at Royal Park Camp. On 31 January Shirley and Mina were joined by South Australian 2/4th CCS appointees Elaine Balfour Ogilvy, Millie Dorsch, Irene Drummond and Mavis Hannah. Elaine and Millie were staff nurses, Mavis and Irene sisters, with Irene the more senior. The four had entrained from Adelaide to Melbourne the previous day.

TO MALAYA

On 1 February the six 2/4th CCS nurses entrained for Sydney and two days later boarded the famous liner turned troopship Queen Mary, lying at anchor at Bradley’s Point. On board they found their cabins, established a dressing station on the sixteenth deck, and began to meet the 43 nurses from the 2/10th AGH.

The following day, 4 February, the Queen Mary departed Sydney Harbour to the cheers of thousands of well-wishers on land and in boats. Two other converted troopships, the Aquitania and the Niew Amsterdam, between them carrying thousands of personnel to Bombay for transshipment to the Middle East, departed at the same time and sailed in convoy with the Queen Mary. The convoy was joined by a fourth troopship, the Mauretania, in the Great Australian Bight and on 10 February arrived at Fremantle. When Staff Nurses Peggy Farmaner and Bessie Wilmott joined their colleagues on board the Queen Mary, the 2/4th CCS’s nursing complement was complete.

The convoy left Fremantle on 12 February. Four days later, as the ships were nearing Sunda Strait, the Queen Mary peeled off to the right for Malaya, while the Aquitania, the Niew Amsterdam and the Mauretania carried on for Bombay. On 18 February the Queen Mary arrived at Sembawang Naval Base on the north coast of Singapore Island.

PORT DICKSON

The nurses disembarked and were taken to adjacent railway sidings. They gave their names and addresses, were issued with rations, and then entrained for the Malay Peninsula. The 2/10th AGH nurses alighted at Tampin, from where they were driven to the Colonial Service Hospital in Malacca. The 2/4th CCS nurses, apart from Mina, were not yet required by their unit and had been detached to the 2/9th Field Ambulance. They alighted at Seremban, further up the line from Tampin, and were driven to Port Dickson, where the 2/9th Field Ambulance would be based. The other staff of the 2/4th CCS continued to Kuala Lumpur and subsequently moved south to Kajang, where they established a hospital in a high school. After a week at Kajang, Mina joined her AANS colleagues at Port Dickson.

At Port Dickson Shirley and the other 2/4th CCS nurses helped to establish a 50-bed dressing station for the 22nd Brigade troops, whose three battalions, the 2/18th, 2/19th and 2/20th, were based at different camps within the Port Dickson–Seremban area. The dressing station served as a first-aid post, where brigade personnel could receive attention in the event of minor injury or tropical ailment. In more serious cases, they would be transported to the 2/4th CCS at Kajang or the 2/10th AGH at Malacca.

Soon after the nurses’ arrival at Port Dickson, Shirley’s colleague Elaine Balfour-Ogilvy wrote home to her parents. She told them that she was stationed “somewhere in Malaya” and quartered with seven other staff nurses, all of whom were struggling with the Malayan language. The nurses had been supplied with Chinese cooks and “house boys” and were enjoying themselves as much as was possible under the circumstances. They found plenty to do, and were very keen in their work and did not mind long hours and the many discomforts which invariably go with active service conditions.

SINGAPORE AND FRASER’S HILL

On 7 May, after nearly three months at Port Dickson, Shirley and Millie Dorsch rejoined the 2/4th CCS at Kajang. Mavis Hannah returned on 4 June and Irene Drummond, Elaine and Mina on 19 July. Bessie Wilmott and Peggy Farmaner stayed at Port Dickson until 20 August, shortly before the redeployment of the 22nd Brigade to the east coast of the Malay Peninsula.

From 20 to 23 June Shirley, Mavis Hannah and possibly Millie Dorsch were granted leave to Singapore. The famous city on the island was a favoured destination of the AANS nurses. They went to Raffles, often as guests of well-connected locals. They were given privileged access to the exclusive Singapore Swimming Club, with its many facilities. They visited the Singapore Botanic Gardens and the beautiful Chinese Garden. They were taken for drives and taken out for dinner, followed by dancing or a cabaret. Sometimes they simply went to the cinema. And, of course, the shopping was marvellous.

A day after Shirley’s return to Kajang, she went on leave again, this time to Fraser’s Hill. From 24 to 28 June, she enjoyed the cool climate of the colonial hill station set in the highlands north of Kuala Lumpur and reached via a narrow, winding road. As in British hill stations elsewhere, the houses of Fraser’s Hill consisted mainly of government bungalows and guests houses in a picturesque ‘Old English’ style of red roofs, grey stone walls and white windows, with gardens of roses, carnations and begonias. During the day the nurses went for long walks and played tennis and golf. In the evenings, when the weather was cool enough for a sweater or cardigan, they went out for dinner and to the local club.

2/13TH AUSTRALIAN GENERAL HOSPITAL

With international concerns growing over Japanese intentions for Southeast Asia and the southwestern Pacific, in August a second 8th Division brigade, the 27th, arrived in Malaya. It was followed by the arrival of a second AGH, the 2/13th, on 15 September. The unit had a staff of around 250, including 49 AANS nurses, and to begin with occupied a Catholic boys’ school, St. Patrick’s, situated in Katong on the south coast of Singapore Island. The arrangement was a temporary measure while their permanent site, a psychiatric hospital leased from the Sultan of Johor and situated in Tampoi, near Johor Bahru in the south of the Malay Peninsula, was made suitable for the unit’s occupation.

Meanwhile, Irene Drummond, who had been promoted to the rank of matron on 5 August, was reassigned to the 2/13th AGH soon after its arrival. She was replaced as sister in charge of the 2/4th CCS nurses by Kathleen Kinsella, from Melbourne, who had arrived with the 2/13th AGH.

ON THE MOVE

By late September the 2/4th CCS had moved into the same psychiatric hospital in Tampoi earmarked for the 2/13th AGH and had established a small general hospital of 145 beds. The rambling, single-storey hospital was ringed around by a high iron fence and abutted jungle. As a consequence, it was not unusual for scorpions, centipedes and other creatures to invade the wards.

On 14 October eight nurses arrived at the 2/4th CCS on detachment from the 2/13th AGH. There was an absence of work for them at St. Patrick’s School, and while the unit waited to move into the Tampoi site, many of the nurses and orderlies were farmed out to the 2/10th AGH in Malacca and to the 2/4th CCS. By 11 November, 11 more nurses had arrived at Tampoi, for a total of 19. The following day Mina, Peggy, Mavis and Bessie were posted to the camp rest station (CRS) at Segamat, where the 2/29th Battalion of the 27th Brigade was based. Two days later Shirley, Elaine, Millie and Kath Kinsella were posted to the CRS at Batu Pahat to look after the 2/30th Battalion.

Finally, the 2/13th AGH received its movement order, and between 21 and 23 November shifted 100 tons of equipment from St. Patrick’s School to Tampoi. At the same time, the 2/4th CCS moved north to Kluang and established a new base next to a civilian hospital on the edge of the aerodrome. The 19 nurses of the 2/13th AGH stayed at Tampoi and were reunited with their unit.

WAR

With Japanese troops now massing in French Indochina, all the signs pointed to war. On 1 December the codeword ‘Seaview’ was issued, advancing all Commonwealth forces in Malaya to the second degree of readiness. All leave was cancelled and units had to be ready to move at a few hours’ notice to their war stations. This was followed on 4 December by the codeword ‘Raffles.’ War with Japan was imminent.

War came just over three days later. In the very early hours of 8 December, a force of some 5,000 troops of the Imperial Japanese Army launched an amphibious assault at Kota Bharu on the Malay Peninsula’s northern coast. At around the same time, Japanese troops landed at Pattani and Singora (Songkhla) in Thailand. Then at 4.00 am, 17 Japanese bombers attacked Singapore Island. Elsewhere, Pearl Harbour, Guam, Midway, Wake Island and American installations in the Philippines were attacked and Hong Kong was invaded. Japan declared war on the United States, Great Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa. The Pacific War had begun.

On the morning of the invasion, Shirley, Elaine, Millie and Kath arrived at Kluang from Batu Pahat. Mina, Peggy, Mavis and Bessie had arrived from Segamat the previous day. The staff of the 2/4th CCS were busy preparing for the unit’s relocation to its war station at Mengkibol Estate, a rubber plantation five kilometres to the west of Kluang whose owners were away in India. In anticipation of Japanese hostilities, the site had been earmarked by Lt. Col. Hamilton some days earlier.

That evening Shirley and her seven colleagues were transported to Mengkibol with their local amahs (housemaids) and were assigned quarters in a comfortable, two-storey brick bungalow. In the days that followed, they helped to set up a casualty clearing station of more than 80 tents under the cover of long avenues of rubber trees. A central road dubbed ‘Kinsella Avenue’ in honour of Kath divided the surgical section from the medical and resuscitation tents.

Meanwhile, from their beachhead at Kota Bharu, and from two points in Thailand, columns of well-trained, combat-ready Japanese troops, backed by mechanized units and substantial sea and air power, pressed southwards, forcing severely outgunned British and Indian troops to retreat before them. The illusion that had held for so long – that Malaya was well defended – was shattered.

EVACUATION SOUTH

When it became clear that the 2/10th AGH at Malacca would have to be evacuated southwards, 20 of the unit’s nurses were detached to the 2/4th CCS and arrived at Mengkibol on 7 January 1942.

Just over a week later the first Australian combat casualties arrived at Mengkibol. Shortly after 4.00 pm on 14 January, B Company of the 2/30th Battalion had ambushed Japanese troops at Gemencheh Bridge, located 50 kilometres to the west of Segamat. This was the first time that Australian troops had engaged Japanese soldiers, and it resulted in five Australian casualties. The following day the main force of the 2/30th Battalion, together with elements of the 2/4th Anti-Tank Regiment, made further contact with Japanese forces outside Gemas in a battle that lasted two days. Although the Australians scored a tactical victory, they did little to slow the Japanese advance and sustained many casualties. Around 6.00 pm on 15 January a convoy arrived at the 2/4th CCS with 36 casualties. By 6.00 am the following morning, 165 cases had been admitted and 35 operations carried out. And the casualties kept coming in.

BACK TO SINGAPORE

By 19 January no Commonwealth troops remained between the 2/4th CCS at Mengkibol and Japanese positions. In view of this, Lt. Col. Hamilton was ordered to send the unit’s nurses to the 2/10th AGH, which had by now relocated to Oldham Hall and Mansion House on Singapore Island and recalled its nurses. The 2/4th CCS meanwhile moved south to its fallback position at Fraser Estate rubber plantation, near Kulai.

The Japanese advance was unstoppable. On 25 January, after four days at Fraser Estate, the 2/4th CCS moved further south to the old psychiatric hospital at Johor Bahru (not the site at Tampoi, but another hospital on the waterfront). On 28 January the unit crossed the Causeway from the peninsula to the Bukit Panjang English School on Singapore Island. Despite its frequent relocations, the 2/4th CCS had treated 1,600 battle casualties since 14 January. Meanwhile, on 25 January the 2/13th AGH had completed its own evacuation, returning to St. Patrick’s School in another stupendous feat of logistics.

Shirley and the other nurses rejoined the 2/4th CCS at Bukit Panjang on 30 January. Lt. Col. Hamilton had driven over personally to Oldham Hall to tell them. They were thrilled at the idea of returning to their unit and hastily packed their belongings. When they arrived at Bukit Panjang the orderlies greeted them with cheers, and their presence had a marked effect on the morale of the patients and the other staff.

On the morning of 31 January, after the last Commonwealth troops had crossed onto Singapore Island from the Malay Peninsula, the Causeway was blown in two places. The breaches brought just eight days’ respite from the Japanese, who now controlled the entire peninsula. It had taken just seven weeks.

That same day the 2/4th CCS nurses were separated again, when Shirley, Mina, Millie and Mavis were detached to the 2/13th AGH at St. Patrick’s School. That night, the school was bombed. Fortunately, there were no fatalities, but many of the patients received cuts and bruises. Four days later, on 4 February, Lt. Col. Hamilton sent Bessie, Peggy, Kath and Elaine to Oldham Hall.

THE FINAL DAYS

In the daylight hours of 8 February, Japanese forces began an intensive artillery and aerial bombardment of the western defence sector of Singapore Island, destroying military headquarters and communications infrastructure. That night, waves of Japanese soldiers landed on the northwestern coast of the island in small boats. They were initially repelled by the Australian 2/20th Battalion and 2/4th Machine Gun Battalion, but the Japanese were too numerous and eventually overwhelmed the Australians, who could not communicate effectively with their command headquarters due to the damage caused that day.

Convoys of Australian casualties, mainly with gunshot and shrapnel wounds, began to pour into the 2/13th AGH, and surgical teams operated around the clock. Soon the hospital became so overcrowded with wounded combatants that outbuildings and even tents were used as wards. Casualties lay closely packed on mattresses on floors or even outside on the lawns, their wounds needing constant attention. Clean linen, drugs and antiseptics were running short, and, worst of all, the municipal water supply had been cut off. Nevertheless, all the unit’s staff, and with them Shirley, Mina, Millie, and Mavis, carried on calmly. At Oldham Hall, meanwhile, the other 2/4th CCS nurses were working under equally dire conditions.

EVACUATION FROM SINGAPORE

Reports of Japanese atrocities in Hong Kong and elsewhere had been circulating for some time, and already in January, Col. Derham, the assistant director of Australian medical services in Malaya, had asked Maj. Gen. H. Gordon Bennett, the commanding officer of 8th Division troops in Malaya, to evacuate the AANS nurses from Singapore. Bennett had refused, citing the damaging effect on morale. Derham then instructed his deputy, Lt. Col. Glyn White, to send as many nurses as he could with Australian casualties leaving Singapore.

The nurses did not want to leave their patients; it was a betrayal of their nursing ethos, and they protested strongly. Ultimately, they had no choice, and on 10 February six nurses from the 2/10th AGH embarked with several hundred 8th Division casualties on a makeshift hospital ship, the Wusueh, bound for Batavia. The following day a further 60 AANS nurses, 30 from each of the AGHs, boarded the Empire Star with more than 2,000 evacuees, mainly British army and naval personnel, and set out for Batavia. Both ships reached Batavia, and the 66 evacuated nurses eventually made it home to Australia.

On 12 February at 5.00 pm, Shirley, Mina, Millie and Mavis, together with the 27 remaining 2/13th AGH nurses, reluctantly and sadly bid farewell to their patients and were taken in ambulances to St. Andrew’s Cathedral in the city centre. Here they rendezvoused with Elaine, Peggy, Kath and Bessie and the 30 remaining 2/10th AGH nurses. Once assembled, the nurses continued through the devastated city to Keppel Harbour. When the ambulances could go no further, they got out and walked the last few hundred metres. At the wharves there was chaos, as hundreds of people attempted to board any vessel that would take them.

VYNER BROOKE

Eventually a tug took Shirley and the others out to a small coastal steamer, the Vyner Brooke. As darkness fell, the ship slid out of Keppel Harbour and after some delay began its journey to Batavia. There were as many as 200 people on board, mainly women and children, but also a number of men. Behind them, Singapore’s waterfront burned, and thick black smoke billowing high into the night sky.

During the night, Captain Borton guided the Vyner Brooke slowly and carefully through the many islands that lie between Singapore and Batavia, and at first light on Friday 13 February he sought to hide the vessel among them – the better to evade Japanese planes. That morning the nurses were addressed by Matron Dot Paschke of the 2/10th AGH, who set out a plan to be followed should the ship be attacked. Essentially, the nurses were to attend to the passengers, help them into the lifeboats, search for stragglers, and only then leave the ship themselves. Since there were not enough places in the Vyner Brooke’s six lifeboats for everybody, if they could swim, they were to take their chances in the water. They did at least have their lifebelts, and rafts would be deployed too.

Saturday 14 February dawned bright and clear. After another night of slow progress through the islands, the Vyner Brooke lay hidden at anchor once again. The ship was now nearing the entrance to Bangka Strait, with Sumatra to the starboard side and Bangka Island to port. Suddenly, at around 2.00 pm, the Vyner Brooke’s spotter picked out a plane. It circled the ship and flew off again. Captain Borton, guessing that Japanese dive-bombers would soon arrive, sounded the ship’s siren. The nurses, already wearing their lifebelts, put on their tin helmets and lay on the ship’s lower deck. The captain began to zig-zag through open water towards a large landmass on the horizon – Bangka Island. Soon, the bombers appeared, flying in formation and closing fast.

The planes, grouped in two formations of three, flew towards the Vyner Brooke. The ship weaved, and the bombs missed. The planes regrouped, flew in again, and this time the pilots scored three direct hits. When the first bomb exploded amidships, the Vyner Brooke lifted and rocked with a vast roar. The next went down the funnel and exploded in the engine room. As passengers swarmed up to the open air, a third bomb dealt the ship a last, fatal blow. With a dreadful noise of smashing glass and timber, it shuddered and came to a standstill, around 15 kilometres from Bangka Island.

The nurses carried out their action plan. They helped the women and children, the oldest people, the wounded, and their own injured colleagues into the three remaining lifeboats, the first two of which got away successfully. However, the Vyner Brooke was now listing alarmingly, and as the third lifeboat was being lowered, it juddered and swayed, and crashed awkwardly into the water. A number of its passengers jumped out and swam, for fear that the ship might fall onto them.

After a final search, it was the nurses’ turn to evacuate the doomed ship. They removed their shoes and their tin helmets and entered the water any way they could. Some jumped from the portside railing, now high up in the air, while others practically stepped into the water on the starboard side. Some slid down ropes or climbed down ladders.

Once in the water, some of the nurses clambered onto rafts and some grabbed hold of passing flotsam. Others caught hold of the ropes trailing behind the first two lifeboats or simply floated in their lifebelts. Meanwhile, the Vyner Brooke settled lower and lower in the water and then slipped out of sight. It had taken less than half an hour to sink.

BANGKA ISLAND

Shirley, unable to swim, found herself clinging to the lifeboat that had capsized. It was partially submerged but for now still floating. Mina was with her, along with Pearl Mittelheuser of the 2/10th AGH, Jean Ashton, Veronica Clancy, Gladys Hughes and Sylvia Muir of the 2/13th AGH, and a number of civilians. They eventually abandoned the lifeboat and joined other passengers around a pair of lashed-together rafts. All night long they swam and pushed. Somewhat surprisingly, they were picked up early on Sunday morning by two RAAF men in a motorboat, who deposited them at the end of a long jetty. They had reached the town of Muntok on Bangka Island.

The RAAF men zoomed off again when Japanese soldiers approached. During the night Japanese troops had invaded Sumatra, and Bangka Island was now under their control. Shirley and the others were taken by the soldiers to a large cinema building in the centre of town. Here they were interned with hundreds of surviving passengers of ships sunk by Japanese air and naval forces in Bangka Strait in recent days.

At the cinema Shirley, Mina and the other nurses from their party were reunited with nearly two dozen of their surviving colleagues. Soon, they and the hundreds of other internees were taken to barracks on the edge of town. After they had been there for some 10 days, Vivian Bullwinkel of the 2/13th AGH was brought in. She had miraculously survived a massacre on a beach that later became known as Radji Beach. Twenty-one of the nurses’ colleagues had died – including Elaine Balfour Ogilvie, Peggy Farmaner and Bessie Wilmott – along with dozens of civilians, merchant seamen and soldiers.

Of the 65 Australian nurses who had set out from Singapore on that fateful day, 12 had perished at sea, Millie Dorsch and Kath Kinsella among them. Twenty-one had died on Radji Beach. Now Shirley, Mina, Mavis and the other 29 survivors began a period of three and a half years as prisoners of war.

‘LAVENDER STREET’

On 2 March the internees – nurses, civilians and service personnel – were marched from the barracks down to the jetty at which Mina and Shirley had arrived just two weeks earlier. They waited there overnight and in the morning were taken by barge across Bangka Strait to Sumatra then up the Musi River to Palembang, the women and children in one boat, the men in a larger one that followed. Upon disembarking, the women and children were driven to a MULO (School for More Advanced Primary Education) school on the outskirts of town and found that the men had already arrived.

The next day, some of the interned military men argued with Japanese officials that the AANS nurses should be treated as military prisoners of war, not as civilian internees, but to no avail. That afternoon, the nurses and civilian internees were marched away to the Bukit Besar (‘Big Hill’) district of Palembang, where a number of houses had been sequestered as a makeshift internment camp.

At Bukit Besar Shirley and the other nurses were accommodated in two houses abandoned by their Dutch owners. Soon these houses were wanted by the camp’s six Japanese officers for use as a ‘club,’ and the nurses were forced to move to adjacent houses. However, it was soon made clear to the nurses that their presence was required at the ‘opening night’ of the club, the evening of Wednesday 18 March. Wednesday arrived, and some of the nurses were ordered to clean out three houses in a nearby street. Once the purpose of these houses became known, they took to calling them ‘Lavender Street’ after a red-light district in Singapore. Later in the day, five of the nurses were ordered to go into the club in turn, where their willingness to oblige the officers later that evening in ‘Lavender Street’ was gauged. All responded with an unequivocal ‘no.’

At 8.00 pm Wednesday night, 27 of the nurses piled into the club en masse, greatly surprising the Japanese officers. The women had attempted to make themselves appear as ugly as possible – like “gaunt harpies,” according to Elizabeth Simons of the 2/13th AGH – in order to discourage the officers from pursuing their objective, and through determination and resourcefulness they thwarted the officers’ designs. In the days that followed, the officers continued to apply pressure, even threatening to withhold the internees’ food rations, but the nurses were steadfast. Eventually the matter was reported to a local Red Cross official, the club was closed, and the officers from then on ignored the nurses. Nevertheless, the enormous anxiety caused by these events stayed with Shirley and the others for a long time.

Meanwhile, in Australia, on 21 March, Ermine Gardam passed away in a private hospital in Launceston. Shirley would never know.

‘IRENELAAN’

On 1 April the nurses and civilian women and children – including interned Dutch now – were separated from the men and marched off to a new camp in the Talang Semut district of Palembang, a few kilometres east of Bukit Besar. This camp was dubbed ‘Irenelaan’ (Dutch for ‘Irene Avenue’) after the street on which it was partly located. Meanwhile, the men had been taken to their own camp.

Some four hundred women and children were held at Irenelaan. They were crammed into houses on Irenelaan itself and on Bernhardlaan formerly occupied by Dutch residents. The 2/10th AGH nurses were housed at No. 9 Irenelaan and the 2/13th AGH and 2/4th CCS nurses were next door at No. 7. In each of the houses lived a number of civilians as well.

Irenelaan was the least awful camp of the nurses’ long imprisonment. As time passed, they settled into a daily routine, dividing the cooking and housekeeping, and taking turns to be the ‘district nurse.’ Their nurses’ training and army discipline served them well, enabling them to work together to take care of problems. Each house appointed a captain, who spoke on behalf of the others to guards or officials and represented the house at community meetings. Jean Ashton was appointed captain of 2/13th AGH and 2/4th CCS nurses and Pearl Mittelheuser captain of the 2/10th AGH nurse.

In March 1943 Japanese authorities broadcast the names of the 32 Australian nurses over Tokyo and/or Singapore radio and stated that they were alive and well, thus acknowledging for the first time that they were holding them. The signal was picked up by the Red Cross and relayed to Australian Army authorities, who conveyed the news to the parents of the nurses but warned them to remain skeptical until the information was confirmed through official channels.

In March also the nurses were permitted to write to Australia for the first and only time. Richard Gardam received Shirley’s letter in December that year and shared its contents with the Launceston Examiner. The family of fellow Tasmanian Elizabeth Simons similarly shared her letter, which had also arrived in December. They were both in good health and almost cheery. They had the use of two pianos, played bridge, had a few English books, and occupied their time with cooking and housework. The internees had formed a choral group and had given four concerts. The heat was very trying, and they both longed for a Tasmanian winter. Their clothing consisted of shorts and sun tops. They asked for parcels, in particular toilet requisites and vitamin tablets. Finally, Shirley was learning to speak Dutch, which she found difficult but interesting.

‘ATAP CAMP’

In September 1943 the women and children were moved to a new camp that became known as the ‘Atap Camp’ or the ‘Men’s Camp’ (as it had most recently been occupied by the male internees who were formerly held with the women and children) at Puncak Sekuning, around two kilometres away from Irenelaan.

In April 1944 the camp came under military administration, where previously it had been under civilian administration. Conditions worsened considerably. Bowing was mandated, and face-slapping and punching occurred regularly. Sadistic punishments, such as being made to stand in the sun for hours, were meted out. The internees were threatened with starvation unless they dug and tended their own gardens, and even so rations were dangerously inadequate.

By August that year the nurses were earning money in various ways to pay for food. They made hats out of rush bags and new clothes from old clothes. They mended shoes, cut hair, washed clothes and looked after children for the Dutch internees. Mina, too weak for much physical activity, sat quietly and made little handkerchiefs out of bits and pieces. They were quickly snapped up by those internees with money.

In early September Mina was made to stand in the sun after the guards accused her of spying on them. After some time, she began to sway and then fell down unconscious. She was carried to the camp hospital by her comrades, who took not the slightest notice of the guard on duty.

MUNTOK CAMP

A month later the internees were moved in stages back up the Musi River and across Bangka Strait to a camp established at Muntok on Bangka Island. The camp was new and spotless, with big airy buildings that caught the sea breeze. However, it did not take the nurses long to discover that the camp was, in fact, the most hellish they had yet experienced. Malaria and beri-beri became so widespread that little notice was taken of them, and so-called Bangka fever, whose symptoms were fever, high temperatures, rashes and even unconsciousness, began to take hold.

Already weakened by chronic undernourishment, and without the medicines that might have saved their lives, the internees, particularly the eldest and youngest, began to die. They were buried in a small cemetery situated on a hillside in the jungle, not far from the camp. A corner had been set aside for them. The women made coffins and dug the graves with chungkals (a kind of hoe). The Japanese guards provided wooden crosses to mark the graves and inscriptions were burnt into them.

Christmas 1944 was barely celebrated. The nurses made a tired effort to arrange a Christmas concert as in previous years, but simply did not have the energy. There were no presents exchanged among them. They simply had not got a thing.

By late January 1945 all of the nurses except one had contracted malaria. Six were in the camp hospital, and four – Shirley, Mina, Blanche Hempstead from Queensland and Rene Singleton from Victoria – were gravely ill. The others, despite having malaria themselves, did everything they could for their colleagues. Mina was eventually discharged but on 7 February collapsed and was carried back to hospital. She died the following day, most likely of cerebral malaria. She had never really recovered properly after being made to stand in the sun.

Mina was given a military funeral. The nurses wore their tattered and stained uniforms, and as they carried Mina’s coffin past the guardhouse at the entrance to the camp, the guards stood to attention and removed their caps – something they had never done before. Once outside the camp, the nurses marched down the path to the cemetery and lowered Mina’s coffin into a freshly dug grave.

AN INDOMITABLE SPIRIT

Mina’s death was followed on 20 February by that of Rene Singleton, and on 19 March Blanche Hempsted died.

Shirley died on 4 April. Her sudden death was yet another blow for the remaining nurses. She was buried in the jungle clearing with Mina, Rene and Blanche, and her comrades decorated her coffin with beautiful wildflowers, as she had always loved them.

After Shirley’s death the internees were taken back across Bangka Strait to Sumatra, to Belalau rubber plantation in the south of the island. Here, four more nurses died – Gladys Hughes on 31 May, Winnie May Davis on 19 July, Dot Freeman on 8 August, and Pearl Mittelheuser on 15 August, three days after the formal announcement of Japan’s surrender.

The 24 survivors were flown to Singapore on 16 September. On 5 October, after a period of recuperation, they boarded the hospital ship Manunda and sailed home. They arrived in Fremantle on 18 October.

IN MEMORIAM

On 5 November 1946 Shirley was reburied at the Jakarta War Cemetery in Indonesia.

We will not forget her.

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SOURCES

• Angell, B. (2003), A Woman’s War: The Exceptional Life of Wilma Oram Young AM, New Holland Publishers.
• Arthurson, L., ‘The Story of the 13th Australian General Hospital, 8th Division AIF, Malaya,’ presented by Peter Winstanley on the website Prisoners of War of the Japanese 1942–1945.
• Ashton, J. and Craig (née Ashton), J. (ed.) (2003), Jean’s Diary, Adelaide.
• Australian War Memorial, Unit War Diaries (1939–45 War), 2/4th Casualty Clearing Station Malaya, Oct 1941–Feb 1942, AWM52 11/6/6/4.
• Bassett, J. (1992), Guns and brooches: Australian Army Nursing from the Boer War to the Gulf War, Oxford University Press.
• BirtwhistleWiki (website), ‘2/4th Australian Casualty Clearing Station.’
• Colijn, H. (1996), Song of Survival, Millennium Books.
• Gill, G. H. (1957), Australia in the War of 1939–1945, Series 2 – Navy, Vol. I – Royal Australian Navy, 1939–1942, Chap. 12 – Australia Station 1941 (pp. 410–463), Australian War Memorial.
• Hamilton, T. (1957), Soldier Surgeon in Malaya, Angus & Robertson.
• Hobbs, Maj. A. F., 2/4th CCS, Diary, presented by Peter Winstanley on the website Prisoners of War of the Japanese 1942–1945.
• Jeffrey, B. (1954), White Coolies, Angus & Robertson Publishers.
• National Archives of Australia.
• Penders, C. L. (1968), ‘Colonial Education Policy and Practice in Indonesia: 1900–1942,’ PhD thesis, Australian National University.
• Shaw, I. W. (2010), On Radji Beach, Pan Macmillan Australia.
• Simons, J. E. (1956), While History Passed, William Heinemann Ltd.
• Walker, A. B. (1962), Australia in the War of 1939–1945, Series 5 – Medical, Vol. II – Middle East and Far East, Part II, Chap. 23 – Malayan Campaign (pp. 492–522), Australian War Memorial.
• Wigmore, L. (1957), Australia in the War of 1939–1945, Series 1 – Army, Vol. IV – The Japanese Thrust, Part I – The Road to War, Chap. 4 – To Malaya (pp. 46–61), Australian War Memorial.

SOURCES: NEWSPAPERS

• Advocate (Burnie, 22 Jan 1926, p. 6), ‘Children Who Have Passed Merit Certificate Examination.’
• Advocate (Burnie, 8 Feb 1930, p. 7), ‘Uncertificated Teachers.’
• Advocate (Burnie, 24 May 1930, p. eight), ‘Resignations.’
• Advocate (Burnie, 20 Nov 1933, p. 6), ‘State School Changes.’
• Advocate (Burnie, 6 Oct 1937, p. 2), ‘Obituary.’
• Examiner (Launceston, 18 Feb 1924, p. 4), ‘Educational Appointments.’
• Examiner (Launceston, 21 Dec 1931, p. 5), ‘St. Leonards.’
• Examiner (Launceston, 10 Sep 1937, p. 7), ‘Public Hospital.’
• Examiner (Launceston, 21 Nov 1939, p. eight), ‘Women’s News Interests.’
• Examiner (Launceston, 25 Mar 1941, p. 6), ‘Sister D. S. Gardam.’
• Examiner (Launceston, 17 Nov 1943, p. 4), ‘Military News.’
• Examiner (Launceston, 20 Sep 1945, p. 4), ‘War Casualties.’
• The Mercury (Hobart, 19 May 1931, p. 5), ‘District News.’
• The Mercury (Hobart, 19 Dec 1931, p. 7), ‘School Speech Days.’
• The Mercury (Hobart, 13 April 1934, p. 7), ‘Launceston Public Hospital.’
• The Mercury (Hobart, 3 Jul 1937, p. 10), ‘Nurses’ Examination.’
• The Mercury (Hobart, 23 Sept 1940, p. 6), ‘Advertising.’
• The Mercury (Hobart, 4 Dec 1940, p. 6), ‘Tasmanian Nurses for A.I.F. Service.’
• The Mercury (Hobart, 4 Mar 1942, p. 2), ‘Military Hospitals.’
• Murray Pioneer and Australian River Record (Renmark, 13 Mar 1941, p. 12), ‘Nurse Balfour-Ogilvy “Somewhere in Malaya.”’
• The North Western Advocate and the Emu Bay Times (Tas., 4 Oct 1909, p. 4), ‘Gardam–Bickford.’