Just So Stories

Fremantle Press

April 2024

ISBN: 9781760993726

RRP: $17.99

It would be completely unAustralian to not know the name of Vivian Bullwinkel and to know of her significant role in our history. But I’ll be honest in saying that I didn’t know very much beyond the general details.

This is a fictionalised account of Vivian’s extraordinary courage and resilience after her amazing escape from the monstrous massacre at Bangka Island, following the Japanese attack on the S. S. Vyner Brooke. The sole survivor of the 22 nurses who made it to shore following the bombing of their ship, Vivian along with a badly injured British soldier, managed to remain undetected for some days, until Vivian, realising how precarious their situation was along with the soldier’s injuries, decided they must give themselves up.

What followed was over 3 long years of imprisonment under the most brutal of conditions, watching companions die and struggling to survive despite all odds.

In the prison camp, as well as being the stalwart supporter of her sisterhood of nurses, Vivian befriended a young civilian girl, Edith (Edie) Kenneison. This narrative is told through Edie’s teenage eyes and you can read more of their actual history in this account from the Australian War Memorial. Although I never had the opportunity to meet this extraordinary woman, one of my friends, Wendy Rix, did and here is her account of that meeting:

in 1942, the ship “SS Vyner Brooke” left Singapore as it was being taken by the Japanese (my basic military history knowledge)… on board were Australian army nurses, wounded soldiers, civilians. Two days later it was bombed.. the survivors came ashore at various locations on Banka Island, Indonesia. One group of 22 nurses along with other survivors, eventually decided to surrender to the Japanese… the walking wounded men were taken separately and massacred… and then the nurses were marched into the water, and machine gunned from behind. The rest of the injured soldiers were then killed. One nurse survived the shooting, and she feigned death until the Japanese left. Coming ashore, she lay unconscious for a number of days, before discovering a surviving British solider who she nursed. They eventually gave themselves up, although the British soldier died. Sister Vivian Bullwinkle was interned into a POW camp for 3 years, along with other nurses and civilians.

In 1993 I had the honour of being an RN carer escort back to Bangka Island, for families, surviving POW sisters and the legendary Vivian Bullwinkle herself. My “charges” were 2 nursing sisters from the POW camp, and another nurse who was on another ship. I cannot believe I had this honour, and I just wish I wasn’t mostly wiped out on analgesics as I had only come back to work for this chance to have the green army passport, after breaking my back only a couple of months before. I was not going to miss that chance! {….]

So cool to say that the POW sisters I looked after personally, ended up having buildings named after them in Brisbane.
The Joyce Tweddell building at the RBWH and the Florence Syer unit at Greenslopes hospital

This is a novel that should be promoted and shared and, might I suggest, particularly because it demonstrates that it is not just men who have shown true grit and courage in war zones.

Jenny Davis has created an account that brings to life one of our truly great Australians, and enables us to glimpse the terrible times these brave women endured, and to remember those who were lost. You can hear Jenny talk about the book here.

I highly recommend it to you for your more mature readers around Year 6 upwards, 🎖️🎖️🎖️🎖️🎖️ with honour.

I pay my respects to those women who lost their lives, both in the massacre and in the camp. Lest We Forget.

You can share their memory here:

The Sinking of the SS Vyner Brooke and the Banka Island Massacre

Vivian Bullwinkel : her story.

Vivian Bullwinkel: Australian Nursing & Midwifery Journal

Sole Survivor Vivian Bullwinkel: Find my Past