Vivian Bullwinkel was the sole survivor of the 1942 Banka Island massacre. Post-war, she was Matron of Melbourne's Fairfield Hospital.
Vivian Bullwinkel grew up in Broken Hill, New South Wales, and Adelaide, South Australia. Her father had migrated to Australia from Essex in 1912 and worked as a jackaroo on a station near Broken Hill before he married and took on a clerical post with Broken Hill South Pty Ltd. Vivian's grandfather was William John Shegog, a member of the South Australian Police Force. At the age of nine, she moved to Adelaide to live with her grandparents but returned to attend Broken Hill High School when she was thirteen. In 1934 she began nursing and midwife training at the Broken Hill and District Hospital. From February 1939 she was working at the Kia-Ora Hospital in Hamilton, Victoria, but moved to Melbourne to enlist at the outbreak of war and worked for a time at the Jessie MacPherson Hospital.
In May 1941, Bullwinkel volunteered for the Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS) and sailed for Singapore, assigned to the 2/13th Australian General Hospital. In February 1942, she boarded the SS Vyner Brooke with 65 other nurses to flee Singapore following an invasion by Japanese troops, but the ship was sunk by Japanese aircraft two days later. A large number of passengers, including 22 nurses, made it ashore to Radji Beach on Banka Island and decided to surrender to the Japanese. They were joined the following day by about 100 British soldiers. Upon being discovered by Japanese soldiers, however, the men were killed and the nurses ordered to wade into the sea where they were machine-gunned from behind. Bullwinkel was struck by a bullet but feigned death until her persecutors had left. The sole survivor of the massacre, she hid for twelve days before surrendering and spent a further three and a half years in captivity.
Bullwinkel served in Japan in 1946 and 1947 before resigning from the Army as Captain, but she rejoined the Citizen Military Forces in 1955 and served until 1970, when she retired as Lieutenant Colonel. Post-war, Bullwinkel spent 16 years as Matron of Melbourne's Fairfield Hospital and continued as Director of Nursing there until 1977. In that year, she married Colonel F.W. Statham and moved to Perth. She was a member of the Council of the Australian War Memorial, and president of the Australian College of Nursing. In 1992, she returned to Banka Island to unveil a shrine to the nurses who died there.
Vivian Bullwinkel was appointed to the Order of Australia (AO) on 26 January 1993, appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) on 1 January 1973 and awarded the Royal Red Cross Medal on 6 March 1947 for service to the veteran and ex-prisoner of war communities, to nursing, to the Red Cross Society and to the community. She was also the winner of the Florence Nightingale Medal.
Photographs, newspaper articles and memorabilia relating to Vivian Bullwinkel were exhibited at the RSL in Argent Street, Broken Hill, in 2000 and the foyer of the Broken Hill Health Service has been named in her honour.
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1939 - 1940
Staff member of the Hamilton Private Hospital, Victoria
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1940 - 1941
Staff member of the Jessie McPherson Hospital, Melbourne
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1941
Staff member of the 13th Australian General Hospital, Australian Infantry Forces
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16 February 1942
Sole survivor of Banka Island, where 21 Australian army nurses were massacred by Japanese soldiers
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6 March 1947
Royal Red Cross Medal
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1956 - 1960
Assistant Matron of the Repatration General Hospital, Victoria
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1961 - 1977
Matron of the Fairfield Hospital, Victoria
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1963 - 1977
Trustee of the National War Memorial, Canberra
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1964 - 1973
Deputy Principal of the Commandant Australia Red Cross Society
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1972 - 1974
President of the Soroptimist Clubs, Victoria
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1 January 1973
Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE)
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1973 - 1974
President of the College of Nursing Australia
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1973 - 1977
Member of the Council College of Nursing Australia
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1973 - 1978
Member of the Council of Directors of the Royal Humane Society
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September 1977
Married Col. F W Statham OBE, ED
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1988 - 1989
Warden of Western Australian State War Memorial (first woman to be appointed)
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1992
Honourary Life Member of the Australia Red Cross Society
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26 January 1993
Order of Australia (AO)
View the full record at
Australian Women's Register
Vivian Bullwinkel volunteered for the Australian Army Nursing Service in May 1941 and sailed to Singapore. She survived 'The Bangka Island Massacre,' where she was shot in the back and pretended to be dead until the Japanese soldiers left. She spent more than three years a prison camp. After the War, Bullwinkel was Matron of Melbourne's Fairfield Hospital for sixteen years, retiring to Perth in 1977.
View the full record at
Encyclopedia of Australian Science