Sister Vivian Bullwinkle and the massacre of nurses by the Japanese

Discussion in 'War Against Japan' started by The Aviator, Dec 8, 2007.

  1. The Aviator

    The Aviator Discharged

    It was very hard to find old Vivian's story amoung the political correctness on the net today. But I finally did and I am very proud to put this lady's story on this forum for all to read.

    Vivian Bullwinkle Banka Island 1942
    During World War 2, H. M. S. Vyner Brooke sailed from Singapore with 64 Australian nursing sisters amongst its 192 evacuees. On entering In the Banka Straits the ship was attacked by Japanese planes - the ship was hit repeatedly. The Bridge was totally destroyed, and the steering stopped operating. On fire, the Captain gave orders for the ship to be abandoned. Twenty minutes later the ship sank. Most of the survivors who had spent all afternoon and night in the water, landed on a beach near Muntok where they set up a camp and commenced tending the wounded. A couple of days later they were discovered by a Japanese patrol. Those that could walk were marched round a small headland, lined up and shot - those lying wounded were bayoneted to death. Just one survived the bayoneting. The nurses were then ordered to walk into the sea, on reaching waist height the Japanese commenced to machine gun them and all were killed save one......Sister Vivien Bullwinkle, who was shot through the throat. Vivien said in a later interview that she lay floating for what seemed hours before raising her head to find the beach deserted - save for her dead comrades floating around her and those that had already died on the beach. She was taken to a prisoner of war camp - barely alive and suffering from sun and sea exposure - her chances of survival were very slim. Sun blisters, meant her mouth was completely closed and doctors fed her through a small opening at the corner of her mouth by means of a small glass dropper. After recovering Vivien was able to relate to others what had actually happened on the beach but was ordered to stay silent for her own safety - the Japanese certainly wouldn't have allowed the only surviving eye witness of this massacre to go on living. Vivien survived the War, and was able to tell her story to the War crimes tribunal.
    Vivien Bullwinkle became a Matron, supporting the long term polio residents laying in their respirators in Fairfield Hospital's Ward 12. As a WW2 POW, Vivien knew what long term captivity meant and how important hope and motivation were to the inmates - lessons she put to good use in Ward 12, which was quite unique in supporting their residents aspirations to lead productive lives by allowing them to run businesses and many fund raising efforts.

    When Vivian died this drawing appeared in the West Australian newspaper. I cut it out and kept it. Today I photographed it to include here.

    We just marched into the surf and they fired at us. There were no tears, for we knew it was our lot.

    All Australians know of this massacre. I hope that they never forget.

    The 4th Anti-Tank Regiment - It Happened to Us MkIII - Murder on Bangka Island


    Stories of Courage & Survival
     

    Attached Files:

  2. ADM199

    ADM199 Well-Known Member

    It was very hard to find old Vivian's story amoung the political correctness on the net today. But I finally did and I am very proud to put this lady's story on this forum for all to read.

    Vivian Bullwinkle Banka Island 1942
    During World War 2, H. M. S. Vyner Brooke sailed from Singapore with 64 Australian nursing sisters amongst its 192 evacuees. On entering In the Banka Straits the ship was attacked by Japanese planes - the ship was hit repeatedly. The Bridge was totally destroyed, and the steering stopped operating. On fire, the Captain gave orders for the ship to be abandoned. Twenty minutes later the ship sank. Most of the survivors who had spent all afternoon and night in the water, landed on a beach near Muntok where they set up a camp and commenced tending the wounded. A couple of days later they were discovered by a Japanese patrol. Those that could walk were marched round a small headland, lined up and shot - those lying wounded were bayoneted to death. Just one survived the bayoneting. The nurses were then ordered to walk into the sea, on reaching waist height the Japanese commenced to machine gun them and all were killed save one......Sister Vivien Bullwinkle, who was shot through the throat. Vivien said in a later interview that she lay floating for what seemed hours before raising her head to find the beach deserted - save for her dead comrades floating around her and those that had already died on the beach. She was taken to a prisoner of war camp - barely alive and suffering from sun and sea exposure - her chances of survival were very slim. Sun blisters, meant her mouth was completely closed and doctors fed her through a small opening at the corner of her mouth by means of a small glass dropper. After recovering Vivien was able to relate to others what had actually happened on the beach but was ordered to stay silent for her own safety - the Japanese certainly wouldn't have allowed the only surviving eye witness of this massacre to go on living. Vivien survived the War, and was able to tell her story to the War crimes tribunal.
    Vivien Bullwinkle became a Matron, supporting the long term polio residents laying in their respirators in Fairfield Hospital's Ward 12. As a WW2 POW, Vivien knew what long term captivity meant and how important hope and motivation were to the inmates - lessons she put to good use in Ward 12, which was quite unique in supporting their residents aspirations to lead productive lives by allowing them to run businesses and many fund raising efforts.

    When Vivian died this drawing appeared in the West Australian newspaper. I cut it out and kept it. Today I photographed it to include here.

    We just marched into the surf and they fired at us. There were no tears, for we knew it was our lot.

    All Australians know of this massacre. I hope that they never forget.

    The 4th Anti-Tank Regiment - It Happened to Us MkIII - Murder on Bangka Island




    Stories of Courage & Survival

    Vivian Bullwinkles story is being told on the History Channel at this very moment.
     
  3. SouthWestPacificVet

    SouthWestPacificVet Confirmed Liar

    Few today know what the japs did, some will down play it as the 'bushido code", well..I can tell you all first hand I remember them as murdering bloody savages.
     
  4. The Aviator

    The Aviator Discharged

    Nothing has changed Pacific vet. They are murdering a thousand whales in the Antarctic as we speak.
     
  5. 40th Alabama

    40th Alabama Member

    I have been doing some reading on the Flying Tigers-what they did to the Chinease certainly compares with the Nazzis and the Jews. I understand there were war trials but they were not publicised.
     
  6. Gerard

    Gerard Seelow/Prora

    I haveto admit that it sticks in my craw that they have never apologised, merely expressed "regret" over incidents in their past.
     
  7. Herakles

    Herakles Senior Member

    What's not so well known is Vivian's life after the war. She served her community in health for the rest of her life. And she did a great deal to support the locals where she had been incarcerated. And she forgave her tormentors.

    A simple unassuming woman. I was privileged to know her.
     
    TTH likes this.
  8. Warlord

    Warlord Veteran wannabe

    And I had trouble somewhere else in the net for calling them Nips...

    Well, I guess that even though there´s a bit of a difference between today´s Japan and that which existed up until the signatures aboard the Missouri, fact is that THEY WERE MURDERERS OF WOMEN, CHILDREN AND UNARMED POWs!!! That should never be forgotten, even if forgiven.
     
  9. Herakles

    Herakles Senior Member

    Ah! But their excuse was that they never signed the Geneva Convention.

    And need I remind members of their atrocities in China?
     
    Warlord likes this.
  10. Warlord

    Warlord Veteran wannabe

    Remember Nanking!!!
     
  11. Peppery Hillbillie

    Peppery Hillbillie Junior Member

    If anyone has any information on what sort of personality Vivian was, please let me know! i am doing a history assignment and have chosen Vivian as my subject.

    email me > wildandfree.missymoo@aol.com.au
     
  12. phil the aussie

    phil the aussie Junior Member

    If anyone has any information on what sort of personality Vivian was, please let me know! i am doing a history assignment and have chosen Vivian as my subject.

    email me > wildandfree.missymoo@aol.com.au
    Try googling her. She was matron of a hospital in Fairfield, Melbourne Australia after ww2. Her uniform at time of capture by the Japanese off Singapore - the ship was bombed and sunk - is now held by the Australian War Memorial at their Treloar Technology Centre, Canberra Aus. try Australian War Memorial Regards Phil the aussie
     
  13. Passchendaele_Baby

    Passchendaele_Baby Grandads Little Girl

    what an amazing story.
    i am surprised that i havent come across it before!
     
  14. todoroki

    todoroki Junior Member

    Hello i'm new to the forum, any forum that is, and will be? posting articles from a magazine

    Nippon Times Weekly - today's JAPAN TIMES

    Tokyo, Thursday April 29, 1943 Vol. XIV No. 17
    GREATER EAST ASIA CO-PROSPERITY SPHERE NUMBER

    cuz i think its interesting.

    and am wondering about the interest in the articles?
    -is it ok to place the full text here?
    -perhaps this would be of interest to a researcher.
    -NOT interested in selling these weeklies.

    I'm no historian and I'm wondering why this news organization put this issue out at this particular time.

    i have 3 weeklies, not all from from Nippon Times , i picked up in Japan. the above is a propaganda "Special" perhaps. as some ads include exhortations to...


    "Save Electricity! The Die is Cast, Let's Fight to the Last!"
    - NATIONAL - (Japan's General Electric ? )
    ---------------------
    Music First !
    Then the Work! ( ....?????? Party Till We Drop! ??)
    -Nipponophone Co.- (- manufacturer of a gramaphone)
    ---------------------


    and

    CONTENTS

    LET US MARCH ONWARD! .........................27
    by Masayuki Tani
    Former Foreign Minister of Japan

    ---- It is upon the lofty ideals of Hakko Ichiu, on which our Empire is founded that Japan is now engaged in constructing a Co-Prosperity Sphere of the Greater East Asia so that the various peoples in this part of the world, who have suffered so long under the yoke of Anglo-Saxon tyranny, may have their proper places and enjoy common well-being and prosperity.

    ----Wholehearted cooperation has been rendered to the operation of our Imperial Forces by the people of Malai, the Philippines, the East Indies and elsewhere. They have not only offered willing cooperation for the development of essential natural resources but also voluntarily placed at Japan's disposal every availability facility fotr the successful prosecution of the war. In fact, the peoples of the South, one and all, are at present doing their utmost toward the establishment of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. All this has brought bitter disillutionment to the United States and Britain, on the one hand, but surprised the whole world on the other.



    BACK TO TRUE SELVES .............................28
    by Wang Yun-Ching
    Manchoukuo Ambassador to Japan

    MANCHOUKUO'S TASK ..............................29
    by Takuichi Ohmura
    President, South Manchuria Railway Co.

    JAPAN'S STRONG POINTS......................... 32
    by Sun Ti-Ishi

    OUR WAR ECONOMY.................................65
    by Kennosuke Kimbara

    ----
    ----
    NEW ROLE OF RADIO ..............................100


    Another weekly has cockpit photos of the attack on Pearl Harbor, which appear to show the commencement of the attack over Ford Island.
    Issued Jan. 14, 1942



    I'm interested in scanning and transmitting these photos but have zero knowledge on the matter.
    hoping i can get info on a good cheap scanner. and your experiences with tech side of that.
     
  15. Recce_Mitch

    Recce_Mitch Very Senior Member

    Lest We Forget

    Paul
     
  16. spider

    spider Very Senior Member

    The book "White Coolies" by Betty JEFFREY (1954) gives an account of the incident and post incident captivity.

    I read it years ago, along with Russell Braddons book (Naked Island), and written a few years after the incident

    Betty was on the also on the Vyner Brooke.

    Angell Productions - Vivian Bullwinkel-Statham

    Spider
     
  17. Biggles115

    Biggles115 Member

    I have a 1954 copy of "While History Passed" by Nurse J.E. Simons which i'm happy to post off to anyone who wants it. Just let me know.

    Cheers
     
  18. Passchendaele_Baby

    Passchendaele_Baby Grandads Little Girl

    Ah, Paul just reminded me, RIP :poppy:
     
  19. bamboo43

    bamboo43 Very Senior Member

  20. Roy Martin

    Roy Martin Senior Member

    A bit more about the retreat from Singapore, some already covered above.
    Roy
     

    Attached Files:

    Hugh MacLean and timuk like this.

Share This Page