Lieutenant Colonel Lieutenant colonel ( , ) is a rank of commissioned officers in the armies, most marine forces and some air forces of the world, above a major and below a colonel. Several police forces in the United States use the rank of lieutenant colone ...

Vivian Statham, ( Bullwinkel; 18 December 1915 – 3 July 2000) was an

Australian Army The Australian Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of Australia, a part of the Australian Defence Force (ADF) along with the Royal Australian Navy and the Royal Australian Air Force. The Army is commanded by the Chief of Army (Austral ...

nurse Nursing is a profession within the health care sector focused on the care of individuals, families, and communities so they may attain, maintain, or recover optimal health and quality of life. Nurses may be differentiated from other health c ...

during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. She was the sole surviving nurse of the

Bangka Island Massacre The Bangka Island massacre (also spelled Banka Island massacre) was the killing of unarmed Australian nurses and wounded Allied soldiers on Bangka Island, east of Sumatra in the Indonesian archipelago on 16 February 1942. Shortly after the ou ...

, when the Japanese killed 21 of her fellow nurses on Radji Beach,

Bangka Island Bangka is an island lying east of Sumatra, Indonesia. It is administered under the province of the Bangka Belitung Islands, being one of its namesakes alongside the smaller island of Belitung across the Gaspar Strait. The 9th largest island in In ...

, in the

Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies ( nl, Nederlands(ch)-Indië; ), was a Dutch colony consisting of what is now Indonesia. It was formed from the nationalised trading posts of the Dutch East India Company, which ...

(now Indonesia) on 16 February 1942.

Early life

Vivian Bullwinkel was born on 18 December 1915 in

Kapunda Kapunda is a town on the Light River and near the Barossa Valley in South Australia. It was established after a discovery in 1842 of significant copper deposits. The population was 2,917 at the 2016 Australian census. The southern entrance ...

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

, to George Albert and Eva Bullwinkel (née Shegog). She had a brother, John. She trained as a nurse and midwife at

Broken Hill Broken Hill is an inland mining city in the far west of outback New South Wales, Australia. It is near the border with South Australia on the crossing of the Barrier Highway (A32) and the Silver City Highway (B79), in the Barrier Range. It is ...

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

, and began her nursing career in

Hamilton, Victoria Hamilton is a large town in south-western Victoria, Australia, at the intersection of the Glenelg Highway and the Henty Highway. The Hamilton Highway connects it to Geelong. Hamilton is in the federal Division of Wannon, and is in the Southern ...

, before moving to the Jessie McPherson Hospital in

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

Second World War

In 1941, wanting to enlist for service in the

, Bullwinkel volunteered as a nurse with the

Royal Australian Air Force "Through Adversity to the Stars" , colours = , colours_label = , march = , mascot = , anniversaries = RAAF Anniversary Commemoration ...

but was rejected for having flat feet. She was, however, able to join the

Australian Army Nursing Service The Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS) was an Australian Army Reserve unit which provided a pool of trained civilian nurses who had volunteered for military service during wartime. The AANS was formed in 1902 by amalgamating the nursing servic ...

; assigned to the 2/13th Australian General Hospital (2/13th AGH), in September 1941 she sailed for

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

. After a few weeks with the 2/10th AGH, Bullwinkel rejoined the 13th AGH in

Johor Bahru Johor Bahru (), colloquially referred to as JB, is the capital city of the state of Johor, Malaysia. It is located at the southern end of Peninsular Malaysia,along the north bank of the Straits of Johor, opposite of the city-state Singapore. T ...

. Japanese troops invaded

Malaya Malaya refers to a number of historical and current political entities related to what is currently Peninsular Malaysia in Southeast Asia: Political entities * British Malaya (1826–1957), a loose collection of the British colony of the Straits ...

in December 1941 and began to advance southwards, winning a series of victories. By late January 1942 they were advancing through

Johore Johor (; ), also spelled as Johore, is a state of Malaysia in the south of the Malay Peninsula. Johor has land borders with the Malaysian states of Pahang to the north and Malacca and Negeri Sembilan to the northwest. Johor shares maritime bor ...

and the 13th AGH was to evacuate to Singapore. A short-lived defence of the island ended in defeat, and, on 12 February, Bullwinkel and 65 other nurses boarded the SS ''Vyner Brooke'' to escape. Two days later, the ship was sunk by Japanese aircraft. Bullwinkel, 21 other nurses and a large group of men, women, and children made it ashore at Radji Beach on Banka Island. Others on board either went down with the ship or were swept away and never seen again. The group were joined the next day by others making a total of about 100 including about twenty English soldiers from another ship sunk earlier. They elected to surrender to the Japanese. An officer from the ''Vyner Brooke'' walked to

Muntok Muntok () or, more commonly, Mentok is a town in the Indonesian province of Bangka-Belitung on the island of Sumatra. The capital of West Bangka Regency (''Bangka Barat''), it is the site of the biggest tin smelter on the world. Mentok refers to ...

, a town on the north-west of the island, to contact the Japanese. While he was away Matron Irene Drummond, the most senior of the Australian nurses, suggested that civilian women and children should start off walking towards Muntok. In an action that later became known as the

Banka Island Massacre The Bangka Island massacre (also spelled Banka Island massacre) was the killing of unarmed Australian nurses and wounded Allied soldiers on Bangka Island, east of Sumatra in the Indonesian archipelago on 16 February 1942. Shortly after the o ...

, Japanese soldiers came and killed the men, then motioned the nurses to wade into the sea. They then machine-gunned the nurses from behind. Bullwinkel was struck by a bullet which passed completely through her body, missing her internal organs, and feigned death until the Japanese soldiers left. She hid with British Army Private Cecil George Kingsley of the

Royal Army Ordnance Corps The Royal Army Ordnance Corps (RAOC) was a corps of the British Army. At its renaming as a Royal Corps in 1918 it was both a supply and repair corps. In the supply area it had responsibility for weapons, armoured vehicles and other military equip ...

for 12 days, tending to his severe wounds, only then realizing the extent of her own wound, before being captured. They were taken into captivity, but Kingsley died soon after from his injuries, which included a gunshot wound in his abdomen. Recent evidence collected by historian

Lynette Silver Lynette Ramsay Silver (born 1945) is an Australian historian and author. She has written a number of books dealing with Australian history. In particular many of her works deal with military history. Career Her first book published in 1986, ' ...

, broadcaster Tess Lawrence and biographer Barbara Angell, indicates that Bullwinkel and "most of" the nurses were sexually assaulted before they were murdered. However, Bullwinkel was "gagged" by the

Australian government The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government, is the national government of Australia, a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Like other Westminster-style systems of government, the Australian Government i ...

from speaking about the

rape Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or ag ...

s at the

Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal The International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE), also known as the Tokyo Trial or the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, was a military trial convened on April 29, 1946 to try leaders of the Empire of Japan for crimes against peace, conven ...

in 1946. Bullwinkel was reunited with survivors of the ''Vyner Brooke''. She told them of the massacre, but none spoke of it again until after the war lest it put Bullwinkel, as witness to the massacre, in danger. Bullwinkel spent three and half years in captivity, together with

Betty Jeffrey Agnes Betty Jeffrey, OAM (14 May 1908 – 13 September 2000) was an Australian writer who wrote about her Second World War nursing experiences in the book ''White Coolies''. Life Jeffrey was a nurse in the 2/10th Australian General Hospita ...

Wilma Oram Wilma Elizabeth Forster (née Oram) Young (17 August 1916 – 28 May 2001) was an Australian Army nurse during the Second World War. She was evacuated from Singapore in February 1942 and was aboard the ''Vyner Brooke'' when the ship was sunk ...

and

Margaret Dryburgh Margaret Dryburgh (24 February 1890 – 21 April 1945) was an English teacher and missionary. Born in Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, Sunderland, England, she later became a missionary in Singapore, where she was captured in the Second World War. Th ...

; Dryburgh, the eldest, died in captivity around the age of 55. Another surviving nurse was Pat Darling, who died in 2007.

Later life

Bulkwinkel retired from the army in 1947 and became Director of Nursing at the

Fairfield Infectious Diseases Hospital Fairfield Infectious Diseases Hospital, originally known as Queens Memorial Infectious Diseases Hospital, operated from 1904 to its closure in 1996. Perched high on the banks of the Yarra River at Yarra Bend in the inner Melbourne suburb of Fai ...

. Also in 1947 she gave evidence of the massacre at a war crimes trial in Tokyo. She devoted herself to the nursing profession and to honouring those killed on Bangka Island, raising funds for a nurses' memorial and serving on numerous committees, including a period as a member of the Council of the

Australian War Memorial The Australian War Memorial is Australia's national memorial to the members of its armed forces and supporting organisations who have died or participated in wars involving the Commonwealth of Australia and some conflicts involving pe ...

, and later president of the

Australian College of Nursing The Australian College of Nursing (ACN) is the peak professional body and voice for the nursing profession in Australia. ACN advocates, develops policy, and provides education to advance the status, recognition, and respect for nursing nationa ...

. In 1975

Operation Babylift Operation or Operations may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * ''Operation'' (game), a battery-operated board game that challenges dexterity * Operation (music), a term used in musical set theory * ''Operations'' (magazine), Multi-Ma ...

, the name given to the mass airlift of Vietnamese orphans to Australia and US, for its second delivery chose

as the most suitable specialist facility to receive them. Matron Bullwinkel organised and led a nursing team that travelled to Sydney to board the Qantas 707 for the flight to Vietnam on 17 April 1975. Bullwinkel married Colonel Francis West Statham in September 1977, changing her name to Vivian Statham. She returned to

in 1992 to unveil a shrine to the nurses who had not survived the war. She died of a heart attack on 3 July 2000, aged 84, in Perth, Western Australia.

Honours

In 2001 Bullwinkel was inducted posthumously to the

Victorian Honour Roll of Women The Victorian Honour Roll of Women was established in 2001 to recognise the achievements of women from the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victoria (Australia), Victoria. The Honour Roll was established as part of the cele ...

. She became the first woman to have an Australian War Memorial statue dedicated to her in 2022.

Legacy

The Vivian Bullwinkel Wing at Hollywood Private Hospital, Perth (the former

Repatriation General Hospital, Hollywood Hollywood Private Hospital (Hollywood) is an acute care hospital located in Nedlands, Western Australia. Hollywood is Western Australia's largest private hospital, with more than 900 licensed beds. The hospital is part of Ramsay Health Care Gro ...

) was renamed in her honour. The Royal Australian Air Force Association runs the Vivian Bullwinkel Lodge aged care facility in the northern suburbs of Perth. Monash University (Melbourne) and Eastern Health (Melbourne) have named the chair in palliative care nursing after her.

Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE Melbourne Polytechnic, formerly NMIT, is an institute of higher education and vocational education (TAFE) located in Melbourne, Australia that has been operating since around 1910. In October 2014, the institute was renamed to Melbourne Polyt ...

redeveloped the old nurses quarters on its Fairfield campus in 2010 for residential student accommodation. A common room is named after Vivian Bullwinkel, who was the Director of Nursing for many years at the Fairfield Hospital.NMIT,
Launch of new student accommodation honours one of Australia's most famous nurses
'', Media release 12 April 2010, Retrieved 12 August 2013

Citations

General references

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bullwinkel, Vivian 1915 births 2000 deaths Associate Members of the Royal Red Cross Australian Army personnel of World War II Australian Members of the Order of the British Empire Australian military nurses Australian prisoners of war Australian women nurses Female wartime nurses Florence Nightingale Medal recipients Officers of the Order of Australia People from Kapunda Sole survivors Shooting survivors Women in the Australian military Women in World War II World War II nurses World War II prisoners of war held by Japan