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Lieutenant Dorothy Gwenda Elmes & Lieutenant Caroline Mary Ennis Print Page Print this page

19-March-2017
19-March-2017
Photographs supplied by Chris McLaughlin

The plaque commemorates Lieutenant Dorothy Gwenda Elmes and Lieutenant Caroline Mary Ennis who were nurses stationed in Singapore in 1942. Ennis died as a result of the bombing of the "Vyner Brooke" and Elmes was massacred by the Japanese on Bangka Island.

On 12 February 1942, with the fall of Singapore to the Japanese imminent, sixty-five Australian Army nurses, including Sister Vivian Bullwinkel, were evacuated from the besieged city on the small coastal steamer Vyner Brooke. As the Vyner Brooke was passing between Sumatra and Borneo, Japanese aircraft bombed and strafed the overloaded ship and it sank quickly.

The survivors in lifeboats were strafed by Japanese aircraft but some reached Bangka Island off the coast of Sumatra. Twelve Australian nurses were either killed in the attack on the ship or drowned in the sea. The remaining fifty-three nurses reached Bangka Island . The 22 Australian nurses were ordered by the Japanese into the sea and shot. Vivian Bullwinkle who pretended to be dead was the only survivor. Realising that the lives of all survivors of the Vyner Brooke would be at risk if the Japanese discovered what she had seen, Sister Bullwinkel concealed her wound from the Japanese and treated it herself. She survived harsh imprisonment to give evidence of the massacre at a war crimes trial in Tokyo in 1947.

Location

Address:35 - 47 Green Street, Medical Imaging Section, Wangaratta Hospital (North East Health), Wangaratta, 3677
State:VIC
Area:AUS
GPS Coordinates:Lat: -36.354354
Long: 146.314273
Note: GPS Coordinates are approximate.
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Details

Monument Type:Plaque
Monument Theme:People
Sub-Theme:Military
Actual Event Start Date:03-September-1939
Actual Event End Date:15-August-1945

Dedication

Front Inscription

In memory of

Lieut. Dorothy Gwenda Elmes

And

Lieut. Caroline Mary Ennis 

Australian Army Nursing Service

Who paid the supreme sacrifice overseas for King and Country

1939 - 45

"Lest We Forget"

Subscribed by the residents of Cheshunt and District

Source: MA
Monument details supplied by Monument Australia - www.monumentaustralia.org.au