Sister Mary (Beth) CuthbertsonPrint Page

The seat and plaque were erected in memory of Sister Mary (Beth) Cuthbertson, a nurse who was killed in the Bangka Island Massacre in February 1942.  She was born in the Adelaide Hills but grew up in Burnbank Street, Ballarat, attending the Macarthur Street State School and Ballarat High School, and she trained as a nurse at the Ballarat Base Hospital.

Sister Mary (Beth) Cuthbertson was assigned to the 2nd / 10th Australian General Hospital, and embarked from Melbourne on 29 July 1941, and disembarked in Singapore on 17 August 1941.

She and sixty-four Australian nurses, wounded service men and 250 civilian men, women and children were evacuated on Vyner Brooke from Singapore on the 12 February 1942. The ship was bombed and sunk by Japanese aircraft of Bangka island east of Sumatra on the 14 February 1942. Some of the survivors reached the island only to be captured by the Imperial Japanese Army, and some were imprisoned in Palembang and Muntok Prisoner of War.

On the 16 February 1942 twenty-one nurses, of which Sister Mary (Beth) Cuthbertson, was one were ordered to march into the sea and stand in a row where they were shot from behind. Only one nurse survived, Sister Vivian Bullwinkel.

The seat was funded by the operators and patrons of Eau Verte Cafe, a Burnbank Street business not far from where the Sister Mary (Beth) Cuthbertson lived.  Many patrons of the cafe contributed to the installation by giving extra money when paying for their orders.

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