Vivian Bullwinkel shortly before she left Australia for Singapore
National Library of Australia
Copyright: Bruce Howard
"The Japanese soldiers came back, each of them cleaning his bayonet with a cloth. The British servicemen were not with them.
“Bully,” one nurse said, addressing Vivian, “They’ve murdered them all!”
Vivian was silent.
“It’s true then, they aren’t taking prisoners,” said another nurse.
The Japanese officer said something to his soldiers. They surrounded the 22 Australian nurses. They prodded the nurses with their bayonets until the women had formed a line into the water. Two wounded nurses had to be half carried there by their companions.
It seemed impossible to Vivian that a mass slaughter was about to occur in this beautiful setting. She kept asking herself why. And what right did the Japanese have to kill them?
But she said nothing aloud. None of the nurses did. Except for the sound of the water hitting their thighs, the beach was silent. Vivian, sad to think her mother would never learn what happened to her, suddenly felt peaceful when she realized she would soon see her deceased father. She wanted to communicate her new emotion to the other nurses. She turned and smiled at them. They returned her smile 'in a strange and beautiful way.'
They had obviously found their own ways to cope during these last terrible moments.
Then Vivian heard the whispered voice of their matron, Irene Drummond, 'Chin up girls, I’m proud of you and I love you all.'
Irene Drummond
From "Vivian Bullwinkel: Sole Survivor" from Women Heroes of World War II: The Pacific Theater.
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