Betty Jeffrey

{{Infobox military person

|name= Betty Jeffrey

|image= Agnes_Betty_Jeffrey_OAM_1908_2000.jpg

|image_size=

|alt=

|caption= Jeffrey in {{circa|1980s}}

|birth_name= Agnes Betty Jeffrey

|nickname=

|birth_date= {{Birth date|1908|05|14|df=y}}

|birth_place= Hobart, Tasmania, Australia

|death_date= {{Death date and age|2000|09|13|1908|05|14|df=y}}

|death_place= Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

|placeofburial= Springvale Botanical Cemetery

|allegiance= Australia

|branch= Second Australian Imperial Force

|serviceyears= 1941–1946

|rank= Lieutenant

|servicenumber=

|unit= 2/10th Australian General Hospital

|commands=

|battles= Second World War

|awards= Medal of the Order of Australia

|relations=

|laterwork= Writer, White Coolies

}}

Agnes Betty Jeffrey, {{postnominals|country=AUS|size=100|OAM}} (14 May 1908 – 13 September 2000) was an Australian nurse, prisoner of war and writer, who wrote about her Second World War nursing experiences in the book White Coolies.

Second World War

Jeffrey was a nurse in the 2/10th Australian General Hospital during the Second World War. She was taken a prisoner of war by the Japanese Imperial Army and interned in the Dutch East Indies. While in the Japanese internment camp on Sumatra, Jeffrey joined the female vocal orchestra.{{Cite book |last=Brown |first=Kellie D. |title=The Sound of Hope: Music as Solace, Resistance and Salvation During the Holocaust and World War II |publisher=McFarland |year=2020 |isbn=978-1-4766-7056-0 |pages=261}} Margaret Dryburgh, Vivian Bullwinkel and Wilma Oram were fellow internees with Jeffrey. Jeffrey was freed following the end of the war and returned home on 24 October 1945.

Charitable activities and writer

Jeffrey and Vivian Bullwinkel visited every sizeable hospital in Victoria to raise the money that created the Australian Nurses Memorial Centre. She is noted as a founder together with Edith Hughes-Jones, Wilma Oram and Annie Sage.{{Cite web |title=About {{!}} ANMC |url=https://australiannursesmemorialcentre.org.au/index.php/about/ |access-date=2023-11-01 |language=en-AU}} The Melbourne Nurses Memorial Centre opened in 1949 to honour the heroism of nurses.

She later wrote about her experiences in the book White Coolies, which partially inspired the film Paradise Road and the 1955 Australian radio series White Coolies.{{cite web | url = https://archive.org/details/WhiteCoolies | title = White Coolies Radio Series | accessdate = 2011-10-19}}

Works

White Coolies, Betty Jeffrey, Eden Paperbacks, Sydney, 1954 {{ISBN|0-207-16107-0}}

Betty Jeffrey

Second World War

Charitable activities and writer

Works

References

Further reading