Vivian Bullwinkel
{{Short description|Australian Army nurse}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2020}}
{{Use Australian English|date=July 2011}}
{{Infobox military person
|name= Vivian Bullwinkel
|image= Vivian Bullwinkel.jpg
|image_size=
|alt=
|caption= Studio portrait of Vivian Bullwinkel, taken in May 1941
|nickname=
|birth_date= {{birth date|1915|12|18|df=yes}}
|birth_place= Kapunda, South Australia
|death_date= {{death date and age|2000|07|03|1915|12|18|df=yes}}
|death_place= Perth, Western Australia
|placeofburial=
|allegiance= Australia
|branch= Royal Australian Army Nursing Corps
|serviceyears= 1941–1947
|rank= Lieutenant Colonel
|servicenumber=
|unit=
|commands=
|battles= Second World War
|awards= Officer of the Order of Australia
Member of the Order of the British Empire
Associate of the Royal Red Cross
Efficiency Decoration
Florence Nightingale Medal
|relations=
|laterwork=
}}
Lieutenant Colonel Vivian Statham, {{postnominals|country=AUS|size=100%|sep=,|AO|MBE|ARRC|ED}} ({{nee}} Bullwinkel; 18 December 1915 – 3 July 2000) was an Australian Army nurse during the Second World War. She was the sole surviving nurse of the Bangka Island Massacre, when the Japanese killed 21 of her fellow nurses on Radji Beach, Bangka Island, in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) on 16 February 1942.
Early life
Vivian Bullwinkel was born on 18 December 1915 in Kapunda, South Australia, to George Albert and Eva Bullwinkel (née Shegog). She had a brother, John. She attended Broken Hill High School, where she was School Captain in 1933. She trained as a nurse and midwife at Broken Hill, New South Wales, and began her nursing career in Hamilton, Victoria, before moving to the Jessie McPherson Hospital in Melbourne.
Second World War
In 1941, wanting to enlist for service in the Second World War, Bullwinkel volunteered as a nurse with the Royal Australian Air Force but was rejected for having flat feet. She was, however, able to join the Australian Army Nursing Service; assigned to the 2/13th Australian General Hospital (2/13th AGH), in September 1941 she sailed for Singapore. After a few weeks with the 2/10th AGH, Bullwinkel rejoined the 13th AGH in Johor Bahru.
Japanese troops invaded Malaya in December 1941 and began to advance southwards, winning a series of victories.{{cite web|first=L|last=Klemen|author2=Bert Kossen|author3=Pierre-Emmanuel Bernaudin|author4=Dr. Leo Niehorster|author5=Akira Takizawa|author6=Sean Carr|author7=Jim Broshot|author8=Nowfel Leulliot|url=https://warfare.gq/dutcheastindies/kota_bharu.html|title=Seventy minutes before Pearl Harbor – The landing at Kota Bharu, Malaya, on December 7th 1941|date=1999–2000|work=Forgotten Campaign: The Dutch East Indies Campaign 1941–1942|access-date=30 March 2021|archive-date=12 April 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210412115608/http://warfare.gq/dutcheastindies/kota_bharu.html|url-status=live}} By late January 1942 they were advancing through Johore 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.{{cite web|first=L|last=Klemen|url=https://warfare.gq/dutcheastindies/bangka_massacre.html|title=The Bangka Island Massacre, February 1942|date=1999–2000|work=Forgotten Campaign: The Dutch East Indies Campaign 1941–1942|access-date=30 March 2021|archive-date=17 February 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220217095029/https://warfare.gq/dutcheastindies/bangka_massacre.html|url-status=live}}
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 Bangka 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, 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 Bangka Island Massacre, 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.{{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 |pages=236}} She hid with British Army Private Cecil George Kingsley of the Royal Army Ordnance Corps 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, broadcaster Tess Lawrence and biographer Barbara Angell, indicates that Bullwinkel and "most of" the nurses may have been sexually assaulted before they were murdered. However, Bullwinkel was "gagged" by the Australian government from speaking about the rapes at the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal in 1946.{{citation|title = Bangka Island: The WW2 massacre and a 'truth too awful to speak'|url = https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-47796046|work = BBC News|author = Gary Nunn|date = 18 April 2019|access-date = 18 April 2019|archive-date = 15 March 2022|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220315060449/https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-47796046|url-status = live}}
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, Wilma Oram and Margaret Dryburgh; Dryburgh, the eldest, died in captivity around the age of 55. Another surviving nurse was Pat Darling, who died in 2007.Sydney Morning Herald, 12 December 2007
Later life
File:Vivian Bullwinkel in Tokyo, 1946.jpg
Bullwinkel retired from the army in 1947 and became Director of Nursing at the Fairfield Infectious Diseases Hospital. Also in 1947 she gave evidence of the massacre at a war crimes trial in Tokyo.{{cite web|url=http://www.users.bigpond.com/battleforaustralia/JapWarCrimes/TenWarCrimes/Banka_Massacre.html |title=Sister Vivian Bullwinkel's Story |work=Bangka Island Massacre (1942) |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090325030135/http://www.users.bigpond.com/battleforaustralia/JapWarCrimes/TenWarCrimes/Banka_Massacre.html |archive-date=25 March 2009 }} 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, and later president of the Australian College of Nursing.
In 1975 Operation Babylift,{{cite book|last=Shaw |first=Ian |date=2019 |title=Operation Babylift |location=Australia |publisher=Hachette Australia |pages=234–254 |isbn=9780733642241}} the name given to the mass airlift of Vietnamese orphans to Australia and US, for its second delivery chose Fairfield Infectious Diseases Hospital 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.[http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-18/remarkable-sole-survivor-ww2-massacre-statham-remembered/7042440 "Australia's most distinguished war nurse Vivian Statham remembered at Australian War Memorial"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151218112310/http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-18/remarkable-sole-survivor-ww2-massacre-statham-remembered/7042440 |date=18 December 2015 }}. ABC News, 18 December 2015. Retrieved 19 December 2015. She returned to Bangka Island 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.{{cite web |title=Lieutenant Colonel Vivian Bullwinkel |url=https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/P10676383 |publisher=Australian War Memorial |access-date=20 April 2018 |archive-date=29 July 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200729115710/https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/P10676383 |url-status=live }}
Honours
In 2001, Bullwinkel was inducted posthumously to the Victorian Honour Roll of Women.{{Cite web |date= |title=Matron Vivian Bullwinkel AO MBE |url=https://www.vic.gov.au/matron-vivian-bullwinkel-ao-mbe |access-date=2025-03-15 |website=State Government of Victoria |language=en-au}} In 2019, she along with Grace Wilson, were memorialised in mosaic banners installed at the Repatriation General Hospital at Heidelberg, Victoria.{{Cite web |last= |title=Mosaics honouring wartime legends |url=https://otr.anmfvic.asn.au/articles/mosaics-honouring-wartime-legends |access-date=2023-05-07 |website=On the Record |date=2 April 2019 |publisher=Australian Nursing & Midwifery Federation (Victorian Branch) |language=en-au |archive-date=7 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230507052101/https://otr.anmfvic.asn.au/articles/mosaics-honouring-wartime-legends |url-status=live }} She became the first woman to have an Australian War Memorial statue dedicated to her in 2022.{{cite news|url=https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-16/nurse-vivian-bullwinkle-honoured-australian-war-memorial-statue/101781516|title=Broken Hill nurse Vivian Bullwinkel first woman to be honoured with Australian War Memorial statue|publisher=ABC News|date=16 December 2022|access-date=17 December 2022|archive-date=17 December 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221217023927/https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-16/nurse-vivian-bullwinkle-honoured-australian-war-memorial-statue/101781516|url-status=live}}
Legacy
The Vivian Bullwinkel Wing at Hollywood Private Hospital, Perth (the former Repatriation General Hospital, Hollywood) 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.{{Cite web |url=http://www.raafawa.org.au/agedcare/locations/vivian-bullwinkel-lodge |title=Vivian Bullwinkel Lodge |access-date=15 June 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150413020511/http://www.raafawa.org.au/agedcare/locations/vivian-bullwinkel-lodge |archive-date=13 April 2015 |url-status=dead}}
Monash University (Melbourne) and Eastern Health (Melbourne) have named the chair in palliative care nursing after her.
Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE 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, [http://www.nmit.edu.au/news/media-release-launch-of-new-student-accommodation-honours-one-of-australias-most-famous-nurses Launch of new student accommodation honours one of Australia's most famous nurses] {{Webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20130812070554/http://www.nmit.edu.au/news/media-release-launch-of-new-student-accommodation-honours-one-of-australias-most-famous-nurses |date=12 August 2013 }}, Media release 12 April 2010, Retrieved 12 August 2013
In February 2023, the hall at Broken Hill High School, where Bullwinkel was school captain in 1933, was named the Vivian Bullwinkel Drill Hall.{{cite news|first=Jason|last=Irvine|title=High School hall named in honour of war veteran|url=https://barriertruth.com.au/high-school-hall-named-in-honour-of-war-veteran/|newspaper=Barrier Truth|date=21 February 2023|access-date=14 May 2023|archive-date=14 May 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230514053523/https://barriertruth.com.au/high-school-hall-named-in-honour-of-war-veteran/|url-status=live}}
In May 2024, the Australian Electoral Commission proposed that a new electorate in the Australian House of Representatives be created in Western Australia to be named Bullwinkel in honour of her.{{cite news |last=Evans |first=Jake |title=Michelle Ananda-Rajah's seat of Higgins set to be abolished at next federal election|url=https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-31/michelle-ananda-rajah-higgins-eat-abolished/103918310 |access-date=31 May 2024 |work=ABC News |publisher=Australian Broadcasting Corporation |date=31 May 2024 |language=en}}
Citations
{{Reflist}}
General references
- {{cite web|first=L|last=Klemen|url=https://warfare.gq/dutcheastindies/index.html|title=Forgotten Campaign: The Dutch East Indies Campaign 1941–1942|date=1999–2000|access-date=30 March 2021|archive-date=26 July 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110726053035/http://www.dutcheastindies.webs.com/index.html|url-status=dead}}
Further reading
- [http://www.angellpro.com.au/Bullwinkel.htm Biodata]
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20090325030135/http://www.users.bigpond.com/battleforaustralia/JapWarCrimes/TenWarCrimes/Banka_Massacre.html Banka Massacre]
- Jeffrey, Betty, White Coolies, Eden Paperbacks, Sydney, 1954 ({{ISBN|0-207-16107-0}})
- [http://www.awm.gov.au/fiftyaustralians/5.asp Fifty Australians – Vivian Bullwinkel] Australian War Memorial (Retrieved 9 March 2008)
- [http://www.roll-of-honour.org.uk/Cemeteries/Singapore_Memorial/html/roll.htm Roll of Honour Singapore Memorial]
- {{cite book|last=Shaw|first=Ian W.|title=On Radji Beach|year=2010|publisher=Pan Macmillan Australia|location=Sydney, New South Wales|isbn=978-1-4050-4024-2|oclc=610570783}}
External links
- {{commons category inline|Vivian Bullwinkel}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bullwinkel, Vivian}}
Category:Associate members of the Royal Red Cross
Category:Australian Army personnel of World War II
Category:Australian Members of the Order of the British Empire
Category:Australian military nurses
Category:Australian prisoners of war
Category:Australian women nurses
Category:Female wartime nurses
Category:Florence Nightingale Medal recipients
Category:Officers of the Order of Australia
Category:Australian shooting survivors
Category:Women in the Australian military