Remembering Nurse Vivian Bullwinkel on the anniversary of the Bangka Island Massacre

Twenty-Two Australian Army nurses were marched into the sea by Japanese soldiers to face machine-gun fire. Twenty-one women died where they stood, Nurse Vivian Bullwinkel was the sole survivor. 

Taller than average, a bullet meant for her heart hit Vivian in the stomach miraculously missing all major organs. She pretended to be dead until eventually the gunfire stopped and the soldiers left. Vivian dragged herself into the jungle, where she stayed for twelve days before surrendering herself. 

Painting of Vivian by George Petrou 

For the next three and a half years, Vivian lived as a prisoner of war on and around Palembang, in Sumatra. Hiding her wound for the duration of her capture, the Japanese forces did not know she was a survivor of the massacre; if they had discovered the truth she would have almost certainly been killed.  

She tended to the sick and dying in camps filled with hunger, disease, and cruelty. There was no medicine. No proper equipment. Often no hope. Yet she continued to nurse, to comfort, and to care, even as her own body and spirit were pushed to the brink. 

When the war finally ended and Vivian returned home to Australia, she carried with her the voices of the women who did not return. She spoke for them. Through her testimony, the world learned of the Bangka Island Massacre and of the bravery of Australian nurses who paid with their lives. 

Her courage did not go unrecognised. The International Red Cross awarded her the Florence Nightingale Medal, one of the highest honours in nursing, acknowledging not only her survival, but her unwavering humanity in the face of cruelty. She continued to serve, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel before retiring from the Australian Army in 1970. She later served as Assistant Matron at the Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital, caring for returned soldiers who carried their own scars of war. 

In later years, she became the first woman appointed as a trustee of the Australian War Memorial. It was a fitting role for someone who had faced the horrors of war with resilience and strength. 

Vivian Bullwinkel’s legacy lives on in quiet and powerful ways, in a painting hanging in the Melbourne Legacy office, in her induction into the Victorian Honour Roll of Women, and in the statue unveiled in her honour at the Australian War Memorial in 2022, the first dedicated to an Australian woman. 

Above all else, her character lives on in the care Legacy provides for beneficiaries. The integrity show by Vivian in the face of peril inspires us to raise our voices for those whose voices are not sufficiently heard.