Australian Nurse Survived Massacre

After a bullet from a Japanese machine gun tore through her body, Australian nurse Vivian Bullwinkel floated face down in the sea and feigned death. She was the sole survivor of the 1942 Bangka Island Massacre, in which 21 of her fellow nurses were forced to wade into the ocean at gunpoint and then shot in the back. Why isn't she more famous? Read her story here on Wartime Wednesdays: www.elinorflorence.com/blog/vivian-bullwinkel

 

She’s fairly well known in Australia...thanks for posting.

 

Very interesting and a story I had never heard of before. Thank you.

 

I had a couple of emails from Australians telling me they had never heard of her -- but that's typical, since most people in every country don't know much about wartime.

 

Elinor, you continue to amaze me with your research and writing about notable women in WW2 Though you interest far exceedings wartime activity is is most dear to many of us here. Vivian Bullwinkle was one courageous woman and her story should be meaningful to us all. So many of the catastrophic events of our collective pass are all to soon forgotten. Thank you for Wartime Wednesdays as well as all your other writings.

Gaines