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Top 10 Remarquable Facts about Sister Vivian Bullwinkle

She was born in Kapunda in South Australia on December 18, 1915. Her parents were George Albert and Eva Bullwinkle. She did have a big family because they were only two, the brother John and herself.

She joined Broken Hill, New South Wales, and trained as a nurse and midwife. Her career began in Hamilton, Victoria. Soon after she moved to Jessie McPherson Hospital which is based in Melbourne.

She enrolled as an army officer during the Second World War. She volunteered as a nurse with the Royal Australian Air Force but was unfortunately declined for having flat feet.

That notwithstanding, she was able to join the Australian Army Nursing Service and was immediately assigned to the posted on the 2/13th Australian General Hospital in September 1941.

She was assigned to sail to Malaya in Singapore where she later joined the 13th Australian General Hospital in Johor Bahru. 

During that time she was in Malaya, in the Dutch East Indies, the Japanese troops invaded Malaya in December 1941 and advanced very fast southwards conquering a series of victories.

However, she was later married to Colonel Francis West Statham and changed her name to Vivian Statham.

She also made a point of traveling bank to Bangka Island in memory of her colleagues. She later died on 3 July 2000 at the age of 84 because of a heart attack.

1. Evacuation to Singapore

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In late January 1942, Japanese troops advanced to Johore and the 13th Australian General Hospital army team was evacuated to Singapore.

Shortly, the island defense ended in defeat, and on February 12, Vivian and another 65 nurses boarded the SS Vyner Brooke to escape.

2. SS Vyner Brooke Sunk

As they were escaping, the Japanese aircraft sunk their ship. Fortunately, Vivian, 21 other nurses, and a large group of men, women, and children make it ashore at Radji Beach on Banka Island. 

Others on board either went down with the ship or were swept away and never seen again.

The group, together with Vivian, was joined the next day by others making a total of about 100 including about twenty English soldiers from another ship sunk earlier. They agreed to surrender to the Japanese.

An officer from the Vyner Brooke walked to Muntok, a town on the northwest of the island, to contact the Japanese.

While he was away Matron Irene Drummond, the most senior of the Australian nurses and a colleague to Vivian, suggested that civilian women and children should start off walking towards Muntok.

3. Banka Island Massacre

In an action that later became known as the Banka 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 that passed completely through her body, missing her internal organs, and faked death until the Japanese soldiers left.

She escaped death narrowly with some soldiers and other civilians both women and children.

4. Vivian Escaped Massacre

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.

5. Vivian was Reunited with Survivors

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She was reunited with survivors of the Vyner Brooke. She told them of the massacre, but none spoke of it again until after the war. It was dangerous to talk about the massacre.

6. Nurses Survivors of the Massacre

Vivian spent three and half years in captivity, together with Betty Jeffrey, Pat Darling, Wilma Oram, and Margaret Dryburgh survived the war massacre. Margaret was the oldest of them all.

Unfortunately, Margaret died in captivity around the age of 55 while Pat Darling died in 2007.

7. Her Retirement

Vivian retired from the army in 1947 and became Director of Nursing at the Fairfield Infectious Diseases Hospital. She devoted herself to the nursing profession. 

One activity that she did was to honor the nurses who were killed on Banka Island. She raised funds for a nurses’ memorial in memory of the killed nurses.

8. President, Australian College of Nursing

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She became a member of the Council of the Australian War Memorial. She was recognized and given the position of president of the Australian College of Nursing.

In 1975 Operation Babylift, the name given to the mass airlift of Vietnamese orphans to Australia and the US, for its second delivery chose Fairfield Infectious Diseases Hospital as the most suitable specialist facility to receive them.

Matron Bullwinkel organized and led a nursing team that traveled to Sydney to board the Qantas 707 for the flight to Vietnam on 17 April 1975.

9. Evidence of the Massacre

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Also in 1947, she gave evidence of the massacre at a war crimes trial in Tokyo. Vivian went to Japan as a witness to the Bangka Island Massacre.

She gave evidence of how her colleagues were mercilessly shot dead and how she and others were taken captive.

Recent evidence collected by historian Lynette Silver, broadcaster Tess Lawrence, and biographer Barbara Angell, indicates that Bullwinkel and “most of” the nurses were sexually assaulted before they were murdered.

10. Travel to Bangka Island

Vivian returned to Bangka Island in 1992 to unveil a shrine to the nurses who were shot dead during the massacre while she survived, this is called a very narrow escape from death.

Vivian married Colonel Francis West Statham in September 1977. This changed her name to Vivian Statham.

She was later given the title of Lieutenant Colonel Vivian Statham, AO, MBE, ARRC, ED. Since she was already married, her name was no longer Vivian Bullwinkel but Vivian Statham.

Unfortunately, Vivian died of a heart attack on 3 July 2000, in Perth, Western Australia at the age of 84 with a very rich history of the Bangka massacre and the escape while she was promoted to the rank of Colonel because of the efforts she put in the escape.