Bullwinkel: Norman G. Manners

The true story of Vivian Bullwinkel, a young Army Nursing Sister. Joining the Royal Australian Army Nursing Corps in 1941, Vivian is posted to Malaya, where she witnessed the surprise air attack on Singapore by the Japanese.  In the fighting that followed, Australian Eighth Division wounded pour in and the medical staff work around the clock, under fire, as they listen to horrific accounts of the wholesale slaughter of the wounded by the advancing Japanese. Ordered out in the final nightmarish hours before Singapore's fall, the Sisters evacuation  ship is bombed and sunk. Separated from the others, twenty two nurses surrender to a Japanese patrol - only to be herded back into the water and shot. The roar of weapons' fire shattered the stillness...sending flocks of jungle birds screeching into the air. The water around the line of women was lashed into white foam as the furious storm of high velocity bullets churned it over.  Many of the Australian women were immediately flung forward forward as they were hit in the back, while others folded over like limp rag dolls and slid beneath the surface. Vivian, wounded, plays dead and is the sole survivor. Dragging herself into the jungle, she finds a wounded British soldier. After several weeks of scrounging for survival, starvation and their wounds force them to surrender. For the next three and a half years, Vivian and the other surviving Australian Sisters of the 2/10th, 2/13th AGH and the 2/4th CCS are starved, tortured, refused medicine and constantly moved from one jungle camp to another. Vivian's determination to survive, despite death being a constant companion and the compassion she freely gives to fellow prisoners is the basis of this factual and inspirational biography, the life story of a quiet Australian heroine.  Photographic illustrations.