As the third biography of war hero Vivian Bulwinkel, this book inevitably covers much familiar ground. However, as the title suggests, it sheds new light on her captivity not covered in previous books, specifically information which was repressed for decades by offical channels and omitted from previous biographers.
Bullwinkel’s heroism begins with the fate of her and her 21 nurse colleagues who were summarily executed during WWII on Radji Beach on the Indonesian island of Bangka. Miraculously she was the sole survivor of this atrocity and went on to endure nearly four years as a prisoner of war in horrendous conditions.
For decades, the official version had been that these 22 nurses having surrendered to the occupying Japanese and realising they were about to be summarily executed, stoically accepted their fate and died bravely. Unfortunately, this is a simplification of the event as certain unpalatable facts were repressed which even the sole survivor was pressured to conceal. The official sanitised version promulgated for decades is now exposed as spin.
This latest biography by Lynette Ramsay Silver reveals the whole story of these and other unfortunate women who had the misfortune to become prisoners of the Japanese. Through meticulous research of original sources, later interviews given by Vivian and her contemporaries as well as surviving physical evidence, she uncovers facts that enhance the extent of this and related war crimes.
‘Sister Bullwinkel: The untold, uncensored story’. By Lynette Ramsay Silver. Sally Milner Publishing, Binda, NSW, 2024.
One aspect of this violence was hinted at but never openly addressed until decades later. In fact, it was not brought out into the open until 1993 when a Korean woman (Kim Hak-Sun) published a book about her experience as a ‘comfort woman’ for the Japanese military during the war. This finally brought the entire sordid business into the public sphere. It was all too common for Japanese military to rape female prisoners and force them into prostitution.
How was Vivian fortunate enough to survive this horrible violation? The short answer: she wasn’t. This biography explores why she (and others like her) were silenced and why this indignity is not mentioned in previous Bullwinkel biographies. During her years of captivity, she and her fellow prisoners were not spared this violation.
The evidence consists not only of the various paper trails but also the fact that certain relevant documents and reports have have disappeared. Intriguingly, even a notebook Vivian kept in captivity has had part of a page cut out at what appears a significant entry. The evidence goes beyond mere documentation. It even includes Vivian’s original nurses uniform currently housed in the Australian War Memorial. Among other things, the position of the bullet holes proves that it was ripped open at the time she was shot.
The reasons why this fact was kept from the public smack of prudery as well as political and diplomatic expediency. Generally, The authorities thought the topic too ‘delicate’ for public consumption. Among their excuses were the desire to spare the victims’ families the added trauma of such information. Even at the Tokyo War Crimes tribunal, officialdom prevented Vivian from mentioning the rapes. As a member of the armed services, she was bound to obey orders. Bureaucracy and officialdom combined to have the matter hushed up generally.
Statue of Vivian Bullwinkel at the Australian War Memorial
With this book we finally learn the complete truth about the fate of the nurses of Radji Beach. They did not march bravely to the edge of the water holding hands before they were summarily executed. Instead they were violently sexually assaulted before being murdered. They did not stoically accept their fate; instead they screamed and struggled against this final violation knowing they were about to be killed. It is a disservice the these brave victims that the general public has been fed a sanitised version of their murders.
Vivian Bulwinkel was the only surviving witness of this atrocity. Given her years of captivity, sexual violence was not an isolated occurrence for her or her fellow captives. It is not surprising that she later confided to researchers her frustration at not being able to tell the whole story. Even her first biographer airbrushed the matter from his book.
The detailed biography includes an appendix of brief bios and pictures of all the unfortunate nurses executed at Radji Beach, a timeline of Bulwinkel’s life and details of the fate of some of the perpetrators. Disturbingly, quite a few got off comparatively lightly – a fact which adds to the outrage.
This book does more than fill in a significant gap in military history. It shows the consequences of concealing atrocities. Airbrushing the fact of constant sexual violence from the official record has two consequences: it diminishes the culpability of the perpetrators and devalues the trauma of the victims. In this instance, their trauma was exacerbated by the offical pressure to remain silent.
A quarter of a century after her death, the author Lynette Ramsay Silver has finally let Vivian Bullwinkel voice the full extent of the atrocities she and her fellow prisoners suffered.
Rather than detract from her heroism and basic humanity, this revelation enhances it.