A massacre of nurses

I follow WWII history a lot. The actions of both the Nazis and Imperial Japan were so sickening in so many instances, that you can become numb to it, I just discovered a new massacre that I hadn’t come across before.

In February 1942 the Vyner Brooke was carrying 65 Australian nurses and many injured soldiers. They were sunk by Japanese aircraft and the survivors went ashore on Bangka Island, which was held by the Japanese. The matron sent the civilian women and children away to Muntok, but all ss surviving nurses decided to stay with the wounded soldiers to care for them.

An Australian officer found a Japanese officer and informed them of the wounded soldiers by Radii Beach. The Japanese officer came along with 29 Japanese soldiers.

They shot and bayoneted all the wounded Australian soldiers. Then they raped the Australian nurses, made them march into the sea and when they were was it deep machine gunned them down.

One nurse survived to tell the story. The nurses could have avoided this fate if they had abandoned the wounded soldiers, but to a person they decided to stay.

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