Dorothy Gwendoline Howard ELMES. (k/a Buddy) Nursing Sister (Lieutenant) NFX70526 Australian Army Nursing Service 10th Australian General Hospital.
Born 27 April 1914 at Armadale, Stonnington, Victoria, Australia to Robert Maynard Elmes and Dorothy Jean Elmes, nee Howard of Cheshunt, Victoria, Australia.
Enlisted 17 December 1940 at Victoria Barracks, Sydney, N.S.W., aged 26 years and 1 month, occupation trained nurse. Residence, Community Hospital, Corowa, N.S.W. Embarked 3 February 1941 of ship Queen Mary Australia bound for Singapore, disembarked at Singapore 18 February 1941.
She and sixty-four Australian nurses, wounded service men and 250 civilian men, women and children were evacuated on Vyner Brooke from Singapore on the 12 February 1942. The ship was bombed and sunk by Japanese aircraft of Bangka island east of Sumatra on the 14 February 1942. Some of the survivors reached the island only to be captured by the Imperial Japanese Army Some were imprisoned in Palembang and Muntok POW camps others were massacred including twenty-one nurses. On the 16 February 1942 the nurses were ordered to march into the sea and stand in a row where they were shot from behind. She was aged 20. Only one nurse survived, Sister Vivian Bullwinkel.
Commemorated on the Singapore Memorial, Singapore
Sixty five Australian nurses and over 250 civilian men, women and children evacuated on the Vyner Brooke from Singapore, three days before the fall of Malaya. The Vyner Brooke was bombed by Japanese aircraft and sunk in Banka Strait on 14...
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