Ellen Louisa KEATS

Ellen Louisa KEATS. Nursing Sister (Lieutenant) SFX11647 (AANS) 10th Australian General Hospital. Born 1 July 1915 to Clarence Carrington Keats and Ann Grace Keats, of 21 Dulwich Avenue, Dulwich. South Australia. Enlisted 18 December 1940 at Adelaide, South Australia aged 25 years. Embarked from Melbourne bound for Singapore 23 May 1941 disembarked Singapore 9 June 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 27. Only one nurse survived, Sister Vivian Bullwinkel.
Commemorated on the Singapore Memorial, Singapore
Kapunda Dutton Park Memorial Garden Nurses Plaques have her serving in the RAAFNS