Florence Rebecca CASSON. Nursing Matron (Major) SFX13418 AANS attached 13th Australian General Hospital.
Born 6 March 1903 at Warracknabel, Victoria, Australia, resided at Pinnaroo South Australia. Daughter of Henry and Mary Casson, of 10 Durham Street, Glenelg, later of Willaston, both in South Australia.
Some notes from her service records
Enlisted 10 march 1941 aged 33. Employed as Staff Nurse at the Soldier’s Memorial Hospital, Pinnaroo, South Australia, 27 June 1941 she was called up for duty at Camp Hospital, at Woodside Barracks, near Adelaide South Africa.
31 August 1941 she entrained from Adelaide train station to Melbourne, Victoria. From there she reported for duty at Camp Hospital, Mayville, Victoria.
Embarked from Australia 02 September 1941 with 13 AGH for Singapore, disembarking at Singapore 15 September 1941.
11 November 1941 detached for duty with 2/4 Casuality Clearing Station.
23 November 1941 re-joined her unit, 13 AGH.
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 for Australia.
The ship was bombed and sunk by Japanese aircraft of Banka island east of Sumatra on the
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 38. Only one survived this massacre, and that was Sister Vivian Bullwinkel.
Commemorated on the Singapore Memorial, Singapore. Included in the Nurses’ War Memorial Chapel in Westminster Abbey, London
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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