Mary Elizabeth CUTHBERTSON. Nursing Sister (Lieutenant) VFX38746, Australian Army Nurses Service 2/10th Australian General Hospital.
Born 5 March 1910 in Stirling, South Australia to William Melville Cuthbertson and Lillian Beatrice Cuthbertson, of 121 Burbank Street Ballarat, Victoria, Australia.
Some notes from her service records.
Enlisted 20 August 1940 at Ballarat, Victoria Australia aged 30 years and 5 months, occupation, trained nurse.
05 May 1941 attached to Camp Hospital Seymour at Seymour, Victoria which is 7.4 miles from Pucka
27 July 1941 detached to 115 Australian General Hospital Heidelberg, Melbourne, Victoria from 107 Australian General Hospital Puckapunyal k/a Pucka, Camp, Victoria. 29 July 1941 she re-joined her unit which was detached to Lady Duggan Hostel pending embarkation
30 July 1941, she embarked Melbourne HMT EE, 491 (The Dutch liner, Marnix Van St. Aldegonde (HMT EE) had undergone conversion to a troopship in Singapore, and arrived in Melbourne on the 23/7/1941.) for Singapore 30 July 1941 disembarked Singapore 17 August 1941 attached to 10 AGH. From 03 October 1941to 03 December 1941 she was granted leave. The 05 January 1941 she was detached for duty to 13 Australian General Hospital. She was
On the 12 February 1942 she and many others evacuated Singapore on ship SS Vyner Brooke bound for Australia. She was reported missing presumed killed 16 February 1942, she was aged 31.
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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