Rosetta Joan WIGHT.

Rosetta Joan WIGHT. Nursing Sister (Lieutenant) VFX61329 (A.I.F.) Australian Imperial Force, AANS formerly V10625 attached to 13th Australian General Hospital.
Born 3 December 1908 at Fish Creek, South Gippsland, Victoria, Australia to Leslie Rivers Wight and Rosetta Frances Wight, of Beaumaris, Victoria, Australia.
Notes from her service records
Enlisted aged 32 as Staff Nurse 14 January 1941 at A.A.M.C. Depot, William Street, Melbourne, Victoria. Posted with army number V10625 the same day to 107 A.G.H, Puckapunyal, Victoria.
10 August 1941 granted pre-embarkation leave from 10th to 15 August 1941 which was taken at Lady Dugan Hostel. 01 September 1941 she was transferred from AANS to Australian Imperial Force for overseas duty with 13 A.G.H. and given army number VFX61339
02 September 1941 embarked from Australia with 13 A.G.H.bound for Singapore of Hospital Ship, Wanganella 2 September 1941 disembarked Singapore 15 September 1941. She and others 30 October 1941 were attached for duty with 10 Australian General Hospital, Singapore. 13 December 1941 returned to 13 Australian General Hospital. She along with the staff of 13 A.G.H. embarked Singapore 12 February 1942 on evacuation ship Vyner Brooke.

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 33. Only one nurse survived, Sister Vivian Bullwinkel.
Commemorated on the Singapore Memorial, Singapore.






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