Sisters of the Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS), 2/4th Casualty Clearing Station, 8th Division atTangong, Singapore.

Places
Accession Number 120518
Collection type Photograph
Object type Negative
Maker Emmett, J D
Place made Singapore
Date made 20 January 1942
Conflict Second World War, 1939-1945
Copyright

Item copyright: Copyright expired - public domain

Public Domain Mark This item is in the Public Domain

Description

Sisters of the Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS), 2/4th Casualty Clearing Station, 8th Division. Left to right, back row: Hulda Millicent “Millie” Maria Dorsch (SFX10597), died Banka Island 14 February 1942; Bessie Wilmott (WFX3439), executed Banka Island beach 16 February 1942; Wilhelmina Rosalie Raymont (TFX6012), died of illness, Sumatra 8 February 1945; Elaine Balfour-Ogilvy (SFX10596) executed Banka Island beach 16 February 1942; Peggy Farmaner (WFX3438), executed Banka Island beach 16 February 1942.
Front row: Dora Shirley Gardam (TFX2183), died of illness, Sumatra 4 April 1945; Irene Melville Drummond, later matron of 2/13th Australian General Hospital, executed Banka Island beach 16 February 1942, and Ellen Mavis Hannah (SX10595) who survived the sinking of the SS Vyner Brooke and captivity as a prisoner of the Japanese.
Four of these nurses were among the twenty one Army nurses massacred by the Japanese on Banka Island after the SS Vyner Brooke was sunk off Sumatra. The photographer Warrant Officer John Delmore Emmett (VX38986) became a POW after the surrender at Singapore and buried the film for nine months. It was then handed to a Private Abbott who developed it in the x-ray room at the Changi hospital. After the war Warrant Officer Emmett recovered the film and had it printed.