Informal portrait of SFX13431 Sister (Sr) Lorna Fairweather and SFX13419 Sr Annie Merle Trenerry, ...

Informal portrait of SFX13431 Sister (Sr) Lorna Fairweather and SFX13419 Sr Annie Merle Trenerry, both of the 13th Australian General Hospital, Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS). Both were part of the sixty five Australian nurses and over 250 civilian men, women and children evacuated from Singapore on the Vyner Brooke, three days before the fall of Malaya. The Vyner Brooke was bombed by Japanese aircraft and sunk in Banka Strait on 14 February 1942. Sr Fairweather was one of the remaining twenty two nurses who also survived the sinking and were washed ashore on Radji Beach, Banka Island, where they surrendered to the Japanese, along with twenty five British soldiers. On 16 February 1942 the group was massacred, the soldiers were bayoneted and the nurses were ordered to march into the sea where they were shot. The only survivor of this massacre was Captain Vivian Bullwinkel. Sr Trenerry was one of twelve nurses who were lost at sea after the sinking of the Vyner Brooke.