The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (NFX70938) Sister Mary Dorothea Clarke, 10th Australian General Hospital, Royal Australian Army Nursing Service, Second World War.

The Last Post Ceremony is presented in the Commemorative area of the Australian War Memorial each day. The ceremony commemorates more than 102,000 Australians who have given their lives in war and other operations and whose names are recorded on the Roll of Honour. At each ceremony the story behind one of the names on the Roll of Honour is told. Hosted by Richard Cruise, the story for this day was on (NFX70938) Sister Mary Dorothea Clarke, 10th Australian General Hospital, Royal Australian Army Nursing Service, Second World War.

NFX70938 Sister Mary Dorothea Clarke, 10th Australian General Hospital, Royal Australian Army Nursing Service
Presumed dead 14 February 1942
Photograph: P02783.011

Story delivered 12 September 2016

Today we remember and pay tribute to Sister Mary Dorothea Clarke, who died during the Second World War.

Mary Clarke was born on 20 July 1911 to Henry Percival and Flora Clarke in Rylstone, New South Wales. She was the eldest of six children born to the couple, with four younger sisters and a younger brother. She trained as a nurse at the Coast Hospital in Little Bay, New South Wales, later renamed the Prince Henry Hospital. She passed her examinations in 1936.

On 7 January 1941 Clarke enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force, joining the 2/10th Australian General Hospital in the Australian Army Nursing Service. The next month she embarked with her unit on the Queen Mary, arriving in Singapore 12 days later, and the 10th AGH was transferred to the general hospital in Malaya.

Clarke was working on the Malay Peninsula when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in February 1942. Once the fall of Singapore became inevitable most Australian personnel were evacuated from the island, but the 2/10th AGH remained until 12 February, when they, too, were evacuated. Clarke was one of 65 Australian nurses who left Singapore aboard the Vyner Brooke. Two days later the ship was bombed by the Japanese and many lives were lost. Some were helped into lifeboats, others clung to rafts. Those who could swim made for the nearby Banka Island.

Clarke managed to climb onto a raft with six other nurses on it. Two, Betty Jeffery and Iole Harper, volunteered to lighten the raft, and they swam for land. The raft, however, was caught in a current and drifted away from the others. The remaining five nurses, including Mary Clarke, were never seen again.

Back home, an article in the local paper extended sympathies to Clarke’s parents, remembering her as “a fine specimen of Australian womanhood, a girl who had everything in life to live for, and one who got all life had to give … The Diggers of this district salute a brave little comrade.”

Mary Clarke is commemorated in her home town, and on the Roll of Honour on my left, among some 40,000 others from the Second World War. Her photograph is displayed beside the Pool of Reflection.

This is but one of the many stories of service and sacrifice told here at the Australian War Memorial. We now remember Sister Mary Dorothea Clarke, who gave her life for us, for our freedoms, and in the hope of a better world.

Christina Zissis
Editor, Military History Section