The Last Post Ceremony commemorating the service of (SFX11647) Sister Ellen Louisa Keats, 10th Australian General Hospital, 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 , the story for this day was on (SFX11647) Sister Ellen Louisa Keats, 10th Australian General Hospital, Australian Army Nursing Service, Second World War.

SFX11647 Sister Ellen Louisa Keats, 10th Australian General Hospital, Australian Army Nursing Service
Executed 16 February 1942

Today we remember and pay tribute to Sister Ellen Louisa Keats.

Ellen Keats was born on 1 July 1915 to Clarence Carrington Keats and Ann Grace Keats of the Adelaide suburb of Dulwich. Her hobbies included playing the piano, and she trained as a nurse at the Adelaide Hospital, passing her examinations in 1937.

On 3 February 1941 Keats enlisted in the Second Australian Imperial Force, joining the Australian Army Nursing Service. Her brothers, twins Gilbert Thomas Keats and Donald Carrington Keats, also enlisted that year. Although Gilbert was taken prisoner at the battle of El Alamein in November 1942, both brothers survived the war.

Known as “Nell”, Sister Keats was soon attached to the camp hospital at Wayville. In May she embarked with the 10th Australian General Hospital to Singapore. After a move to nearby Malaya, Keats worked with the other nurses to treat the wounded and ill.

In December 1941 the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and the Malayan mainland. As the enemy forces advanced, the nurses of the 10th AGH were forced to withdraw to Singapore, where they joined the 13th AGH, the only Australian hospital left in Malaya. Despite the growing tension and threat of invasion, Sister Keats’s letters home remained upbeat, focusing on social events such as community singing and trips to the movies. In one of her last letters she told her mother not to worry, “because there is no need to and don’t listen to rumours because most of them are false”.

Once the fall of Singapore became inevitable, most Australian personnel were evacuated from the island. Keats was one of 65 Australian nurses who left Singapore aboard the Vyner Brooke on the 14th of February. Two days later the ship was bombed by the Japanese and many lives were lost. Some of the survivors were put into lifeboats, and those who could swim made for the nearby Banka Island.

Some survivors travelled to the nearest port to formally surrender to the Japanese, but Keats was among 22 Australian nurses who remained on the beach to tend to the wounded.

On the morning of 16 February a group of Japanese soldiers arrived, and in three stages ordered the wounded around a headland, where they were killed.

The last of the survivors were ordered to walk into the sea. When the water reached their waists the Japanese opened fire with machine-guns. Of the 22 Australian nurses ordered into the sea, all but one were killed, including Nell Keats. She was 26 years old.

Sister Ellen Louisa Keats is commemorated on the Singapore Memorial, and on a plaque dedicated in 1947 in the nurses’ chapel of the Royal Adelaide Hospital. Its inscription reads: “In loving memory of South Australian members of the Australian Army Nursing Service who made the supreme sacrifice (killed by Japanese), World War 1939–1945.”

Sister Keats’s name is also listed on the Roll of Honour on my left, among some 40,000 others from the Second World War. She is pictured on the left in the photograph 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 Ellen Louisa Keats, and all those Australians who have given their lives in service of our nation.

Christina Zissis
Editor, Military History Section