Captain Vivian Bullwinkel giving evidence at the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal in 1947
Bangka Island, Indonesia
Location
Radji beach, Bangka Island
Coordinates
2°01′34″S105°06′39″E / 2.026168°S 105.110795°E / -2.026168; 105.110795 (Bangka Island massacre location at Radji beach)
Date
16 February 1942
Weapons
bayonet and machine gun
Victims
22 Australian Army nurses 60 Australian and British soldiers (some wounded) sailors from Vyner Brooke
Perpetrators
Imperial Japanese Army
The Bangka Island massacre (also spelled Banka Island massacre) was the killing of unarmed Australian nurses and wounded Allied soldiers on Bangka Island, east of Sumatra in the Indonesian archipelago on 16 February 1942. Shortly after the outbreak of World War II in the Pacific troops of the Imperial Japanese Army murdered 22 Australian Army nurses, 60 Australian and British soldiers, and crew members from the Vyner Brooke. The group were the only survivors from their steamship which had been sunk by Japanese bombers just after the defeat of Singapore. After surrendering to local Japanese forces on Bangka Island, which was then part of the Dutch East Indies, the group and its wounded were taken to a beach where they were killed by being bayonetted and machine gunned in the surf. Only South Australian nurse Sister Lieutenant Vivian Bullwinkel, American Eric Germann and Royal Navy Stoker Ernest Lloyd survived.
For almost 80 years, details that the Japanese troops raped the Australian nurses before they were murdered were suppressed. It was never reported at the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal in 1947 or included in subsequent post-war re-tellings of the massacre. Evidence that the Australian women had suffered violent sexual assault before their deaths was only reported in 2019 after being uncovered by research. Lt Bullwinkel said she was told by the Australian government to never to speak about what happened on Bangka.
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