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EPISODE · Jul 13, 2025 · 1H 6M

Vivian Bullwinkle

from Matilda’s Top Women In History

Vivian Bullwinkle survived one of the most brutal massacres in Australian history. On 16th February 1942, along with 21 other unarmed women, she was told to wade into the water on Radji Beach in modern Indonesia and was then fired on with a machine gun by Japanese soldiers. Vivian was a nurse with the Australian army stationed in Singapore and Malaya when the Japanese army invaded the Malay peninsula, and she was on one of the final boats to evacuate Singapore. She managed to survive the sinking of her ship, the brutal massacre and then 3 and a half years as a POW. Her story is one of bravery and determination.Sources/Further reading:Kieza, Grantlee: Sister VivBanks, Georgina - Back to Bangka, Searching For the Truth About A Wartime MassacreBurgess, Colin - Sisters in CaptivityAustralian War Memorial https://www.awm.gov.au/vyner-brooke-and-banka-islandWikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivian_Bullwinkel Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode metadata supplied by the publisher feed · Published Jul 13, 2025

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Vivian Bullwinkle

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