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2/20th Battalion

A.I.F.

WOUNDS DRESSED

We then spotted one of our utilities picking up wounded and, as for the last mile I had only got along by hanging on to Sid's shoulder, I left our party and got a seat on tail-board of the "ute". It was full of badly wounded.

The "ute" driver took us back a mile or two to 214 Casualty Clearing Station. There they removed my boot and dressed the bullet wound in my left instep. (I discovered later another bullet had penetrated my right hip. It was a flesh wound only.)

We were then loaded into an ambulance and taken to 2/10 A.G. Hospital several miles back at Bukit Timah.

2/10 A.G. HOSPITAL

The hospital was set up in a large Chinese girls' school.

The hospital verandah and gardens were full of wounded in every state, and staff were run off their feet.

Eventually, I was given cup of tea but it was 5 pm before a nurse threw me a pair of pyjamas and showed me where the showers were and where I enjoyed first real shower for a couple of months. Later my wounds were dressed again and put was put to bed.

Late the next morning, a Major took me out the back to a garage where an X-ray had been set up. They X-rayed my foot to see if they could locate the bullet. I had a large hole in my boot but when it was taken off no exit could be found. The bullet must have ricocheted. To this day, I don't know where it went, although walking and fighting for couple of miles after leaving R.A.P., it may have worked itself out.

The Major had no sooner got me on the table for X-ray when Japanese high-flying bombers unloaded the full load in what they called pattern-bombing. Although too close for comfort, there were no hits in the immediate area. The Major had pulled me off the table and shoved me underneath, apparently not wanting to lose his patient.

TRAGEDY OF NURSES

I received little attention for the next couple of days, the nurses were too busy looking after serious cases.

The nurses behaved magnificently when we had another air-raid. Ignoring danger to themselves, they came around making patients who still had tin hats wear them, and made all those capable of moving, get under the beds.

At lights-out on Wednesday night, all nursing staff were present, yet next morning only the orderlies were left as the nurses were reluctantly evacuated during the night.

They had protested and wanted to stay with their patients, yet they couldn't disobey orders.

Many of them were on a ship that was sunk off Banka Island with great loss of life. Most of those who reached shore were executed by the Japanese who were already there.

[Vivian Bullwinkel was the only survivor of the execution party. She eventually returned home at the end of the War.]

Copyright © 2002, Elliott McMaster, "Glen Ora", Nabiac, New South Wales, Australia, 2428.  Original content in these Web pages is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be produced by any process or any other exclusive right exercised without written permission from the copyright holder.