Physical description

A paperback book with a blue spine, red and tan cover with a sepia photograph of two women in nurses uniforms. Writing on cover and spine is in black, blue and white.

Publication type

fiction

Inscriptions & markings

'B / 36B' [blue ink top left hand corner of first page]
'B035' [pencil towards top right hand corner of first page]
'RETURNED & SERVICES NURSES' / CLUB AND R.S.L. SUB-BRANCH / 4 COLLINS ST, MELBOURNE 3000' [purple ink stamp top of first page]
'RETURNED & SERVICES NURSES' / CLUB AND R.S.L. SUB-BRANCH / 4 COLLINS ST, MELBOURNE 3000' [purple ink stamp top of title page]
'To the President and Members / of the / Returned and Services Nurses Club / of Victoria__ / with best wishes, / Betty Jeffrey / 1. 12. 93' [Handwritten in blue ink lower half of title page]
[several handmade corrections in blue ink made throughout book]

Summary

In 1942 a group of Australian Army nursing sisters was evacuated from Malaya a few days before the fall of Singapore. Two days later their ship was bombed and sunk by the Japanese. Of the fifty-three survivors who scrambled ashore, twenty-one were murdered and the remainder taken prisoner.
This engrossing record was kept by one of the surviving sisters, Betty Jeffrey, during the three-and-a-half gruelling years of imprisonment that followed. It is a grim story of deprivation and harsh conditions, but its darkness is relieved by the humorous incidents that somehow helped the women to preserve their sanity. Their ingenious and entertaining attempts to make their lot more tolerable, and their comradeship as they faced so much anguish leave the reader with enormous admiration for their endurance and strength. (Back cover)