Historical information

An anniversary commemoration written by Sister Betty Jeffrey, 2/10th Australian General Hospital (AGH).
Five years have passed since the end of the war, but it still feels like yesterday that Betty's hospital unit, who nursed in Malaya and Singapore was complete.
Betty remembers the outstanding personality of Matron O. D. Paschke, RRC, particularly how she made the frightening leap from the deck of the sinking evacuation so much easier for her nurses. Matron Paschke was one of twelve nurses lost at sea that day. Later, on the beach of Banka Island, a group of twenty-one surviving nurses were kllled by the Japanese with only one survivor. Of the nurses who were taken prisoner of war (POW), of which Betty was also one, eight more died when the end of the war was almost in sight.
Betty also remembers the tragedy of losing twelve members of the Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS) in the sinking of the hospital ship, Centaur, again with only one nurse surviving.
On Anzac Day members of the Navy, Army and Air Force will gather at the Edith Cavell Memorial, where a service is read in memory of Nurse Edith Cavell and the women who lost their lives in the two world wars.
Betty remembers the courage of her fellow POW nurses, particularly when they knew they were dying. Christmas 1943, in the POW camp, Betty recieved a card made from a scrounged page, hand decorated. The sister who gave her the card later died a week before the war ended.
The simple short Anzac services for the women who lost their lives will always remind Betty of the only service the sisters could face holding in the POW camp, in 1943.

Physical description

A newspaper clipping with a large title and four columns of text beneath

Inscriptions & markings

'Sun p2 26.4.50'[graphite pencil, bottom left]