Orders, Decorations & Medals - Aust. Groups

Lot 5214    Session 19 (4:30pm Friday)    Orders, Decorations & Medals - Aust. Groups

Estimate $7,000
Bid at live.noble.com.au
SOLD $6,800

GROUP OF FIVE TO NURSE POW: 1939-45 Star; Pacific Star; Defence Medal 1939-45; War Medal 1939-45; Australia Service Medal 1939-45. VFX53060 B.Woodbridge. All medals impressed. Swing mounted, contact marks on last three medals, otherwise very fine - extremely fine.

Together with,
1. Medal box with original, named issue pamphlet for medals.
2. Matching swing mounted set of miniatures.
3. Grey nurses uniform with rank badges, Australia titles, 2/10th Aust General Hospital colour patches and including 5 years' overseas service chevrons, also red nursing cape with rank badges and Australia titles, starch collar, shirt, dress and hat.
4. Kitbag as issued to repatriated POW nurses in Singapore being a white canvas duffle bag with flat, circular base and drawstring top and named on side in black ink, 'VFX53060/SR. B.WOODBRIDGE'.
5. A large quantity of photos, telegrams, cards, gift tags, newspaper cuttings and some letters. Noted one family photo with Japanese stamp on back, also noticed letters of congratulations on release and return to Australia from Old Grammarians' Society dated 29.9.45, Nedlands War Patriotic Fund Committee dated 18.10.1945 and Victorian War Nurses' Comforts Fund, undated, in addition a telegram dated Oct 25 1945 from Aide de Camp, Government House to attend a lunch with Lady Dugan at Moonee Valley Races.
6. Xmas card from Lieut. Vivian Bullwinkel and Lieut. Wilma Oram.
7. Handmade menu for 2/14 AGH meal named to Sister Woodbridge.
8. Canteen Service chit 33552 named to Lt W'bridge, dated 14Nov1945 from 115 (H'Berg) Mil. Hosp.
9. Royal Australian Mint packaged twenty cents, 2017, commemorating the 75th Anniversary of the Sinking of the SS Vyner Brooke.

Also included are a number of items belonging to Beryl Woodbridge's brother, Reverend Denis John Woodbridge, Royal Australian Army Chaplains Department (Church of England), served as Chaplain 4th Class with Southern Command from November 1962 to 1966. Includes,
1. Army uniform and black chaplain's jacket, with various badges and titles.
2. Painted two-piece sign that reads, 'Vicar - The Revd. D.J.Wo/odbridge..B.A. Dip Ed.

Beryl 'Woodie' Woodbridge (VF10741) VFX53060, born 11Feb1905 at Melbourne, Vic; Enl.28Jan1941 at AAMC Depot, Melbourne, Vic for AANS special service, while already serving as a Staff Nurse (appt'd 08Jul1940) at Camp Hospital, Broadmeadows, Vic from 31Jan1941; to 10AGH and detached to 108AGH 09Apr1941; to 107AGH 13May1941; to Lady Dugan Hospital 19May1941; Emb.23May1941 on HMAT Zealandia with 10AGH; arrived Singapore 09Jun1941; detached to 13AGH 30Dec1941; appt'd Sister Group I 31Jan1942; posted missing 16Feb1942 and then POW interned at Sumatra; to Lieutenant 23Mar1943; recovered from POW camp at Sumatra 20Aug1945; admitted to 2/14 AGH 16Sep1945; Emb.05Oct1945 from Singapore on the hospital ship, TSMV Manunda; Disemb.24Oct1945 and admitted to 115 Heidelberg Military Hospital; Disch.06Mar1946 as Lieutenant ex 10 Aust Gen Hosp.

As the Japanese army advanced on to their capture of Singapore, a cargo ship requisitioned by the Royal Navy for use as an armed trader was being loaded with evacuees. On the evening of 12 February 1942 the SS Vyner Brooke which usually only carried 12 passengers and a crew of 47 was overloaded with 181 passengers, mainly women and children and 65 Australian nurses stationed in Singapore. The next day in the late afternoon she was spotted by a Japanese aircraft and attacked. There were no serious casualties and the ship was able to set course for Banka Strait. Unfortunately her escape was stalled by patrolling Japanese ships and on the 14 February in the afternoon she was again attacked by several Japanese aircraft, was hit by several bombs and within about half-an-hour sank bow first.

About 150 survivors eventually made it to shore but those that reached Radjii Beach were annihilated. First they were captured along with some British service personnel and civilians. Then, the Japanese shot and bayoneted all the males and 22 Australian nurses and a British civilian woman were forced to wade into the sea and shot from behind. Of the nurses, only one, Sister Vivian Bullwinkel survived after pretending she was dead. She escaped into the jungle but after several days eventually surrendered to the Japanese and was interned for the rest of the war.

Of the other nurses, 12 drowned, 8 washed up near a Banka Island lighthouse and after walking to Muntok Village they surrendered. Another 23 made it to other beaches or the island's main pier. Beryl 'Woodie' Woodbridge floated to shore on a plank along with four other nurses, Jenny Greer, Joyce Twedell, Flo Trotter and Jessie Blanch, all from 2/10 AGH. They sang as they drifted along so as the keep up their spirit. When they landed, they became prisoners of the Japanese and eventually sent as POWs to a group of Dutch houses, surrounded by barbed wire, near Palembang on the island of Sumatra. The POWs named the camp, Irenelaan, after one of the camp streets. A Japanese sentry stood at each corner of the camp and there was a guard house at the gate. The women had no privacy for bathing and even when they slept guards would lift the bedcovers to look at their bodies. They were forced to line up for hours in the hot sun, had to bow to the Japanese and if the soldiers perceived any transgression they would be slapped and beaten.

They had to wear anything they could get their hands on or make up clothes from scraps. Some wore the same clothes for the length of their internment. Pieces of wood were used to make rough sandals to walk through the mud and toilet effluent that ran through the camp during heavy rain. The disgusting camp toilets were open drains with no running water. Many nurses volunteered to scoop up the rotting faeces into buckets using coconut shells and dispose of it to try and reduce the risk of disease spread by flies hanging around the foul drains.

Crowded with about 30 in each house and 10 in adjoining garages, the women POWs formed small cooking groups and worked hard with others cutting timber to use for cooking the meagre rations of rice, rotting vegetables and decaying meat thrown to them from Japanese army trucks. Nonetheless, the women endured. They organised sing-a-longs and sketches. Some of these included impersonating famous movie stars at the time and 'Woodie' Woodbridge, being of a small build and dark haired, proved to be a great success pretending to be Shirley Temple. When a group of the POWs were rescued in 1945, a concert was given for them at Changi in Singapore by Gracie Fields, the English actress, singer and comedian. In a photo showing nurses watching the concert Beryl Woodbridge looks pathetically thin and it is obvious how malnourished were those subjected to the severity of life in a POW camp.

After returning to Australia many of the nurses wanted to be discharged. 'Woodie' stuck it out until March 1946 when she discharged at 41 years of age and after 1,616 days of overseas service with the AIF. Several functions were staged for POW nurses. One of these was in early 1946 when the C.W.O. Younger Set Victory Ball was held at Earl's Court, St Kilda, Victoria and a special welcome was given to six nurses who had been POWs. On arrival they were each presented with a sheaf of flowers and entered the ballroom by walking through a guard of honour of the Younger Set. On leaving they were each presented with a gift package. The POW nurses dressed in their white uniforms and scarlet capes were Sisters Bullwinkel, Beryl Woodbridge, Betty Jeffrey (author of White Coolies, first published in 1954), A.Syer, Nesta James and Wilma Oram.

Beryl Woodbridge died on 29 September 1986. She was buried at Springvale Botanical Cemetery with her military rank and unit, 2/10 Aust Gen Hospital, recorded on the headstone. Her name and date of death is also recorded on the headstone of Frances Winifred Woodbridge (presumably Beryl's sister), who died 14 September 1977 at age 83 and was buried at Box Hill Cemetery. Her name is also listed on the Australian Ex-Prisoners of War Memorial at the Botanical Gardens, Ballarat, Victoria, along with 58 other WWII nurse POWs. The Australian War Memorial also holds a recorded interview of Beryl Woodbridge by Margaret Evans (AWM collection SO2935).

With research.