Sister Minnie Ivy Hodgson, 2/13th Australian General Hospital, Australian Army Nursing Service
Australian War MemorialSister Minnie Ivy Hodgson was one of 65 Australian nurses and over 250 civilian men, women and children evacuated on the Vyner Brooke from Singapore, three days before the fall of Malaya.
The Vyner Brooke was bombed by Japanese aircraft and sunk in Banka Strait on 14 February 1942. Of the sixty five nurses on board, twelve were lost as sea and thirty two survived the sinking.
Those survivors were captured by the Japanese and became Prisoners of War; eight later died during captivity.
Sister Hodgson was one of the remaining 22 nurses who also survived the sinking and were washed ashore on Radji Beach, Banka Island, where they surrendered to the Japanese, along with twenty five British soldiers.
On 16 February 1942, the group was massacred; the soldiers bayoneted and the nurses ordered to march into the sea where they were shot.
Only Sister Vivian Bullwinkel and a British soldier survived the massacre. Both were taken POW but only Sister Bullwinkel survived the POW camps and was the sole survivor of the Vyner Brooke.
