Their history |
During the mid-stages of the Second World War, Japanese dominance has far reached south east Asia. On February the 8th, the Japanese has landed north-west of the Singapore Island as a result of their invasion and advancement from Malaya. They were surprised or perhaps more shocked as to the deficiency of defences on the island. Within six days they were able to reach the outskirts of Singapore city. The little resistance they received consisted of mostly battle-weary men, considering the Australians lost almost 700 men since 14 of January fighting in Malaya, and with more than hundreds of others wounded and/ or sick, this was hardly surprising. During these time, reinforcements comprised of mainly last-minute troops who were untrained and ill-equipped with only one trained reinforcement unit; the 2/4th Machine Gun Battalion. The Australian, British and Indian troops attempted to halt the Japanese advance at numerous defensive lines which lasted for merely two days. The rest of whoever was remaining, was regrouped and reorganised into composite units in which, participated in a counter-attack on the 10-11 of February in the attempt to regain lost grounds. This did not end well for the Allies and on the 12 of February, General H Gordon Bennett, the Australian commander, began the temporary withdrawal of his near-exhausted 8th Division AIF units just a few kilometres out of the city. By the next day, the Japanese forces were as little as five kilometres to the Singapore waterfront, with the entirety of the Singapore city in range of artillery fire. |
As an unfavorable outcome was more and more certain. In the concern of the safety of the nurses, General Bennett ordered their evacuation from the island back to Australia. This evacuation was broken up into two different batches, with the first, the 59 Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS) nurses and physiotherapists on the ship Empire Star along with more than 2000 evacuees, and the second, a ship named the Vyner Brooke, carried the remaining 65 AANS nurses, among them, was Sister Ellen Keats. As they departed on the 12 of February 1942, only to be attacked by an enemy bomber and sunk two days later within half an hour of Sumatra. During this attack, twelve nurses were drowned or killed and the rest, having spent more than 60 hours in water, struggled ashore Banka Island. Fortunately, Sister Keats was one of them.