Georgina Banks and Judy Campbell – the kin of victims of the Japanese atrocities on Banka Island –spoke at Zoom seminar organised by the Hiroshima Network for the Solution of Japan’s Military ‘Comfort Women’ Issue, which was conducted on May 15, 2021.
Georgina Bank’s Speech
My name is Georgina Banks. I am the Great Niece of Dorothy Gwendoline Howard Elmes, a sister in the Australian Army Nursing Service. Known as Bud to her family and Buddy to her friends, she was my Grandmother’s only sibling.
Bud served first in Malaya and then Singapore with the 2/10th Australian General Hospital. On the 12th February 1942 she, along with 65 Australian Army Nurses, were evacuated on The SS Vyner Brooke as Singapore fell to the Japanese forces. The ship was bombed and sunk in the Bangka Strait and somehow Bud made her way to Bangka Island, landing on the beach between two lighthouses that we now call Radji Beach. The Australian nurses provided care for the injured and dying on the beach with little food and supplies. Many people made their way ashore over two days; an estimated 80 -100 people– from the Vyner Brooke and other ships that had been bombed and sunk leaving Singapore.
Two days later, on 16th February 1942, starving and with many injured, they collectively made the decision that Sedgeman; 1st officer of the Vyner Brooke, would walk into Muntok, which they knew Japanese forces had occupied, and hand themselves in under the Geneva Convention so they could get proper care. Instead, he returned with about 15 soldiers under an officer. They were from No.1 Battalion, the 229th Regiment of the 38th Division (the Tanaka Butai) commanded by Captain Orita Masaru. The officer divided them into three groups; two of men and one of women. The men were led around the headland bayoneted and shot, and the women - 22 Australian Army nurses and one civilian woman - were marched into the sea and machine gunned. My Great Aunt Bud was 27. Only one woman survived; Vivian Bullwinkel. Three men also survived the massacre.
Bud and her story were never spoken about in my family; too traumatic. I never even heard my Grandmother Jean mention her name. It wasn’t until my grandmother was in hospital later in life that my Aunt Sally found Bud’s letters written home from Malaya and Singapore, and telegrams reporting that she was missing believed dead, hidden in my grandmother’s cupboard. Aunt Sally read them for the first time and said she felt she was discovering Bud and losing her at the same time.
I became interested when, in 2017, I was invited unexpectedly to the 75th memorial service to be held on Radji Beach. Shortly after I returned from Bangka Island, a journalist Tess Lawrence published an article in the The Independent Australia (online 26th April 2021) entitled: Vivian Bullwinkel, the Bangka Island massacre and the guilt of the survivor.
In it Tess Lawrence writes, that Vivian confided in her, ‘the ill-kept secret that most “of us” – meaning she and the women who had been gunned down – had been "violated" by the Japanese soldiers beforehand.’
When I read this I was distraught, as though the myth that I had accepted, that they walked into the water and were machine gunned from behind, heads held high – bad enough as that was – was shattered. The horror and barbarity of this act hit me with full force.
This feeling of trauma was compounded by Tess Lawrence’s further claim that, although Vivian went on to testify at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, convened in Tokyo in 1946, she was silenced from telling the full extent of hers and her fellow nurses’ suffering, and ordered by the Australian government not to put this in her statement.
Ever since I have been trying to look into this to ‘prove’ it and have engaged with the research that Yuki has outlined. Although significant circumstantial evidence exists, it is still contested by places such as the Australian War Memorial who claimed recently, ‘we do not currently have records that provide a clear picture of what took place.’
I am currently working with Lynette Silver – who compiled significant evidence in “Angels of Mercy” - to get access to files where we think there might be definitive evidence.
What we would like from the people of Japan
We would like a formal acknowledgement from the government of Japan – that yes this happened. If there are any records that still remain, though I understand many have been destroyed, we would like to see them. We would call on Japan to rectify its education on WW11 to include the many instances of Japanese forces as perpetrators of War Crimes, as well as the obvious and terrible victimisation of Japanese people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
I would like us to join our voices with the voices of other Comfort Women (military sexual slaves) and their descendants around the world; predominantly Asian women, and victims of sexual crimes in war, wherever they occur, to raise awareness of one of wars dirty secrets.
From the people of Japan, I would ask for empathy and an ear to hear the stories of what happened. Though they may find them disturbing - as they are.
I ask for this from a spirit of truth and reconciliation, not from a desire to perpetrate hate or blame. I believe we must forgive and remember rightly; analyse what happened and the causes that sit behind such barbarity that was committed, in this instance, by Japanese forces in WW II.
Throughout history different countries at different times have committed acts of brutality and war crimes. Australia must grapple with its own dark past and massacres of Indigenous peoples. Collectively we must examine the political systems, ideologies, conditions and prevailing beliefs that allow such atrocities to happen.
Our involvement in activities
The Friends of Bangka Island, as we are now known, are an informal group, mainly comprised of relatives of nurses and other internees, who were in the camps on Bangka Island. One of our main activities is to hold yearly memorial services on Bangka Island (COVID permitting) as well as the Walk for Humanity which re-enacts the nurses final walk to their death in a symbol of peace amongst nations. Demonstrating the idea of positive defiance – that brutality does not have the last word on Radji Beach.
Our formal aims are as follows:
1) To co-ordinate the many civilian and Government groups with an interest in the history on and around Bangka Island from 1942 to 1945.
2) To Commemorate and research the tragedy of the deaths of Australian Army Nurses, civilians, military personnel and many others from 1942 to 1945.
3) To build relationships and goodwill between the people of Australia and Bangka Island, Indonesia.
4) In furtherance of 3 above, to support local schools and medical facilities to improve education and medical services on Bangka Island.
5) Generally, to foster peace and harmony between the people of all Nations.
Judy will speak more about other activities – she has been there from the start!
Judy Campbell’s Speech
When we think of wars, we think of soldiers fighting one another. We do not always think of the innocent bystanders, civilians, who are injured or killed during the actions of a war. Civilians are ordinary people who lived and worked in an area or found themselves there, before being captured. They are caught up in a war by accident.
There are wars taking place now and we see the effects of this in the newspapers and on television. War is always a tragedy, with many soldiers and also civilians dying. But it is also important to think about and understand wars in the past, hopefully to help prevent them from happening again. Not only do people suffer and die in wars but the effects can continue for many generations. For the survivors and their families, life then has many traumatic memories which can prevent people living a normal, happy life.
My grandfather died in a Japanese civilian internment camp in in Muntok, on Bangka Island, Indonesia in August 1944, during WW2. I would like to tell his story. This represents the stories of many 1000’s of civilians who suffered and died in the Far East in Japanese prison camps during World War 2 and whose families continue to suffer with these memories today.
I wanted to understand what had happened to my grandfather. Over many years, I have read a lot about his particular prison camps in books and diaries written by the prisoners. I have also met 3 men who were young children in the camps and who told me a lot about the conditions in camp. We have also seen a lot of drawings made by people who were prisoners.
My main interest in these camps is because of the effect the War had on my family. In February 1942, when my grandfather left Singapore on the Giang Bee, was bombed, captured, and entered the prison camps, my father was a 16-year-old schoolboy in Australia. My grandfather was allowed to send one postcard home from Palembang prison camp in 1943. Before receiving this card, his family thought he had drowned. They were happy to receive the card but of course, at the end of the War, they were told he had died in 1944.
My father never recovered from the effects of losing his own father and suffered from very severe depression all of his life. I was born in 1956, not long after the end of the War. At this time and still now, most people did not understand depression. Other relatives did not want to visit us and so my life growing up was quite isolated.
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| Judy's grandparents and her father as a young boy |
My grandmother lost her hearing after bombs fell around the boat. She reached Australia safely but was an angry and sad person for the rest of her life. I have met many families whose relatives were in the camps who have suffered in this way into later generations.
In Malaya and Singapore before and during WW2, the civil defence was performed by Volunteer forces. There is now an historical group in UK and Australia made up of families who lived in the Far East. This group is called The Malayan Volunteers Group. Through this group, I have met many families who shared the same wartime experiences as mine, losing their relatives in bombing or in prison camps. People share their families’ experiences and offer one another support. It has become like having a large family who all understand one anothers’ collective past.
With the help of the Malayan Volunteers’ Group, we have built a small memorial museum in the town of Muntok, on Bangka Island. We have taken markers to identify the sites of the camps and another plaque with the names of the prisoners who died in Muntok and whose graves now lie under a petrol station and in a group grave. We also help the community of Muntok both to assist our friends and in memory of our families. We have sent money to build a new well, to provide repairs and equipment for a school and recently to buy an ambulance for Covid work in this town. In these ways, the memory of the prisoners is perpetuated and some good can come despite their deaths.
Looking backwards, here are some details about my grandfather. He was Colin Douglas Campbell, born in Malaya in 1892, to a Scottish father and an Australian mother. His father was a railway engineer working for the Sultan of Johore. My grandfather became a rubber planter, working in Perak state, Malaya. He was married to Ann, an Australian, and they had 2 small sons who were at school in Australia. They lived a happy and quiet life.
On December 8, 1941, the Japanese Army invaded Malaya. On this day, the Japanese Army also attacked Pearl Harbour in USA, Hong Kong, and the Philippines. Over the next 70 days, battles were fought down the Malay peninsula between the Japanese and British, Australian, and local troops. The Japanese captured major towns and were approaching Singapore.
The British government tried to reassure Europeans living in Malaya and Singapore that they were safe and should not try to leave for Australia, India, South Africa, or England. But many civilians were killed in the bombing of Malaya and people rushed to Singapore, trying to obtain a permit to leave. As the Japanese Army approached Singapore, it was feared that they would cut off the water supply to this small island. The British government finally ordered all European people to leave, saying ‘God help you, as we cannot.’
In January 1942, my grandfather drove his wife and other women and children to Singapore to escape the fighting and to place them on a boat to safety in Australia. The departing people were only allowed to carry one small suitcase. As they drove, they passed many bombed buildings and cars, with dead bodies lying on the road. Several times they had to stop the car and lie in roadside drains to escape bombing from Japanese planes.
After my grandmother left on a boat, my grandfather returned to the farm to destroy equipment and supplies and later prepared to leave. He took his dog to the veterinarian to be humanely shot and buried any valuables in the garden. Next, he called the estate workers to say goodbye. He gave them money, thanking them for working hard and hoping to be back in the future. All the family’s possessions, furniture, books, and photographs had to be left behind.
On February 13, 1942, just before the Fall of Singapore on February 15, my grandfather returned to Singapore and escaped on a boat called the Giang Bee. Again, he passed many people lying dead from bombing and the whole city of Singapore was on fire. The Giang Bee was one of over 40 boats carrying evacuees from Singapore, mainly women, children, and older men, which were bombed and sunk by Japanese planes and warships in the next few days near the coast of Bangka Island in Indonesia.
These Japanese planes and ships had been travelling to capture the oil refineries in Palembang in Sumatra and encountered the ships carrying the evacuees. The Captain of the Giang Bee asked all women and children to stand on deck so the Japanese would know this was not a military ship. Despite this action, the Giang Bee and 40 other boats were bombed and sunk. Departing Japanese planes continued to shoot and kill men, women, and children in the water.
About 4,000 to 5,000 people were killed in the bombing of these boats. Some survivors managed to reach the shore in lifeboats, holding onto pieces of wood or by swimming in the water for up to 3 days.
My grandfather was in the ocean after the Giang Bee sank. He was pulled into a lifeboat which was overloaded with people. Other people were clinging to the sides of the lifeboat but there was no room for them. They had to let go and drown.
My grandfather’s lifeboat reached Bangka Island after a few days. The passengers were taken by local people in another small boat to the town of Jebus. Here they were cared for by local Chinese people until Japanese soldiers came in trucks and imprisoned the passengers in the Muntok jail.
I have visited Muntok 9 times now. In 2020, I met a Chinese lady from Jebus. She interviewed an old man for me, Grandpa Malik, who was 5 years old in 1942 and remembers his family caring for these passengers. He remembers that one Australian man from the lifeboat had given him a biscuit. I think this man was my grandfather. I was very pleased to contact someone who had known the passengers in Jebus.
About 1,000 people from the 40 bombed boats had reached Muntok on Bangka Island, mainly women, children, elderly men, and some Australian and British civil servants. They were placed into very harsh camps, initially in Muntok, then moved to Palembang in Sumatra, back to Muntok and finally to Belalau camp at Lubuk Linggau in Sumatra. These prisoners were joined in the prison camps by many Dutch people who had been living and working in Indonesia.
The civilian men were placed into separate camps from the woman and children. They were moved each few months to more primitive housing with poorer conditions. When the young boys reached early teenage years, they were forcibly removed from their mothers and sent to live with the men. Their mothers were heartbroken.
There was very little food or medicines given in the camps and during the 3 and ½ years of the War, one half of the men prisoners and one third of the women died from malaria, dysentery, beriberi (a vitamin deficiency), tuberculosis and general starvation. Some children also died.
The daily food allowance was a small amount of dirty white rice containing stones and glass and a few scraps of rotten vegetables. There was very little meat or other protein. The prisoners tried to look for extra food and would eat grass, rats, mice, snails and snakes or anything they could find.
The prisoners were badly treated, made to stand in the hot sun for many hours each day to be counted and beaten harshly if they did not bow deeply enough to the Japanese guards. Some women were hit in the face so hard that their teeth fell out or their jaws were broken.
When their friends died, the prisoners were made to dig the graves and bury them. My friend Neal Hobbs in Queensland is now nearly 97. He was 17 in 1942 when he was imprisoned in the camps with his father. When many prisoners started to die, Neal Hobbs joined the burial party. This meant he was given some extra food rations. He gave this extra food to his father and they both survived the war.
My grandfather was not so lucky. He died from dysentery and beriberi in the Muntok Men’s Prison Camp in August 1944, aged 53. At this time, up to 6 men were dying each day. Neal Hobbs probably buried my grandfather in the Muntok Town Cemetery.Neal Hobbs visited Muntok with me in 2014, when he was aged 89. We entered the jail where he had been imprisoned. The conditions are good there now but the buildings exactly the same. Neal found his former cell in room 9 and I am sure was thinking of his many friends who died there. We are not angry about the War but are saddened by the events and struggle to understand how people can behave inhumanely to others.
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| Judy and Neal Hobbs |
Since writing this speech, I am sorry to say that our friend, Camp survivor Neal Hobbs died 2 weeks ago, aged 96. He was our living link to the past, telling us about his experiences in the prison camps. He helped a lot of families to learn what had happened to their parents and these people are now linked together. Despite spending his teenage years in Camp and burying many of his friends, he had no hatred of the Japanese people. In fact, his job for many years was selling Japanese air conditioners. On Tuesday, Georgina and I farewelled Neal at a fountain in Melbourne designed by his cousin . We placed folded paper Peace cranes into the Water.
The soldiers who rescued the surviving prisoners from the final camp at Belalau in September 1945 reported that they looked like ‘Grey Ghosts’, like skeletons. The prisoners were very sick and weak from their poor treatment. My friend Bob Paterson was in these camps from the ages of 2 to 5 years old. When the camp was liberated, little Bob was too sick to walk and his mother was too weak to carry him. My friend Ralph Armstrong was 13 at the end of the War. When he walked from the Men’s camp across to the Women’s camp, he was told that his own Mother and 2 adult sisters had died there and he would never see them again.
I visit Bangka Island now regularly with some of the prisoners’ families. We have formed a group called Friends of Bangka Island which includes the Malayan Volunteers’ Group, families of the Australian Army Nurses (who were drowned, killed on Bangka Island, or imprisoned), historians and local Indonesian people.
In Palembang prison camp, the women formed a vocal orchestra, singing classical music with sounds, rather than words. In 2013, a concert was organized in England by the Malayan Volunteers’ Group. 4 former prisoners attended and many families. The money raised was sent to Muntok to help with plaques and community projects.
The psychiatrist Viktor Frankel lost his family in German camps during the War. Later, he taught people that it is important to search for a meaning in life, no matter what has happened in the past. Our sorrow has been eased by the warmth of our new friendships, remembering the events of the past and in helping to build a better future. The friendships and our work are ever-expanding.
A memorial service and a Walk for Humanity are now held each year on the beach where the massacre of the Australian Army Nurses, civilians and servicemen occurred in February 1942. At this Walk, all people hold hands and wish for a peaceful world. In 2020, we planted a tree for Peace with the Australian, New Zealand, British and Japanese Embassies to Indonesia. This year, 2021, the memorial Service was held on Zoom. All the participants lit a candle for Peace in their homes.
UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization visited Muntok in 2009 and praised the town for its valued history and the fact that people of many faiths live together in harmony.
Professor Gary Topping, the biographer of internee William McDougall, who became a Catholic priest after the War writes that, “It gladdens his heart to know that Muntok can become a place of beauty and education and not only a place of dread.”
Despite the horrors of the past, the Friends of Bangka Island would like to help create a better future. Margery Jennings who died in Belalau camp wrote many poems in the pages of her Bible. The final lines of one poem express our feelings now:
One day, all this must end and we,
Who live to see succeeding years,
Must in the new world, strive to build
A lasting peace, from blood and tears.
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