THE
WAH SUI INCIDENT
Another Brave Women page
During the
Japanese advance in WW2
six Australian nurses were evacuated from Singapore with their patients
aboard the Wah Sui. On their return they were told not to say anything
because it might injure Australia's relations with Britain.
This
page is based on an interview
between Barb Angell and Thelma Bell McEachern, videotaped in the
latter's
home on 28th January 1999, plus extracts from Mrs McEachern's war diary
for the year 1942
Out
of the total number of Australian nurses who were caught in Singapore
during
the Japanese advance in WW2, six were evacuated with their patients
aboard
the Wah Sui, a further 63 plus 3 physiotherapists boarded the Empire
Star which, after a hair-raising journey, finally made it back
to Australia and 65 nurses boarded the ill-fated Vyner
Brooke, which was sunk by the Japanese off the coast of
Sumatra.
The following story is about the fate of the nurses who left Singapore
aboard a non-naval Chinese vessel called the Wah Sui.
(L)
Thelma Bell McEachern
One Saturday, 14th February 1942, six
young Australian Army nurses
came to a stark realization. After going through hell and high water to
save their patients - 450 severely wounded Aussie and British soldiers
on the rust bucket Wah Sui, their British allies had deserted
them.
Having already survived the evacuation of Malacca then Singapore, here
they were again in the direct path of advancing Japanese forces.
Batavia
(now Djakarta, Indonesia) was where they found themselves abandoned.
The 2/10th AGH
(Australian General Hospital) was posted
to Malacca early in 1941. In charge of the 43 nurses and 3
physiotherapists
was Matron Olive Paschke.
For
most of them this was their first time out of Australia so they seemed
set for a big adventure. Thelma Bell McEachern, originally from Albury,
joked that she had rarely been farther afield than Wodonga (cities
almost joined together across a river as in Buda and Pest). With
few exceptions they were green as grass but all were destined to grow
up
fast. Many of the 10th AGH would not survive the war. All, without
exception,
are heroes of Australia's nursing history.
The
Malacca hospital stood like a beacon on a hill above the village. It
was
a large edifice known locally as The White Elephant, but though it was
built to be a hospital, Thelma commented that it did not come anywhere
near to Australian standards. Facilities were primitive and the unit
was
poorly supplied. The nurses were challenged, improvising, making do
with
local materials and equipment, but when they tried to deal with the
locals
they met an alien culture unacquainted with their ways. The nurses were
unprepared for this and none of them could speak the language.
Misunderstandings
were inevitable.
Their
general health deteriorated from working in the tropics, but
the nurses kept on because there was too much to do. Maybe to fill in
time
or possibly to guard against later problems, Thelma wryly observed, the
medicos performed tonsillectomies and circumcised any man who still
owned
the applicable bit of anatomy. Hundreds of operations meant hundreds of
patients for the nurses. Resultant tropical infections and other
complications
kept the women busier than they should otherwise have been. Skin
diseases
developed and the soldiers fell victim to malaria, dengue fever and
other
bugs. "I once saw a tape worm a metre long, " said Thelma.
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"A Woman's War"
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Not everything was hard work of course.
Off-duty nurses were invited
out by the colonial "gentry" as well as by the military. They partied
as
much as any group of nubile young Aussies from any era. The parties
helped
to cushion the women's stress - but nothing in their wildest
imagination
could prepare them for what lay just ahead.
How quickly
everything was to change. When Japanese forces advanced from
the north, much of Singapore's military, and those civilians who had
fooled
themselves into thinking it would never happen, were left vulnerable.
On
Christmas Day 1941 the nurses in Malacca got news that the Japanese
were coming through Burma. It was claimed that hospitals had been
attacked
there and nurses raped. Patients had been murdered. Colonel Albert
Coates
(commanding
officer of the AIF 8th Division which the nurses had accompanied aboard
the Queen Mary) expressed an opinion that the
Malacca
nurses would be "trapped like flies" during a Japanese advance. But to
the higher authorities the hospital seemed ideally placed just far
enough
away from Singapore, the expected Front Line, for the wounded to be
moved
up there for treatment. Evacuation from Malacca was therefore delayed
until
bombs and shells were actually falling.
During their retreat the 2/10th AGH kept stopping
to establish field hospitals and attend to increasing numbers of
wounded
only to pack up again for a further move. Sleep was nearly impossible.
"At night the whole place shook. I was doing night duty and you
couldn't
sleep during the day for the bombing and you couldn't work properly at
night because we didn't have enough staff." Thelma and colleague Vi
Haig were woken one day from a rare rest to find the side of the
house
missing and themselves trapped under the wreckage. This trauma might
have
cracked the nerve of lesser women but they soldiered on, though Thelma
admits that from that day it was hard for her to go into any confined
space.
"Once we were caught in an air raid shelter with the dust all coming
down
on top of us," she shuddered, "After being in that house when it was
bombed
I couldn't stay inside."
They
reached Singapore and became involved in the shambles of the
evacuation.
"Our group nursed in a girls school in Singapore, the Methodist School,
we set up a hospital there. I was on night duty and had 150 patients in
that night and only one orderly. I was so tired I wasn't game to sit
down."
Things were really hotting up. "You'd see the men coming off the road
from
battle, holding their hands or their arms where they'd been hit. Half
the
time it wasn't ambulances bringing them in, they were coming in by
themselves."
Between them the 2/10thAGH (Army General Hospital) and their comrades
in
the 13th AGH and the 2/4th CCS (Casualty Clearing Station) were nursing
around 10,000 men.
The nurses worked under fire until the last
moment. Japanese paratroopers
were landing and the bombardment had been relentless. The women could
not
go outside without an armed escort, not only to protect them from the
enemy
but also from friendly fire. "Our men were so toey that any movement
outside,
they'd shoot you on sight. We had to use makeshift toilets and guards
stood
with their guns near you."
Thelma's diary records that on 7th February,
a Saturday "The Japanese
blitzed the island with their long range artillery. Worse than any
bombs.
The noise and vibration was terrific, earth torn up in all places. 4
casualties
at B Section: 1 orderly and 1 Private killed, 2 others injured. Dot
Freeman
had a narrow escape." (Sr R.D. Freeman was to die later in a
Sumatra
POW camp). Quickly the nurses established additional casualty stations.
Thelma was involved in opening up "a lovely home just left to the mercy
of this world" which became C Section and immediately admitted 50 more
patients.
On the Monday they got news that the enemy
had landed on the northwest
coast under cover of heavy shelling. "Casualties came rolling
in,
some pitiful sights, 350 of them. I worked to a very late hour and
slept
on the ground. More shelling during the night."
Next day word came that six of the nurses
were to be ready within 15
minutes to board one of the 
makeshift
hospital ships. The six would
eventually
be Aileen Irving (Charge Sister), Veronica Dwyer, Vi Haig, Iva Craig,
Molly
Campbell and Thelma Bell (McEachern). Matron O.D.
Paschke
R.R.C gave clear instructions: they were to take as many men as they
could,
stay with their patients no matter what might happen and get them to
safety.
Matron Paschke was destined to die at sea only a few days later, one of
the victims of the Vyner Brooke sinking - but those of her nurses who
survived
would continue to obey her orders.
LtoR:
Molly Campbell, (Adelaide
host), Von Dwyer, Thelma Bell 1942
A Life-Changing
Experience:
At the time of Paschke's visit, Thelma was on duty with Sr
"Mitz" Mittelheuser. Thelma asked Paschke whether her best friend Molly
Campbell was included in the six. Molly and Thelma had enlisted
together
and were inseparable. When the Matron confirmed that Molly was on the
list,
Thelma turned to Mitz and asked if she would mind swapping with her so
that she could be with Molly. They agreed to toss a coin. Mitz lost, a
dreadful twist of fate for her, because Sr P.B. Mittelheuser was
destined
to survive
the sinking of the Vyner Brooke
and the hell-camps of Bangka Island and Sumatra only to die a POW at
Palembang
barely 3 days after peace was declared. Unaware of the terrible irony,
she apologised to her colleagues in the camp for "taking so long to
die".
The nurses
got the wounded ready and started moving them. "On the way down
the Japs were machine gunning the ambulances and the people," Thelma
says,
"I met one of our Albury lads. He was on the ambulance at the time and
he kissed me and asked me to take it home to his mother." They found a
small ship waiting for them, a non-naval Chinese vessel called the Wah
Sui , one of many requisitioned in the emergency. British
civilian
officers were put in charge. The nurses managed to get about 450
wounded
soldiers aboard then they waited a further 2 days in the harbour before
they could get away. A lot of civilians had delayed until the last
moment,
so during these 2 days many of them had to be taken aboard the hospital
ship. They arrived laden with personal belongings. As a result there
was
no room to take on any more of the wounded or nurses. This memory still
angered Thelma Bell McEachern 57 years later.
Next day
they were on the move. The ship was displaying the Red Cross
and when a Japanese plane flew over the pilot waved and ignored them,
respecting
the insignia. In this and many other ways they were luckier than the Vyner
Brooke. Later that morning they passed close to a floating
mine. One of the British soldiers died that day and was buried at sea.
Meanwhile the nurses began to recognize that trouble lay ahead and it
was
trouble that had nothing to do with Japanese or mines.
Their
patients were seriously ill. The nurses had deliberately chosen
the most urgent cases for the first evacuation. Many wounds were
infected
but the Charge Sister, Aileen Irving, first sensed unexpected problems
when she reported to the civil officers asking for the release of Red
Cross
supplies. She was refused. Thelma remembers: "The men were fed mostly
tinned
food, which was no good for them at all because they were so sick. And
we weren't allowed to change their dressings because we were told there
was a shortage. The stench was terrible and the men were in a lot of
pain."
She cannot recall the names of the doctors, only that they were British
civilians. When they were asked for supplies the answer was always,
"You
can't have any of those. If the British can put up with it, why not the
Australians" Yet there were Red Cross supplies aboard: medical and
food.
The nurses had to watch helplessly while civilian passengers were
issued
with the supplies, ate the food and drank the beer.
| The wounded soldiers below went without and that was
the crux of
the problem: that, and the fact that Sister Irving never gave up
fighting
with the civil officers for the soldiers' rights. "There were only
the six of us to look after those men, yet there were other women on
board.
They were all well spoken and must have considered that they were above
it. They wouldn't help us in any way. On one occasion a little native
lass
was having a baby. We asked but they wouldn't give over a bedroom for
her,
so she had it on the deck and one of our girls delivered it." Thelma
goes
on to report: " There was a lot of friction between the nurses and the
authorities aboard. Our boys were going without." There was so much
disorganisation
that nobody appeared to be in charge. But these nurses of the 2nd
10th AGH knew what they
had to do: they had Matron Paschke's orders and they were carrying them
out.
On Friday 13th February one of the Aussie boys, a member
of the 2nd
30th Battalion, died and was buried at sea. That night they saw two
burning
ships and stopped in the hope of picking up survivors. Everyone was on
deck until the early hours. Next day, on Thelma's birthday, the Wah
Sui docked in Batavia. The nurses got their patients ready to
transfer
to another hospital ship bound for Colombo. They packed their own gear
and waited aboard the Wah Sui to be transferred too.
All day and all the next night they waited. Nothing.
Gradually they realized that they had been abandoned. A
rumour went
around that a group of 60 Aussie nurses was in port aboard another ship
(the Empire Star)
and the women decided there was no alternative but to go AWOL and look
for them. "We felt all alone. Nowhere to go and no-one to turn to."
They
had not been paid so only had the money in their pockets, not enough to
buy food, and only their kitbags which, Thelma recalled, usually only
contained
a supply of Modess and a minimal change of clothes.
They managed to wave down a transport lorry in the
afternoon. It drove
them to the Princess Juliana School where the nuns took them in and the
nurses immediately began duties. Meanwhile colleagues from the Empire
Star paid them a visit. As a result the abandoned nurses tried
to board that ship. Because they were without orders, permission was
refused.
A couple of days later the Empire Star departed for
Australia
and the Wah Sui group was left behind continuing to work
with the nuns, looking after the wounded and waiting for orders.
On Tuesday 17th they attached themselves the British
Nursing Service
where they attended to the wounded from Sumatra which had just been
invaded.
The next couple of days were a jumble of orders and counter orders.
Nobody
seemed to know what to do with the Wah Sui women.
Eventually
they were accepted aboard a ship containing the 7th Division Middle
East
Battalion and 8 Casualty Clearance sisters. The rumour was that they
were
bound for Australia but orders were changed and Colombo was to be the
destination.
Then the Wah Sui group heard that they were to be put
ashore
again and soon found themselves on the way back to the Princess Juliana
School.
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On
the Friday 20th February on the orders of the 2/2nd Pioneers they
were taken aboard a train for Bandeong, around 150 kilometres away.
When
they arrived no-one met them and no-one knew where they were supposed
to
go. Next day, thinking that it might be safe now to do some laundry,
Thelma
and Molly set out by donkey cart to locate the Savoy Hotel and maybe
some
soap and water. In the middle of their journey an air raid started and
spooked the donkey. It bolted and they found themselves in the native
quarter
and then outside the railway station, utterly lost. The air raid still
on, they located a panic stricken Dutch family who took them in to
shelter
under a table. They got back to their quarters around lunchtime only to
be told that they must pack immediately for a return to Batavia because
the Japanese were coming.
They
boarded a crowded cattle train full of evacuees and arrived safely
to be taken onto the Orcades bound for Colombo, six
older
and very much wiser nurses. On the voyage they continued to do their
duty,
nursing both soldiers and civilians.
Through the
passing years Thelma came to acknowledge that their experience
aboard the Wah Sui and immediately afterwards was
typical
of the chaos of war. Her regret is that the very traumatised
nurses
were never given any help to recover from their experience, neither
were
they allowed to talk about the incident publicly for fear of upsetting
the British allies. "These days people get all this help. We
were
told to get on with it," then Thelma adds philosophically, "It made me
handle life a lot better, I suppose."
In an
article printed in AWAS magazine** Thelma says: "Naturally
after we returned home there were various social occasions where we
were
expected to speak of our exploits. I have the feeling that it was Sr
Molly
Campbell (now Mrs Stenburg) she was a pretty forthright sort of person,
who spoke out. The next thing was, we were told not to say anything. We
were silenced! We were instructed to no longer relate such incidents as
it was considered it would do nothing to help our relations with
Britain,
or help the war effort. And we let it stay that way, and let it be
hushed
up, as we felt that what happened to the girls in the prisoner-of-war
camps*,
and what they had gone through, was more horrific than what we had
endured."
*See the articles on "The
White Coolies" and "Never Be Hungry, Never Be
Cold"
**Australian Women's Army Service and Albury Area,
edited
by Desmond Martin for the Army Women's Service Club, Bandiana, first
published
November 1988.
Thelma's Background:
Thelma Bell McEachern commenced her nursing training at the Albury
Base Hospital where Matron Charlotte McAllister (later
to
become matron of the 115th AGH) encouraged all her nurses to
join
the Army Nursing Reserve. Thelma was later transferred to the
Heldelberg
Military Hospital just outside Melbourne (the
115th
AGH) as a member of the AANS and in this capacity she was
called to join the 2/10th AGH in 1941 along with her best friend Molly
Campbell. Although arguably more highly qualified than army medical
orderlies
(who
held non-commissioned officer rank) in 1941 members of the AANS
had no army status. This was not accorded to them until 1943 when they
were granted the rank of Lieutenant.
© Angell
Productions Pty Limited 1999
Further reading:
"Guns and Brooches" Jan Bassett (Oxford University Press,
Australia)
"On The Duckboards" Gwynedd Hunter-Payne (Allen & Unwin
1995)
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