A full day for us tomorrow

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Tomorrow, we have two functions to attend. Hopefully, we’ll be able to cope with so much activity on the one day. In the morning, we’ll attend a play called 21 Hearts. It tells the story of Vivian Bullwinkel, one of 65 Australian nurses who were on board the Vyner Brooke in February, 1942. The ship was loaded with people attempting to flee the Japanese invasion of Singapore, but was bombed by fighter planes and sank. Some survivors made their way to Radji Beach on Banka Island but were eventually forced to surrender to the Japanese. The men in the group were all murdered and 22 nurses were forced to march into the sea before being machine-gunned by soldiers on the beach. A bullet passed through Vivian Bullwinkel, missing vital organs. She pretended to be dead until the Japanese left the scene. She then spent 12 days in the jungle, together with a badly wounded British army soldier. Although under very different circumstances,, Vivian shares a link with the sole survivor of the Indian air crash, Vivian also would have had to cope with being the only of her group to survive. She devoted her life to nursing and to honouring those killed on that beach. This play tells the story of Bullwinkel and her comrades, and remembers the courage and resilience of those who were silenced.