“Most of them were like skeletons; they weighed well under six stone and could be carried and lifted by one person.”[1]
- Sister W. Risley,
describing POWs released from
Japanese captivity in September 1942
Embedded Files
Jess Gregory Doyle (1911–1993)
Image courtesy of Virtual War Memorial Australia
Jess Gregory Doyle was born on 27th November 1911 to Nina Rebecca Doyle and Richard H. Doyle in Sydney. (She was also the granddaughter and great niece of the then-famous New South Wales cricketers and brothers, Charles, Dave, and Ned Gregory). After growing up as an only child in the eastern suburbs area of Potts Point, she graduated as a nurse from the Prince Henry Hospital Training School in 1935.[2] After the outbreak of the Second World War, Sister Doyle enlisted with the Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS) Emergency unit on 10th December 1940 (Army No. NX70499). Her unit of the 2/10th Australian General Hospital (AGH) departed from Sydney Harbour onboard the Queen Mary liner, together with forty-two other nurses and three physiotherapists, as well as troops from the 8th Division, to the sounds of cheers, sirens, bands, and singing “Maori Farewell” bidding them farewell.[3]
HM Transport Queen Mary in Sydney Harbour, 1941
Image and description courtesy of J. S. Archbold and the Australian War Memorial
They were initially told that they were heading for the Middle East, where the majority of the Australian Army was based in combat with the Axis forces. However, after arriving in Fremantle, Western Australia, disappointment and frustration then ensued when it was announced that they would be heading instead to Malaya.[4] Disembarking at Singapore on 18th February 1941, the next day her group was transported 160 kilometres north to the ‘picturesque old town’[5] of Malacca on the Malayan peninsula. From then onwards, Sister Doyle served both with the 10th and 13th AGH.[6] Life as an Army nurse in Malaya, at least as reported at the time by the Australian Women’s Weekly, lent itself to a considerable degree of carefree. Matron Olive Paschke apparently had quoted them: “Some days we feel like film stars…The local residents send us huge baskets of orchids, presents of fruit, and invitations to their homes or clubs.”[7] Nurses were afforded with books, gramophones, and sewing machines by the Red Cross. “We never did anything for ourselves. We had Amahs to do everything for us,” recollected Staff Nurse Dorothy Sheehan.[8] Malacca, however, was relatively less glamorous, but still nevertheless easygoing. Shifts ranged regular hours from 9:00am to 5:30pm or splits shifts from 7:00am to 1:00pm and 5:30pm to 9:00pm. Patient care mainly involved the Australian soldiers from the 8th Division, mainly medical issues concerning tinea resulting from the heat, febrile infections, and skin diseases. Whilst off-duty, nurses would play various sports activities, vacate the swimming pool or beach spots, go sightseeing, or walk around the surrounding area that was described as “like a big park.”[9] Some managed to behave like tourists travelling to Kuala Lumpa or visiting the famous high societal club, the “Spotted Dog.”[10]
Staff of the 2/10th Australian General Hospital ready to go for a swim, Malaya, 1941
Image and description courtesy of the Australian War Memorial
When war broke out in the Pacific with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7th December 1941, all military personnel were put on immediate alert. Nurses were eventually confined to barracks for nearly two weeks. They were not allowed to leave hospital grounds without an armed escort and were required to carry heavy respirators and tin hats.
Sisters of the 2/13th Australian General Hospital wearing their helmets and carrying their gas masks, Tompoi, Malaya, 1941.
Image and description courtesy of L. Arthurson and the Australian War Memorial
On 10th January 1942, with the Japanese preparing for its all-out assault on the Dutch East Indies, the 2/10th AGH were evacuated Malacca and reestablished itself at the Oldham Hall Mission Boarding School on Singapore Island.[11] Sister Doyle was subsequently seconded to the 2/13th AGH before embarking on the Vyner Brooke on 12th February, after a haphazard confusion over evacuation requests for nursing staff on part of the military bureaucrats.[12] Morale eventually dissipated, as nurses and the population did not want to leave and appear to desert their patients; Matron Paschke begged in vain to be allowed to stay. Usually carrying twelve passengers only, the Vyner Brooke became overcrowded with the additional sixty-five Australian nurses from Singapore (the last to be evacuated) leaving the passenger liner with a total of 181 passengers – mostly women and children. As a precautionary measure, the nurses decided to wear the Red Cross emblem on their arms, to which passengers “cheered up considerably”[13] upon seeing nurse uniforms. The next day, the ship was attacked by Japanese aircraft but with no serious casualties. However, at 2pm the following day, after trying to reach the city of Palembang in Sumatra through the Banka Strait, the Vyner Brooke was eventually sunk within half-an-hour from another direct attack by the Japanese aircraft. As instructed by their superiors, the nurses assisted in making sure that all civilians went overboard before leaving the sinking ship themselves. Twelve out of the sixty-five nurses onboard had drowned in the water, including Matron Paschke and Sister Kathleen Kinsella, the Sister-in-charge of the 2/4th Casualty Clearing Station (CCS). The others spent periods between eight to sixty-five hours in the strong water currents, either in their life-boats, hanging onto its rafts, or swimming.[14] The next day, Singapore had capitulated, and following day thereafter, Sister Doyle was reported to ‘missing.’ On 6th March 1943, after over a year of her whereabouts still deemed unknown – Sister Doyle was then officially classified as presumably taken as Prisoner of War. A few weeks later, she was promoted to the rank of Captain.[15]
Matron Oliver Dorothy Paschke and nurses of the 2/10th Australian General Hospital. She drowned in the waters after the sinking of the SS Vyner Brooke by Japanese aircraft.
Image and description courtesy of the Australian War Memorial
On 16th September 1945, two weeks after the surrender of the Japanese was formally signed – signaling the end of the greatest conflict in human history – twenty-four members of AANS waited patiently at the Lahat aerodrome in Sumutra. They were told that it might be passenger airliner to take them back home. They had all come from a Japanese internment camp in Loebok Linggau in south Sumutra, arriving there the previous day by train and truck. Three weeks earlier, native guards were sent away after advising the internees that war was over. These were the same Australian nurses that had survived the sinking of the SS Vyner Brooke and, since that time, had endured three years and seven months of captivity at the hands of the notorious Japanese. Since their release, their physical health began to substantially improve since the Japanese surrender when they were subsequently allowed food and medical care.[16] Amongst those waiting at Lahat was Capt. Doyle, whom herself was rescued on 5th September 1945 – three days after the war officially ended.[17] Eight other nurses, however, had already died – all within the year 1945, ordered to be buried by their fellow nurses; the last one being Sister Pearl Mittleheuser on 18th August – only three days after the Japanese surrendered.[18] Finally, when a Douglas DC3 of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) had touched down three hours later at 3:45pm, there was a grim silence and disbelief amongst the group. A male officer alighted from the aircraft and immediately walks towards them. The crew had been searching for them for at least three weeks with no helpful assistance from the Japanese. “Are there any Australian Sisters here?” he says.[19] The cast was finally broken. They all immediately began running towards the airliner. Suddenly, they became distracted by two female figures dressed in grey with safari jackets and hats waving and smiling at them. They were Capt. Jean Floyd, a fellow nurse colleague who had survived the Vyner Brook and had miraculously evaded enemy capture; the other was their Matron-in Chief Col. Annie Sage. Unsure exactly who the latter was they asked, “Who are you?” Col. Sage then went to every single nurse and replied, “I am the mother of you all.”[20] Chatter and laughter ensued. When the Matron also enquired about the remaining nurses from their unit, Capt. Floyd explained, “This is all. There are twenty-four of us.”[21]
Singapore, September 1945 - Surviving nurses from the 2/10th and 2/13th Australian General Hospitals, and the 2/4th Casualty Clearing Station wearing their oil-stained uniforms after the sinking of the Vyner Booke on 14th February 1942. They returned from Sumatra after three years and seven months as POWs, or 'white coolies,' by the Japanese. Capt. Jess Doyle is at rear fifth from the right.
Image and description courtesy of the Australian War Memorial
Capt. Doyle together with her fellow nurses and other surviving POWs were transported back to Singapore a month later. She was admitted to the 2/14th AGH at St Patrick’s School before boarding the hospital ship liner AHS Manunda, finally repatriating back to her hometown of Sydney on 27th October 1945.[22] During this time, military inquiries for investigating war crimes were being set up, as well as news reporters scurrying to get their stories in print regarding their three and a half years ordeal at the hands of the Japanese. And, so here their story goes…
Capt. Jess Doyle of the 2/10th Australian General Hospital sitting up in a hospital bed after her release from Belalau, a Japanese POW camp outside Loebok Linggau in Sumatra.
She was also on the Vyner Brooke when it sunk on 14th February 1942.
She was also on the Vyner Brooke when it sunk on 14th February 1942.
Image and description courtesy of the Australian War Memorial
The day after being captured by the Japanese, Sister Doyle, along with three other nurses, was immediately informed by their captors that they were to either “work” for them, or starve to death. Decrying in protest that nursing was the only work they do, they thereby refused all other menial labour. The Japanese then proceeded to cut their rations – forcing them to eat only tapioca root growing in the yards. For the first month of their captivity, they were taken to ‘coolie lines’ that were all in atrocious condition. Eventually, the Japanese commandants also began pressuring the nurses by attempting to elicit sexual favours from them. An officers’ club had recently opened at nearby Muntok where they insisted they should be ‘entertained’ in return for the nurses to receive better treatment, or so they said. Courageously still refusing, the personal cost to them was great. “The mental strain,” said Sister Agnes Betty Jeffrey, “was far worse than even being shipwrecked, bombed and sunk.” Sister Nesta Jones also stated after her rescue, “The mental strain was terrific. We lived in constant fear that they would use force where persuasion failed, but they did not.”[23] Defying orders always led to instant punishment. Camp guards would regularly beat them if they failed to salute him when they walked past. The most common and wretched abuse for ‘offences’ was being made to stand under the blazing sun for hours on end; one sister had inevitably collapsed, later dying. During all this time, Capt. Doyle was still able to write home. Writing her first letter to her mother since her capture, in January 1944, she notified her of her whereabouts – and imprisoned camp in Talembang, Sumatra. She described how their activities of sewing and knitting, games of mahjong and contract bridge, evening walks help pass the time. Also discussed was the dormant subject of wearing decent clothes. “I wish you could see the clothes we wear – mostly only shorts and a sun top, with wooden Dutch clogs on our feet,” Capt. Doyle wrote.[24] Yet, despite all the humility, beatings, and degradations, the nurses all shared a strong-willed egalitarian spirit of ‘mateship’ bestowed upon that honour of an ANZAC and never allowed the enemy simple satisfaction as being seen to be beaten. They also occasionally laughed – something the Japanese also detested of them. “We were weak and exhausted,” said Sister Jones, “but we were too proud to let them see us down, and we kept going…I cannot pay too high a tribute to the spirit of our girls. They never gave up. They never lost hope.”[25] By the end of the war, they all suffered from malnutrition and some contracted dysentery, ber-beri, and malaria after years of hard labour, lack of food, and physical and mental punishment.
A group of the Australian Army Nursing Service at Melbourne Town Hall in their Victory Parade march, 29th November 1945.
Image and desciption courtesy of the Australian War Memorial
Capt. Doyle was subsequently awarded with the Pacific Star medal, Defence Medal, War Medal, and the Australian Service Medal for her wartime services. She left the AANS on 8th April 1946.[26] A few weeks later, Sister Jess Doyle married Capt. Norman Macauley of the Australian Infantry Force at St John’s Anglican Church in Darlinghurst on 23rd April. (Capt. Macauley was also held as a POW of the Japanese in Malaya). The week before her wedding, a special party was arranged by her fellow ex-POW nurses attached to 10th AGH at the then prestige Kinneil House in Elizabeth Bay.[27] The Civil Air Patrol later acknowledged that Capt. Doyle had also been mentioned in military dispatches during the war.[28]
Sister Jess Doyle died in Upper Hutt, Wellington, New Zealand, in 1993, and was buried there in the churchyard at St John’s Anglican Church. She is survived by her three children: Peter, Judith, and Barbara McAuley.[29]
Footnotes:
Footnotes:
[1] Richard Reid, Page, Courtney, and Robert Pounds, ed., Just wanted to be there: Australian Service Nurses 1899 – 1999. (Canberra: Commonwealth Department of Veteran’s Affairs, 1999): 82.
[2] Maylean Cordia, Nurses at Little Bay. (Sydney: Prince Henry Hospital Trained Nurses’ Association, 1990): 508; “Jess Gregory (Doyle) McAuley (1911 – aft. 1992),” WikiTree, 2008-2022, Interesting.com, Inc.,
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Doyle-6332.
[3] Commonwealth of Australia, Army Headquarters, Attestation Form; “For Special Forces Raised in Service in Australia or Abroad;” Officer’s Record of Service, Military Record, Sydney, “DOYLE JESS GREGORY: Service Number – NX70499: Date of birth – 27 Nov 1911: Place of birth – SYDNEY NSW: Place of enlistment – SYDNEY NSW: Next of Kin – DOYLE NINA,” From National Archives of Australia, B883, NX70499, https://www.naa.gov.au/ (accessed November 11, 2022); Catherine Kenny, Captives: Australian Army nurses in Japanese prison camps (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1986): accessed November 23, 2022: RUSI NSW’s Ursula Davidson Library, Anzac Memorial, Sydney.
[4] Catherine Kenny, Captives: Australian Army nurses in Japanese prison camps (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1986): accessed November 23, 2022: RUSI NSW’s Ursula Davidson Library, Anzac Memorial, Sydney.
[5] Jan Bassett, Guns and Brooches: Australian Army Nursing from the Boer War to the Gulf War. (South Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1992): 133.
[6] Commonwealth of Australia, Army Headquarters, Officer’s Record of Service, Military Record, Sydney, “DOYLE JESS GREGORY: Service Number – NX70499: Date of birth – 27 Nov 1911: Place of birth – SYDNEY NSW: Place of enlistment – SYDNEY NSW: Next of Kin – DOYLE NINA,” From National Archives of Australia, B883, NX70499, https://www.naa.gov.au/ (accessed November 11, 2022).
[7] Catherine Kenny, Captives: Australian Army nurses in Japanese prison camps (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1986): accessed November 23, 2022: RUSI NSW’s Ursula Davidson Library, Anzac Memorial, Sydney.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Jan Bassett, Guns and Brooches: Australian Army Nursing from the Boer War to the Gulf War. (South Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1992): 133.
[10] Ibid., 134.
[11] Ibid., 136-137.
[12] Commonwealth of Australia, Army Headquarters, Officer’s Record of Service, Military Record, Sydney, “DOYLE JESS GREGORY: Service Number – NX70499: Date of birth – 27 Nov 1911: Place of birth – SYDNEY NSW: Place of enlistment – SYDNEY NSW: Next of Kin – DOYLE NINA,” From National Archives of Australia, B883, NX70499, https://www.naa.gov.au/ (accessed November 11, 2022); Jan Bassett, Guns and Brooches: Australian Army Nursing from the Boer War to the Gulf War. (South Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1992): 137.
[13] Jan Bassett, Guns and Brooches: Australian Army Nursing from the Boer War to the Gulf War. (South Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1992): 139.
[14] Jan Bassett, Guns and Brooches: Australian Army Nursing from the Boer War to the Gulf War. (South Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1992): 139.
[15] Commonwealth of Australia, Army Headquarters, Officer’s Record of Service, Military Record, Sydney, “DOYLE JESS GREGORY: Service Number – NX70499: Date of birth – 27 Nov 1911: Place of birth – SYDNEY NSW: Place of enlistment – SYDNEY NSW: Next of Kin – DOYLE NINA,” From National Archives of Australia, B883, NX70499, https://www.naa.gov.au/ (accessed November 11, 2022).
[16] Richard Reid, Page, Courtney, and Robert Pounds, ed., Just wanted to be there: Australian Service Nurses 1899 – 1999. (Canberra: Commonwealth Department of Veteran’s Affairs, 1999): 82-83.
[17] Commonwealth of Australia, Army Headquarters, Officer’s Record of Service, Military Record, Sydney, “DOYLE JESS GREGORY: Service Number – NX70499: Date of birth – 27 Nov 1911: Place of birth – SYDNEY NSW: Place of enlistment – SYDNEY NSW: Next of Kin – DOYLE NINA,” From National Archives of Australia, B883, NX70499, https://www.naa.gov.au/ (accessed November 11, 2022).
[18] Richard Reid, Page, Courtney, and Robert Pounds, ed., Just wanted to be there: Australian Service Nurses 1899 – 1999. (Canberra: Commonwealth Department of Veteran’s Affairs, 1999): 83.
[19] Jan Bassett, Guns and Brooches: Australian Army Nursing from the Boer War to the Gulf War. (South Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1992): 150.
[20] Ibid., 151.
[21] Richard Reid, Page, Courtney, and Robert Pounds, ed., Just wanted to be there: Australian Service Nurses 1899 – 1999. (Canberra: Commonwealth Department of Veteran’s Affairs, 1999): 83.
[22] Commonwealth of Australia, Army Headquarters, Officer’s Record of Service, Military Record, Sydney, “DOYLE JESS GREGORY: Service Number – NX70499: Date of birth – 27 Nov 1911: Place of birth – SYDNEY NSW: Place of enlistment – SYDNEY NSW: Next of Kin – DOYLE NINA,” From National Archives of Australia, B883, NX70499, https://www.naa.gov.au/ (accessed November 11, 2022); Jan Bassett, Guns and Brooches: Australian Army Nursing from the Boer War to the Gulf War. (South Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1992): 151.
[23] G. E. W. Harriott, “Humiliated, Ill-Treated and Starved,” Sydney Morning Herald, Online, September 18, 1945, 3, From Trove, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article17953435 (accessed November 28, 2022).
[24] Daily Telegraph, “Letter from Jap Camp,” Online, January 25, 1944, 8, From Trove,
http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article247749400 (accessed November 28, 2022).
[25] G. E. W. Harriott, “Humiliated, Ill-Treated and Starved,” Sydney Morning Herald, Online, September 18, 1945, 3, From Trove, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article17953435 (accessed November 28, 2022).
[26] Commonwealth of Australia, Army Headquarters, Officer’s Record of Service; Telex 33464, Military Record, Sydney, “DOYLE JESS GREGORY: Service Number – NX70499: Date of birth – 27 Nov 1911: Place of birth – SYDNEY NSW: Place of enlistment – SYDNEY NSW: Next of Kin – DOYLE NINA,” From National Archives of Australia, B883, NX70499, https://www.naa.gov.au/ (accessed November 11, 2022).
[27] Daily Telegraph, “Nurse and Fiance Were Both P.O.W.,” Online, April 16, 1946, 17, From Trove,
http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article248497497 (accessed November 28, 2022).
[28] Mercury, “Former POW Nurses Honoured,” Online, April 1, 1947, 7, From Trove,
http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article26382296 (accessed November 28, 2022).
[29] “Jess Gregory (Doyle) McAuley (1911 – aft. 1992),” WikiTree, 2008-2022, Interesting.com, Inc.,https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Doyle-6332.
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