Caroline Mary Ennis

Then suddenly the raft was once more caught in a current …

White Coolies, Betty Jeffrey,  Angus & Robertson, 1954.

§

Military staff nurse Caroline Mary Ennis, known as Carrie, most likely never dreamed she would find herself aboard the legendary Queen Mary, an 80,000 tonne luxurious ocean liner. Yet, in early February 1941, she was one of forty-three nurses from the 2/10th Australian General Hospital (AGH) who boarded the ship at Pyrmont dock in Sydney.

Carrie, the oldest child of Hugh Martin Ennis and Mary (Mollie) Josephine Carter, was born at a private hospital at Swan Hill, Victoria on 13 August 1913. Her early years were spent on grazing properties in Victoria and Queensland. In July 1922, her father died suddenly at Charters Towers, Queensland leaving his wife to care for their four children. Mollie and her children returned to Victoria in December 1923 and in 1924 Mollie married Joseph Graham, a farmer at Gerogery in New South Wales.

Twenty-year-old Carrie, in the early winter of 1933 commenced as a trainee nurse at Beechworth’s Ovens District Hospital. With a sizeable and ever-increasing overdraft, a crumbling building and rumours that the nurses were not getting enough to eat, the hospital was way past its glory days.

Carrie frequently clashed with the hospital’s matron, World War I nurse Matron Agnes Moglia, which led to her tendering her resignation twice. However, after successfully passing her final exams in July 1936, Carrie moved to Wangaratta where she nursed at both the Wangaratta District Hospital and Westham Private Hospital.

The Queen Mary docked at Seletar, a British Naval Base in Singapore on 18 February 1941. Equipped with their first army ration, a two doorstep sandwich and an apple, the 2/10th AGH travelled overnight to a 600 bed Colonial Service Hospital in Malacca, a town on the east coast of the Malay peninsula.

Although they appreciated the hospital's bright and spacious accommodations, they were dismayed by the inadequate medical facilities and equipment. For the first few months they had to borrow instruments from local civilian hospitals. Recognizing the critical need for their services in the Middle East theatre of war, some were frustrated by the lack of urgent demand for them in Southeast Asia at that time.

Ranked as officers, the nurses consisted of senior sisters who had two brown stripes adorning the sleeves of their uniform. Under them were staff nurses also called sisters. Both senior sisters and the staff nurses wore a uniform made of grey cotton with detachable white cuffs and collar and a white veil headdress. A small scarlet shoulder cape was added for more formal occasions.

Despite having a number of patients with various conditions such as accidental injuries, skin complaints, common colds, and malaria, the staff were not yet operating at full capacity, allowing them to enjoy significant time off. During their free time, some engaged in activities like playing golf, swimming, tennis, and bridge, watching films at the local cinema, and attending dances and concerts. Their off-duty hours were strictly regulated. They had to be in uniform, travel in pairs or in groups of four with officers, and were prohibited from socializing with lower-ranked soldiers. If found fraternizing with enlisted men, they faced confinement to barracks. They were only permitted to go out three nights a week and had to return by one minute to midnight.

They also enjoyed the freedom which came from not having to handle their daily chores such as washing, bed-making, and shoe-cleaning, as these tasks were taken care of by Amahs (maids).

This almost idyllic existence ended abruptly when, in December 1941, the Japanese onslaught through the Malay Peninsula's jungle and mangroves began at Kota Bharu on the north-east coast.

During Christmas Eve 1941, the nursing staff adorned the hospital with decorations supplied by the Red Cross. On Christmas Day, after church, the nurses, medics, and orderlies visited each ward to sing carols. While they were singing, the air raid alarm sounded, causing them to don tin hats and respirators and then resumed carolling. Later, they sat down to a traditional Christmas dinner of turkey and plum pudding. On Boxing Day, the realities of war were brought closer by the appearance of Japanese aircraft.

§

As the Japanese army swept down the Malayan Peninsula, it became clear that Singapore was their objective. The speed of their advance, was clearly a threat to the 2/10th AGH. In early 1942, the decision was made to remove the hospital from Malacca to the Oldham Hall Mission Boarding House and the nearby Manor House on Singapore’s Bukit Timah Road.

On the afternoon of 12 February 1942, Matron Paschke ordered her nurses to quickly collect their belongings as they were being evacuated immediately. With wounded men everywhere, in beds, on stretchers on the floor, on verandas, in garages, tents and dug-outs, her orders were greeted by howls of protest but she remained steadfast. With barely enough time to grab personal belongings, rations, field dressings, gas mask and tin helmets, they were hurriedly loaded into waiting ambulances.

On their drive to the docks, the nurses were forced to take cover in St. Andrew’s Cathedral, where they sat in pews, while an air raid raged and the sound of ack-ack guns echoed loudly throughout the church.

After the all clear sounded, the ambulances made their way through dense palls of smoke and rubble filled streets and stopped near the waterfront, leaving the nurses to walk to the wharf where hundreds of people were desperately trying to leave the island.  After what seemed an interminable wait, a tug took them across the harbour to a small ship, the Vyner Brooke, originally designed for a passenger load of twelve, now held over 200 people – civilian men, women and children and sixty-five Australian nurses from 2/10th AGH, the 2/4th Casualty Clearing Station and the 2/13th AGH.

Once on board, Matron Paschke quickly realised there was very little food available apart from what the nurses had brought with them, mainly tins of bully beef and baked beans and some fresh drinking water. They set about producing a meal of army tinned meat and tinned vegetables. A chain gang of nurses passed plates of food from the galley to everyone on board.

In the event of an attack, each nurse was equipped with field dressings, morphine, and syringes, and assigned a specific area of the ship to tend to the injured. If the ship needed to be abandoned, the nurses were to be the last to evacuate. They were required to wear their Red Cross armbands at all times as a symbol of protection and neutrality, intended to ensure they would not be targeted in combat.

Matron Paschke also instructed them on how to leave the ship: shoes off, lifebelt held down firmly, and a feet-first jump into the water. If the lifebelt wasn't held down firmly, it could rise up and hit the chin, potentially causing a broken neck.

Darkness was setting in as the ship pulled away and from the deck, broken only by the huge fires surrounding Singapore with black smoke billowing higher and higher into the sky.

Exhausted the nurses settled down to a disturbed night’s sleep on the decks with their coats over them and their gas respirators for pillows. The next morning, they were alarmed on learning that during the night, the Vyner Brooke had lost its convoy and was left to navigate alone through dangerous waters filled with Japanese mines. Their destination was Batavia, but to reach it, they would have to cross the Banka Strait, all the while avoiding enemy ships and aircraft.

With only six lifeboats on board, it was decided that two would accommodate 30 passengers each, while the remaining boats would hold 20 each. All passengers, including children, were given life belts and instructed on their use. Those who were strong swimmers were asked to swim. Additionally, there were several dozen life rafts of various sizes made of canvas-covered interwoven wooden slats filled with cork for flotation. Each raft had rope handles for people in the water to hold onto.

The Vyner Brooke spent most of Friday, 13 February, hiding behind islands. But unfortunately, they couldn’t hide forever.

The following day, Saturday, 14 February, the ship entered the Banka Strait on a calm, flat sea. Due to a shortage of food, the nurses decided to skip lunch and rest instead. At 2 p.m., their rest ended with the sounding of the ship’s siren. They quickly donned their lifebelts and tin hats and lay on the floor of the lounge, where Sisters Carrie Ennis and Betty Jeffrey had a clear view of the approaching Japanese planes. The first bombing attempt missed, but the second was successful; one bomb struck the bridge while another went straight down the funnel, blowing out the bottom of the ship.

After the ship’s engine fell silent, a ship’s officer ordered everyone to leave the lounge and head for the lifeboats.

The Japanese not satisfied with the mayhem and injury they’d already caused came back, machine gunning the deck, severing lifeboats, one of which filled and sank, the other turned upside down and floated away.

Anxious to avoid lingering on a burning and rapidly sinking ship, Carrie and her colleagues set about getting every civilian off the ship before jumping off themselves. They swam well away from the ship, grabbing anything that floated, hanging onto it in small groups. In the distance they could see Banka Island, about twelve miles away.

Floating oil covered dead bodies were everywhere, some with broken necks. The Japanese still not satisfied with the carnage they’d inflicted strafed the ship and anyone in lifeboats or on rafts leaving dead men, women and children bobbing up and down in their life vests.

On one raft were Sisters Mary Clarke, Carrie Ennis holding two small children, Millie Dorsch, Iole Harper, Betty Jeffrey, Gladys McDonald, Matron Paschke, Sister Annie Trenerry, four or five civilian women and two Malay sailors. Those who were uninjured hung onto the side of the raft, while those hurt or ill sat on it. Matron Paschke, Iole and Betty rowed all night taking it in turns. When Iole wasn’t rowing, she swam around the raft, counted everyone and urged those tired of hanging on to use their feet to help push the raft. They passed many of their colleagues in small groups clinging to wreckage and rafts.

As night fell, their spirits soared at the sight of ships on the horizon, believing them to be part of the British Navy. Later, they saw motor boats combing the darkness for survivors, but their desperate shouts went unheard. Eventually, they managed to come alongside a long pier, only to be cruelly dragged out to sea. Seeing a fire on the shore, they paddled furiously towards it. Despite getting tantalizingly close, they were once again swept back into the open waters.

Spotting what appeared to be large rocks in the distance, they paddled in the direction of them. But their hearts sank upon discovering that these "rocks" were actually motor boats filled with Japanese soldiers. The soldiers encircled the raft, fixing their gaze on the women and speaking to them in Japanese. Much to their immense relief, after what felt like an eternity, the Japanese abruptly turned their boats around and departed.

When daylight broke, they discovered much to their dismay that they were many miles farther down the coast and as far out sea as when the Vyner Brooke sank.

Realizing that the raft was overloaded and hindering their progress, the two Malays, Iole Harper and Betty Jeffrey, chose to swim alongside while two others took over rowing. Remaining on the raft were Sisters Mary Clarke, Millie Dorsch, Carrie Ennis holding two small children, Annie Trenery, Gladys McDonald and Matron Olive Paschke, along with several civilian women. Spirits lifted as they headed toward the distant shore. However, the current had one more trick up its sleeve. Iole Harper and Betty Jeffrey watched helplessly as the raft was suddenly carried swiftly out to sea.

Author, Colin Burgess, in his book, Sisters in Captivity writes of a reported finding on a small beach of an intact identity disc belonging to Sister Millicent Dorsch. Does this finding, if correct, suggest that those on the raft made it to shore? If, so what happened to them?

§

Iole and Betty with the help of the current swam towards land. On reaching the shore they found themselves among mangroves which were too thick to struggle through so they spent the night in the tree tops. The next day they took to the water again, moving along the coast looking for a suitable place to go ashore. They spent another night in the tree tops before finding a place where they could break through the jungle. They found their way to a village where the Malays hid and fed them. Believing they could never get through to Sumatra or down to Java, they gave themselves up to the Japanese and became prisoners of war.

§

More than 15,000 Australian soldiers were captured when Singapore surrendered on 15 February 1942. Of these 7,000 died as prisoners of war. Controversially, the commander of Australian forces on the island, Major General Gordon Bennett, escaped the island with two staff officers on the night of the surrender.

§

Of the sixty-five nurses who boarded the Vyner Brooke, twelve were lost at sea, twenty-one were shot and killed on Radji beach by Japanese soldiers, eight died in Japanese prisoner of war camps and twenty-four returned home to Australia in October 1945. See Sinking of the Vyner Brooke & Banka Island Massacre.

§

©Anne Hanson, 2024                                 E-mail:  Anne Hanson