Lieutenant Colonel Vivian Bullwinkel

Her name was Vivian Bullwinkel, and her story is one of the most extraordinary acts of survival in Australian history.

In 1942, as Singapore fell to Japanese forces, Bullwinkel and a group of Australian Army nurses attempted to escape by sea. Their ship was bombed. The survivors reached Radji Beach on Bangka Island, exhausted and terrified. What happened next would shock the world.

Ordered to walk into the sea, the nurses were machine gunned from behind. Vivian Bullwinkel was the sole survivor. Shot and wounded, she lay still among her fallen colleagues before crawling into the jungle, eventually enduring years of brutal captivity as a prisoner of war.

After the war, she dedicated her life to nursing, remembrance, and the welfare of returned service personnel. She rose to become Lieutenant Colonel, a fierce advocate for her fellow nurses, and a quiet but unyielding custodian of memory.

In this episode, we honour her courage, her resilience, and the legacy she carried for those who never came home.

It is a story of horror, endurance, and the remarkable strength of one Australian woman who refused to let the world forget.

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