Sister Bullwinkel (The untold, uncensored story)

Vivian Bullwinkel has put on a brave face to the world for the past fifty-two years, ever since she was released from a Japanese prison camp in Sumatra at the end of World War II. Her story is one she has recounted many times. Vivian was the sole survivor of a massacre of twenty-one nursing sisters and one civilian woman by Japanese troops on Radji Beach on Bangka Island.

Although she told army investigators exactly what had happened, her testimony was censored and effectively erased from the official record. Despite her best efforts, Vivian was silenced from the outset by her own government and by the Australian Army, which ordered her to remain quiet—an order she was duty-bound to obey as a serving member of the military.

Vivian longed to speak out. She believed that telling the truth would finally free her from the years of torment she carried. But she was repeatedly thwarted by higher authorities—by a succession of men who believed they knew better—and was prevented from revealing what she had endured.

In this important work, Lynette Ramsay Silver uncovers what truly happened on Bangka Island. “I refuse to stay silent, to be a party to any further cover-up. It is time to tell the real story of the life of this amazing Australian woman. Vivian wanted a voice. I am proud, finally, to be able to give it to her.”