Kathleen Constance (Blake) Dixon (1912 - 1998)

Australian Nurses of the Vyner Brooke

Biography

Kathleen Constance 'Pat' Blake was born on 16th July 1912 at Chatswood, New South Wales, Australia. She was a daughter of George Blake and Catherine F unknown.^[1]

Pat completed her training and was registered as a nurse.

On 20th December 1940, Pat was commissioned as a nurse in the Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS) and posted to the 2/10th Australian General Hospital, then deployed in Malaya.^[2] Along with 64 other Australian nurses and many civilians, including women and children, Pat was evacuated from Singapore on 12th February aboard the ill-fated Vyner Brooke. The ship was discovered by the Japanese as it was entering the Bangka Strait two days later, bombed and strafed repeatedly, and sank in twenty minutes.^[3]

After several hours drifting in the sea, Carrie's life-boat found land at Bangka Island, Netherlands East Indies (Indonesia) and made her way to the tin-smeltering town of Muntok. There, she became a prisoner of war of the Japanese; held at Bangka Island and Sumatra until September 1945. After being repatriated to Australia, she was discharged from the Second Australian Imperial Force (AIF) on 24th July 1946.^[4]

Kathleen lost no time in marrying Keith Dixon in 1945 at North Sydney.^[5]

She passed away, aged 85 years, on 7th April 1998 at Sydney, New South Wales and is buried in the New South Wales Garden of Remembrance.^[6]

Sources

1. ↑ New South Wales Birth Index #27729/1912
2. ↑ Department of Veterans' Affairs nominal roll: NX70528 Sister Kathleen Constance Blake; accessed 29 Feb 2020
3. ↑ Shaw, Ian W. 'On Radji Beach: The Story of the Australian Nurses after the Fall of Singapore'. MacMillan, Sydney, 2010. ISBN 978-1-4050-4024-2
4. ↑ Australian War Memorial prisoners-of-war: NX70528 Nurse Kathleen Constance Blake; accessed 1 Mar 2020
5. ↑ New South Wales Marriage Index #23220/1945
6. ↑ VWMA: Kathleen Constance Blake (Dixon); accessed 1 Mar 2020