Phyllis Bronwyn Pugh (1916)

Born 29 Jan 1916 in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Biography

Phyllis Bronwyn Pugh was born in 29th January 1916 at Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. She was a daughter of Ernest Pugh and Annie Burrows.^[1]

Phyllis was a nurse

Phyllis completed nursing training and was registered as a nurse.

Phyllis Pugh is a Military Veteran.
Served in the Second Australian Imperial Force 1941-1946
2/13 Australian General Hospital; 2/14 Australian General Hospital

On 3rd April 1941, Phyllis was commissioned as a nurse into the Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS) and attached to the 2/13th Australian General Hospital (AGH), then based in Johor, Malaya.^[2] Along with 58 other Australian nurses and many civilians, including women and children, Phyllis was evacuated from Singapore on 11th February aboard the Empress Star. The ship made port safely at Batavia (Jakarta) and eventually in Australia. The following day, the remaining 65 Australian nurses in Singapore boarded the Vyner Brooke but were not so fortunate; being bombed by Japanese aircraft and sunk; the nurses being either killed in the sinking, murdered on Bangka Island or interred as prisoners-of-war. Towards the end of the war, Phyllis successfully requested posting to the 2/14th AGH, being deployed to the freed-Singapore, so that she could be on hand to assist her former comrades in their repatriation from prisoners-of-war.^[3]

After five very long years, Phyllis was discharged from the AANS on 27th May 1946.

Nothing more is known of Phyllis' life. Are you able to help fill out her biography?

Sources

1. ↑ Queensland Birth Index #B43063/1916
2. ↑ Department of Veterans' Affairs nominal roll: QFX22716 (QF70240) Lieutenant Phyllis Pugh; 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