Bessie Wilmott (1913 - 1942)

Singapore Memorial

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  Australian Nurses of the Vyner Brooke

Biography

Bessie 'Peggy' Wilmott was born on 24th May 1913 in North Perth, Western Australia, Australia. She was the firstborn child, and only daughter, of John Wilmott and Clarice Thompson. ^[1] Her mother afterwards gave birth to two sons, in 1914 and 1917, however passed away in 1919. Her father married again in 1923.

Bessie became a nurse. On 14th August 1940 she was commissioned as a sister into the Australian Army Nursing Service and attached to the 2/4th Australian Casualty Clearing Station, then based in Malaya. ^[2] Along with 64 other Australian nurses and many civilians, including women and children, Peggy 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]

Bessie was one of more than twenty nurses murdered by Japanese soldiers on 16th February 1942 at Bangka Island, Netherlands East Indies (Indonesia).

Sources

1. ↑ Western Australia Birth Index #100913/1913
2. ↑ Department of Veterans' Affairs nominal roll: WX3439 (W233412) Sister Bessie WIllmott; 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