🇦🇺 She survived the execution of her fellow nurses. Then, for three and a half years, her friends kept that survival a secret. On February 16, 1942, Japanese soldiers ordered 22 Australian nurses into the sea at Radji Beach, on Bangka Island. Two days earlier, the nurses had survived the sinking of the SS Vyner Brooke while fleeing Singapore. Now machine guns opened fire behind them. Vivian Bullwinkel, 26, was hit. She fell into the water and lay motionless until the soldiers left. Of the 22 nurses, she alone survived. For 12 days, she hid with a wounded British soldier, tending him despite her own injury. Eventually, they surrendered. He died soon afterward. In captivity, Vivian found other nurses who had survived the shipwreck. She told them what had happened on the beach. They understood the danger: their captors must never discover that a witness to the massacre was still alive. For the rest of their imprisonment, they never spoke of it. Through hunger, disease, and years of captivity on Bangka and Sumatra, they protected her secret. Eight of the captured Australian nurses died before freedom came. Vivian survived to testify at the Tokyo war crimes tribunal and spent decades honoring her murdered colleagues. She died on July 3, 2000, aged 84. During captivity, silence had helped protect her. Afterward, she made sure the world heard their story. Follow @Vanguard_WW2 for more extraordinary lives behind the history of World War II.