Japanese security deal - my Grandma would shoot Howard

[Dominic]

Howard is signing a joint declaration on security with the Japanese

Howard has pointed out, the declaration entails that "Australia's security relationship with Japan will be closer than with any other country, with the exception of the United States". Including even Britain.

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Personally I see no problem with it. But my grandparents would kill Howard on sight. In doing this he lost the vote of anyone who fought against Japan in the world war. Lucky for Howard both my grandfathers and one of my grandmothers are dead, leaving only one Grandmother alive to kill him.

I never understood why my grandparents were so hateful towards the Japanese. Our generation hasn't been in a serious war where there is any chance of us loosing or suffering any significant loss.

It was explained to me though one day, my Grandma was a nurse and was to serve in a specific section of the Australian group of nurses working in the war. However, she became pregnant with my Dad's older sister (eldest in the family). So she could not serve.

The group of nurses she would have served with were executed by Japanese soldiers in the Banka Island Massacre of 1942.

Had she of not been pregnant with my Dad's older sister and been excluded from the team, she would have died along with the other Nurses in the surf that day and my Dad would never have been born.

This story was told to me when I was a youngster, maybe it was bull****, maybe she wasn't assigned to that group and the example was given to me to help me understand her hate towards 'the Japs.' More than likely it's true, I haven't asked my Dad now that I'm an adult for the exact details. I guess it really doesn't matter, the story true or false helped me understand her.

Being a warm hearted kid, I could understand a little as to why she hated Japanese people so much, given the photos I was shown of war and other stories from both my Grandparents, but I felt my place was to connect with my generation of Japanese people and make a different future for ourselves. She had to nurse Aussies wounded by Japanese soldiers and both my Grandfathers suffered horribly health wise as a result of that war.

Seeing photos of beheaded people that my Grandfather had as original photos he took for himself... he only told me a little of the war with 'the Japs.'

Bellow is an overview of what happened that day on the beach to the nurses my Grandmother was apparently going to die with, had she not been pregnant with my Auntie Anne.

It's pretty hard to make heads or tails of the wars being waged today, where Australian soldiers are serving. The news tells us we should find an enemy in one group or another depending on where the winds of U.S. foreign policy shift.

I have no commentary to say you should hate one group or another, or fight for peace. We are all worried about what the future will hold and who will make decisions for us on all this stuff and how much bull**** we will be fed to get us to hate one group or another.

All I hope is our generation will question more than is polite or right and challenge what is presented to us more and demand more for Australia from our politicians. Back then in my Grandparent's time war was clear cut as to who to fight, how and when... and subsequently who to hate because of the horrors of war. But it's different for us today... they want us to hate first.

Having seen photos of beheaded soldiers and told by my Grandparent's that our family - we - hate Japs that i am only alive today because my Grandma got pregnant and was saved from execution by 'the Japs' I'm supposed to hate them.

But I don't, my parents don't either. Japanese people are just people from another country. Same with Germans, our generation today is different to theirs.

Is it that enough time has gone by? That enough details of the horrors of war were kept from us? That Japan makes Australia tens of billions today that we should become their 2nd closest protector behind the U.S.?

I'm confused. I'm more than happy to be mates with Japanese people, despite my Grandparents but the bigger question is... are we doing this just because the U.S. wants a stronger footing in the region against China?

Anyways, here is the overview of my Grandmother's alternate fate:

On 12 February 1942, with the fall of Singapore to the Japanese imminent, sixty-five Australian Army nurses, including Sister Vivian Bullwinkel, were evacuated from the besieged city on the small coastal steamer Vyner Brooke.


In addition to the Australian nurses, the ship was crammed with over two hundred civilian evacuees and English military personnel. As the Vyner Brooke was passing between Sumatra and Borneo, Japanese aircraft bombed and strafed the overloaded ship and it sank quickly.



The survivors in lifeboats were strafed by Japanese aircraft but some reached Bangka Island off the coast of Sumatra. Twelve Australian nurses were either killed in the attack on the ship or drowned in the sea. The remaining fifty-three nurses reached Bangka Island in lifeboats, on rafts, or by drifting with the tide.


Wearing their Red Cross armbands, and having protected status as non-combatants by convention of civilised nations, the nurses expected to be treated in a civilised manner by the Japanese when they reached shore. Their expectations were short lived.



The lucky survivors were rounded up at gunpoint by the Japanese and herded into a building that was filthy and overcrowded. All of the survivors were tired, thirsty, and hungry. Some were suffering from exposure to the sun after many hours immersed in the sea, and some had been wounded in the attacks on the ship and the lifeboats. The Japanese were unsympathetic to their plight and only offered the survivors a bucket of water and a bucket of rice.

The unlucky survivors, including twenty-two Australian nurses, landed in lifeboats on the northern coast of Bangka Island and lit a bonfire to guide other survivors to them. Sister Vivian Bullwinkel was in this group of nurses. When the number of survivors at the bonfire reached about one hundred, it was decided that they should surrender to the Japanese. A party of male survivors went off to find Japanese. They were accompanied by civilian women and their children. The twenty-two Australian nurses stayed to look after the injured, and they made and erected a red cross to indicate to the Japanese that they were non-combatants.


A patrol of about fifteen Japanese soldiers arrived from the coastal township of Muntok. While some guarded the Australian nurses, the rest herded the male survivors, about fifty in number, down the beach and around a headland. The nurses heard gunfire from this direction, and shortly afterwards, the Japanese soldiers returned alone. Some were wiping blood from their bayonets.


The twenty-two Australian nurses were then ordered by the Japanese to form a line and walk into the sea. The women knew what was going to happen to them, but none panicked or pleaded for mercy. When the water had reached the nurses' waists, the Japanese opened fire on them. Sister Bullwinkel was hit in the back by a bullet and knocked off her feet. Upon discovering that she was only wounded, she pretended to be dead. After some time had passed, she risked a glance at the beach and saw that the Japanese soldiers had gone. She looked around for the other twenty-one nurses and saw none. She was the only nurse who had survived the massacre.


When she reached the beach, she was joined by an English soldier who had survived the massacre behind the headland. Private Kingsley had been bayoneted by the Japanese and left for dead. They were given food by the local village women, but after two weeks, they realised that their position was hopeless, and they decided to walk to Muntok and give themselves up. Shortly afterwards, Private Kingsley died from the bayonet wound.


Realising that the lives of all survivors of the Vyner Brooke would be at risk if the Japanese discovered what she had seen, Sister Bullwinkel concealed her wound from the Japanese and treated it herself. She survived harsh imprisonment to give evidence of the massacre at a war crimes trial in Tokyo in 1947.