News-Info-Alerts

Re: Ex-POW Nurse Passes

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Date: July 30, 2002

"FLORENCE Syer ... spent three years in a Japanese PoW camp.
War nurse survived ship bombing

FLORENCE Syer, an Australian World War II nurse who survived 18 hours in the water after her evacuation ship was bombed and sunk, has died in Brisbane. She was 86.


The former nurse, who endured the horrors of a Japanese PoW camp for three years, died on Tuesday night at Greenslopes Private Hospital, Veterans Affairs Minister Danna Vale said yesterday.

Mrs Syer, as Sister Florence Trotter, was one of 64 Australian nurses evacuated on the SS Vyner Brook ahead of the fall of Singapore in February 1942.

The ship was off Bangka Island when it was bombed and sunk by Japanese aircraft.

Eleven nurses were killed by the bombing or drowned. Another 22 struggled ashore to Bangka Island, where they were captured and machine gunned by the Japanese.

One of those nurses, Sister Vivian Bullwinkel, who died in July 2000, was the only survivor of the massacre.

Mrs Syer and four other nurses remained in the water for 18 hours after the sinking, enduring further bombings and machine-gun fire before being taken prisoner.

Thirty-two Australian nurses became prisoners of the Japanese, and were interned with about 300 women and children.

Mrs Syer and the other nurses tried to care for fellow prisoners who suffered from malaria, dysentery, beri-beri, banka fever and malnutrition. They were prisoners until the end of the war.

In October 1999, Mrs Syer and surviving PoW nurses were the guests of honour at the dedication of the Australian Service Nurses Memorial in Canberra.

"Her story is a reminder that throughout our wartime history Australia's service nurses have not only served alongside our troops, but have endured the same risks and suffering – all the while providing comfort, care and devotion wherever and whenever it was needed," Ms Vale said in a statement.

"Women like Florence Syer and Vivian Bullwinkel earned their place in our history through their service, their dedication to the care of others and their endurance through a dreadful ordeal."

© Queensland Newspapers"