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Back to Bangka : searching for the truth about a wartime massacre / Georgina Banks.

By: Banks, Georgina [author.]Publisher: Hawthorn, VIC : Viking Australia, 2023Copyright date: ©2023Description: 332 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, portraits, map ; 26 cmContent type: text | cartographic image | still image Media type: unmediated Carrier type: volumeISBN: 9781761341137Subject(s): Elmes, Dorothy | Australia. Army. Australian Army Nursing Service -- History | Vyner Brook (Ship) | Military nursing -- Australia -- History | World War, 1939-1945 -- Women -- Australia | Nurses -- Australia -- Biography | World War, 1939-1945 -- Australia | World War, 1939-1945 -- Campaigns -- Indonesia | World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities | War memorials | Bangka Strait (Sumatra, Indonesia)Genre/Form: Biographies. DDC classification: 940.547252 BAN 2023

Includes bibliographic references.

Bangka Strait, Indonesia, 1942. Allied ships are evacuating thousands in flight from Singapore, the island having fallen to Japanese Imperial forces. Facing terrifying assaults by fighter planes, one ship, the Vyner Brooke, is badly bombed and sinks. Its survivors swim or paddle for hours to the nearest land, a beach on Bangka Island, parched, many dreadfully injured. One of the survivors is Australian Army nurse Dorothy 'Bud' Elmes, the great-aunt of Georgina Banks. Bud makes it to the island, where she, colleagues and a matron tend to the wounded as a plan is formulated. But it is soon discovered the place is occupied by Japanese forces, and two days later they arrive on the beach. Seventy-five years on, Georgina receives an invitation to a memorial service for her great-aunt. She knows little of the national history buried in her family but as she retraces Bud's steps in Indonesia, and then deep in archives back in Australia, she is left making sense of half-truths and confronting the likelihood that she may never know exactly what unfolded on the beach on that devastating day. Back to Bangka is a deeply moving intergenerational family story; a gripping retelling and investigation of events that throw a spotlight on women in wartime - in their vulnerability and profound strength.

General.

Holdings
Item type Current library Collection Call number Status Date due Barcode Item holds
14 day loan (Main)
History 940.547252 BAN 2023 (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Available L0008734
Total holds: 0

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