St Marys SA Women’s Memorial Playing Fields pay tribute to Bangka Island massacre victims
The southern hemisphere’s largest memorial for women will open in Adelaide this weekend in remembrance of one of the worst atrocities in our modern history.
Lifestyle
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An appalling wartime atrocity inflicted on Australian women has left an ongoing field of sporting dreams legacy which officially reopens Sunday after a massive upgrade.
Governor-General David Hurley will inaugurate the new memorial at the SA Women’s Memorial Playing Fields at St Marys.
South Australian Governor Frances Adamson, a host of VIPs and a catafalque party will be present for the occasion which will also commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Bangka Island massacre in World War II.
The event will pay tribute to the 22 Australian Army captive nurses marched into the ocean and machine gunned by soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army on Bangka Island’s Radji Beach in 1942, and to all Australian women who served their country in the armed forces.
The playing fields will be the largest memorial dedicated to women in the Southern Hemisphere.
The $9.5m state government project received a $500,000 federal grant to turn the existing memorial at the fields into a $1m one dedicated to Australian women who have served, set physically and symbolically in the centre of the sports complex.
An artificial turf oval has been added to the three grass ovals in the 18 month upgrade and the memorial plaza features a commemorative post for each of the nurses on that beach, including the sole survivor, Kapunda-born nurse Vivian Bullwinkel. An oval is named in her honour.
It is recorded that as the women waded into the water that terrible day, Matron Irene Drummond, from SA, said: “Chin up girls, I’m proud of you and I love you all.”
The soldiers then machinegunned the unarmed women from behind.
Sister Bullwinkel had a bullet pass through her and pretended to be dead, survived in the jungle for more than a week then hid her wound for three years as a prisoner of war for fear she would be killed to prevent her telling the world of the atrocity. She used a slung water bottle to cover the bullet tear in her clothing.
President of the SA Women’s Memorial Playing Fields Trust, Helen Fischer, said the memorial as is a legacy to all women who have served in the armed forces as well as the victims of the terrible massacre.
“Keeping women active in sport is very much at the forefront of this memorial which honours the sacrifice of women across all wars,” she said.
“The clubrooms and change rooms are now really wonderful and this will be a desirable place to play sport.
“It is not exclusively for women, the fields are open to male sports as well. This is a living memorial to remember nurses who sacrificed their lives in a brutal massacre, to honour women who served and to encourage women to continue with their sports.”
The playing fields as a memorial dates to the early 1950s when then-premier Thomas Playford made the 8ha site available for a peppercorn rent.
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