My husband, Terry, recently visited family on the NSW Central Coast (whilst I babysat the dog) and then called in to see the best man at our wedding (Kerry). Somehow, mahjong came up in the discussions and Kerry mentioned that he had a mahjong set that his mother, Phyllis, had made whilst a civilian internee of the Japanese during World War 2.
The pictures below show the small pieces of wood illustrated with the 3 suits, winds, dragons, flowers and seasons. The pencil at the bottom of the right hand photo gives you an idea of the scale of the pieces. It seems that being familiar with the game mahjong, having lived in Singapore, the creation of a Mahjong set would help pass time during the period of internment. Any available material was used and the detail on the wooden tiles is extraordinary.
[From left to right: Cadbury chocolate box used to store mahjong set; the detail on the inside of the material storage bag lined with rattan; and wooden mahjong tiles with a pencil for scale. All photos courtesy of Terry Beaton.]
Phyllis was on board the ill-fated SS Vyner Brooke, one of the last ships carrying evacuees to leave Singapore on the evening of 12th February 1942. She had worked in British Army Intelligence at Fort Canning prior to the Surrender of Singapore. Her husband, CSM Godfrey C. Tunbridge RASC became a prisoner of war in Changi and then Japan. Although the ship usually only carried 12 passengers, in addition to her 47 crew, the Vyner Brooke sailed south with 181 passengers, most of them women and children. Among the passengers were the last 65 Australian nurses in Singapore. On 14th February 1942, the Vyner Brooke was attacked by several Japanese aircraft. Despite evasive action, she was crippled by several bombs and within half an hour rolled over and sank. Around 150 survivors eventually made it ashore at Banka Island, after periods of between eight and 65 hours in the water. The island had already been occupied by the Japanese and most of the survivors were taken captive.
As the Vyner Brooke sank, Phyllis jumped overboard and swam to the nearest raft, which was already overcrowded. Along with other competent swimmers, she held onto a rope and tried to tow the raft towards land which could be seen in the distance. Realising that they were fighting a losing battle with the strong currents, Phyllis and Sister Nesta James (an Australian Army Nurse) swam on their own towards the shore to get help. After many hours swimming against the tide, they reached shore in the early hours of the following morning and made for Muntok lighthouse, on Banka Island, where they were soon captured by the Japanese.
Phyllis aligned herself with the Australian nurses in the internment camps (Palembang Women’s Camp, Sumatra) and a group of these women became lifelong friends. Kerry Tunbridge has said that his mother was a competent seamstress and was able to supplement her food ration by earning money from the local Dutch internees who, as in other Dutch East Indies camps, entered internment with vastly more money and possessions that the British internees.
Civilian internment camps in Sumatra were liberated in early to mid September 1945. Phyllis was initially repatriated to India, then from Bombay to the UK, arriving Liverpool on 12th April, 1946. In 1958, the family emigrated to Australia. Phyllis died in 2003 aged 97 years of age – George died aged 98 years despite both having endured some of the worst conditions of imprisonment during World War Two.
On 19th September, 2024, The Age newspaper re-printed an article in the section An Age Ago: 1945 first published on September 18, 1945 entitled Heroic nurses in hospital, spirits unbroken. The article tells of the liberation of 24 surviving nurses only 48 hours earlier. From a group of 65, 24 survived, 33 were either drowned off Banka Island or shot or bayoneted in the massacre, and 8 died in the Sumatran prison camp in 1945 of malnutrition and cerebral malaria.
Whilst The Age article focused on the Australian Army Nurses who would return to Australia by sea once they were fit to travel, the same was true for all the other civilian internees, with Phyllis as an example, not returning to the UK until April 1946.
Background
The Banka Island massacre, where the Japanese shot and bayoneted around 60 males and then forced the 22 Australian nurses to wade into the sea, then shot them from behind, is a significant part of Australia’s military history as there were only two survivors – Sister Vivian Bullwinkel and Private Cecil Kinsley (a British soldier). After hiding in the jungle for several days the pair eventually gave themselves up to the Japanese. Kinsley died a few days later from his wounds, and Bullwinkel spent the rest of the war as a prisoner of war (POW).
Of the 65 Australian nurses embarked upon the Vyner Brooke, 12 were killed during the air attack or drowned following the sinking, 21 were murdered on Radji Beach, and 32 became POWs, 8 of whom subsequently died before the end of the war.