Vivian Bullwinkle, an Australian Nurse assigned to a British military hospital in Singapore, worked round the clock nursing wounded men of the Australian Eighth Division until Singapore was abandoned and the nurses evacuated by ship. The ship was bombed and sunck, and Vivian and 21 other nurses managed to get to shore on Bangka Island, where Japanese soldiers lined the nurses up and shot them. Vivian was wounded and played ead. She hind in the jungle for weeks before starvation and wounds forced her to surrender. She then endured over three years as a POW.