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Angels of Mercy
It is a secret that Australian army nurses from World War Two took to their graves. One was told by the Australian government to make no mention of violation by the Japanese in her statement before the war crimes tribunal.
Now author Lynette Silver, known as "the history detective", has pulled together all the evidence and says categorically that 22 nurses were raped before they were forced into the sea and machine-gunned. Only one survived.
Lynette Silver said whenever she talked to other nurses, the issue of molestation was the elephant in the room. "It was the subject nobody wanted to raise. They said to me on several occasions there are some things we have agreed to never talk about, but they wouldn't say what it was.
"That secret they were keeping was the fact that the 21 Australian nurses with Vivian Bullwinkel, the sole survivor, on the beach at Radji were raped. Although there has been speculation for years there has never been quite enough evidence to say this happened for sure because the nurses denied it.
Now author Lynette Silver, known as "the history detective", has pulled together all the evidence and says categorically that 22 nurses were raped before they were forced into the sea and machine-gunned. Only one survived.
Lynette Silver said whenever she talked to other nurses, the issue of molestation was the elephant in the room. "It was the subject nobody wanted to raise. They said to me on several occasions there are some things we have agreed to never talk about, but they wouldn't say what it was.
"That secret they were keeping was the fact that the 21 Australian nurses with Vivian Bullwinkel, the sole survivor, on the beach at Radji were raped. Although there has been speculation for years there has never been quite enough evidence to say this happened for sure because the nurses denied it.
448 pages, Paperback
Published April 8, 2019
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October 7, 2025
"Two Worthwhile Nursing Stories Sullied by Editorial Intervention."
This book is really 2½ "books". Two personal memoirs of nursing service in the 1930s and 40s, plus some alarming extras from Lynette Silver herself, which I will discuss below.
The first memoir is by the author's "Aunty Bid", but is somewhat more interesting than one's normal "family history". Sister Marjorie D. SILVER played a small but important part in pioneering aero-medical services in outback NSW and Queensland in the 1930s. She later had an interesting life on remote grazing properties. Her memoir is warm, considerate and humorous. It shows exceptional recall of events at specific dates and times, which would suggest that it may have been based on diaries or letters, but Lynette doesn't explain the historiography, only that Bid's memoir was produced in the highly efficient time-frame of just six weeks. (Oral-history apparently dictated in 1986, according to Lynette's 'Prologue'. Lynette then took 33 years to print it!) The most sensational parts of Bid's recollections describe the publicity-seeking behaviour of Nancy BIRD, the young pilot contracted to fly Bid around. Nancy died in 2009, 23 years after Sister Silver's memoir was originally set down, however Lynette didn't release this book until 2017, when Nancy could no longer be asked about these accusations! Today, Nancy Bird is widely-renowned in Australian aviation circles - including naming Sydney's 2nd Airport in her honour.
The second memoir, of WW2 Australian Army nurse Janet P. "Pat" GUNTHER, NFX70493, is quite searing. Pat's 1942 Singapore evacuee ship 'Vyner Brooke' was sunk by Japanese bombing and Pat was cast into the oil-scummed seawater and was then captured and imprisoned by the Japanese for 3½ years in appalling conditions on Bangka and Sumatra Islands in Indonesia. Pat shared her fate with other nurses whose memoirs were published soon after the war, and in fact Pat's memoir was previously published by Don Wall in 2001 ('Portrait of a Nurse').
Now, what about the half-a-book? Lynette has made the odd editorial decision to insert very large sections of text throughout the original women's accounts - what Lynette calls her "2nd Voice". However, while sometimes informative, unfortunately many of Lynette's additions are not on the same wavelength as the nurses' reminiscences, and several are way overblown. (Ironically, her Aunt Bid on p62 mentions a person on a train who kept up a, "one-sided non-stop running commentary about anything and everything..." and whom Bid was glad to be rid of!)
Lynette's "2nd Voice" has obviously summarised many sources, including other nurses' publications, but a major flaw in this approach is that she has chosen NOT to quote them precisely, but rather just regurgitate facts and opinions in her own didactic manner, leaving the reader to puzzle over what the exact sources may have been. (Including some of the fascinating hand-drawn illustrations.)
There are ZERO footnotes, although Lynette has included a "Select Bibliography" at the end of the book; this is a further disappointment because it is overly broad and vague and some sources are still not disclosed. For example on p43-44 she includes a large slab of text edited down from a single paper in the Medical Journal of Australia, entitled "Trachoma in Australia". Since it was written by one of Australia's foremost Ophthalmologists, Professor Hugh R. TAYLOR AC, it seems strange that Lynette doesn't highlight this authoritative source. (Although one explanation may be that Lynette's patchwriting has changed Taylor's optimistic tone in the original to a somewhat darker conclusion.)
From my point of view, by far the biggest problem with taking Lynette's "2nd voice" on trust is that she has relied heavily on another source that I personally helped to debunk, the book 'Betrayal in High Places' by James MacKay. In fact, I personally spoke to Lynette about the problems with MacKay's book before my co-authored paper 'MacKay's Betrayal' was published in 2007 in the peer-reviewed 'Journal of Military History' in Arlington, Virginia, USA. [My Amazon review of Lynette's 'Bridge at Parit Sulong' lists 45 pages where MacKay's fakes were utilised by Lynette without her having realised their worthlessness. Actually, I'm surprised that Lynette hadn't become sick of MacKay in 2010, when she cajoled the Australian Government to Parit Sulong in Malaysia to dig some very expensive holes, looking for the evidence described ONLY in MacKay's book... To find... Nothing! ]
On pages 353 to 358 of 'Angels of Mercy', Lynette mounts a pathetic attempt to explain away MacKay's forgeries as "non-official" reports. Despite the fact that MacKay's writings contradict the official War Crimes reports (online in the National Archives) and have obvious differences in style, data, language and presentation. She also proposes a VERY long chain of transcription errors; errors due to degraded originals; misguided publishing decisions by MacKay; and even 'plants' by Japanese war criminals! Good grief!
All this so that Lynette can use a story ONLY found in MacKay's book, as if it is history. Let's be clear about this. If information can ONLY be found in MacKay's book, that should be an immediate reason for NOT relying on it, given that the author has already been proven to be a forger. That Lynette has chosen to still rely on it, and in fact "double down" against broad academic condemnation of MacKay, simply casts her whole logical process into the oil-scummed water of doubt.
This book is really 2½ "books". Two personal memoirs of nursing service in the 1930s and 40s, plus some alarming extras from Lynette Silver herself, which I will discuss below.
The first memoir is by the author's "Aunty Bid", but is somewhat more interesting than one's normal "family history". Sister Marjorie D. SILVER played a small but important part in pioneering aero-medical services in outback NSW and Queensland in the 1930s. She later had an interesting life on remote grazing properties. Her memoir is warm, considerate and humorous. It shows exceptional recall of events at specific dates and times, which would suggest that it may have been based on diaries or letters, but Lynette doesn't explain the historiography, only that Bid's memoir was produced in the highly efficient time-frame of just six weeks. (Oral-history apparently dictated in 1986, according to Lynette's 'Prologue'. Lynette then took 33 years to print it!) The most sensational parts of Bid's recollections describe the publicity-seeking behaviour of Nancy BIRD, the young pilot contracted to fly Bid around. Nancy died in 2009, 23 years after Sister Silver's memoir was originally set down, however Lynette didn't release this book until 2017, when Nancy could no longer be asked about these accusations! Today, Nancy Bird is widely-renowned in Australian aviation circles - including naming Sydney's 2nd Airport in her honour.
The second memoir, of WW2 Australian Army nurse Janet P. "Pat" GUNTHER, NFX70493, is quite searing. Pat's 1942 Singapore evacuee ship 'Vyner Brooke' was sunk by Japanese bombing and Pat was cast into the oil-scummed seawater and was then captured and imprisoned by the Japanese for 3½ years in appalling conditions on Bangka and Sumatra Islands in Indonesia. Pat shared her fate with other nurses whose memoirs were published soon after the war, and in fact Pat's memoir was previously published by Don Wall in 2001 ('Portrait of a Nurse').
Now, what about the half-a-book? Lynette has made the odd editorial decision to insert very large sections of text throughout the original women's accounts - what Lynette calls her "2nd Voice". However, while sometimes informative, unfortunately many of Lynette's additions are not on the same wavelength as the nurses' reminiscences, and several are way overblown. (Ironically, her Aunt Bid on p62 mentions a person on a train who kept up a, "one-sided non-stop running commentary about anything and everything..." and whom Bid was glad to be rid of!)
Lynette's "2nd Voice" has obviously summarised many sources, including other nurses' publications, but a major flaw in this approach is that she has chosen NOT to quote them precisely, but rather just regurgitate facts and opinions in her own didactic manner, leaving the reader to puzzle over what the exact sources may have been. (Including some of the fascinating hand-drawn illustrations.)
There are ZERO footnotes, although Lynette has included a "Select Bibliography" at the end of the book; this is a further disappointment because it is overly broad and vague and some sources are still not disclosed. For example on p43-44 she includes a large slab of text edited down from a single paper in the Medical Journal of Australia, entitled "Trachoma in Australia". Since it was written by one of Australia's foremost Ophthalmologists, Professor Hugh R. TAYLOR AC, it seems strange that Lynette doesn't highlight this authoritative source. (Although one explanation may be that Lynette's patchwriting has changed Taylor's optimistic tone in the original to a somewhat darker conclusion.)
From my point of view, by far the biggest problem with taking Lynette's "2nd voice" on trust is that she has relied heavily on another source that I personally helped to debunk, the book 'Betrayal in High Places' by James MacKay. In fact, I personally spoke to Lynette about the problems with MacKay's book before my co-authored paper 'MacKay's Betrayal' was published in 2007 in the peer-reviewed 'Journal of Military History' in Arlington, Virginia, USA. [My Amazon review of Lynette's 'Bridge at Parit Sulong' lists 45 pages where MacKay's fakes were utilised by Lynette without her having realised their worthlessness. Actually, I'm surprised that Lynette hadn't become sick of MacKay in 2010, when she cajoled the Australian Government to Parit Sulong in Malaysia to dig some very expensive holes, looking for the evidence described ONLY in MacKay's book... To find... Nothing! ]
On pages 353 to 358 of 'Angels of Mercy', Lynette mounts a pathetic attempt to explain away MacKay's forgeries as "non-official" reports. Despite the fact that MacKay's writings contradict the official War Crimes reports (online in the National Archives) and have obvious differences in style, data, language and presentation. She also proposes a VERY long chain of transcription errors; errors due to degraded originals; misguided publishing decisions by MacKay; and even 'plants' by Japanese war criminals! Good grief!
All this so that Lynette can use a story ONLY found in MacKay's book, as if it is history. Let's be clear about this. If information can ONLY be found in MacKay's book, that should be an immediate reason for NOT relying on it, given that the author has already been proven to be a forger. That Lynette has chosen to still rely on it, and in fact "double down" against broad academic condemnation of MacKay, simply casts her whole logical process into the oil-scummed water of doubt.
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