General News
23 April, 2026
Cheerful nurses part of 2026 Anzac stories
ANZAC Day in Dimboola this Saturday promises to be another special and appropriate honouring of those who served and sacrificed in the military, with, of course, an emphasis on the 1915 battle at Gallipoli, from which the day draws its significance.
There will be two services at Dimboola Memorial Secondary College: a dawn service starting at 6.15am, and another starting with a short march from the front gates at 8.20am.
Dimboola RSL secretary/treasurer, Rhonda Huf, said she was asked by president, Charles Rees, to speak at the later service, and decided it would be a worthy topic to talk about the service of nurses in wartime.
“I did say to him, because the school captains also talk … perhaps get them to talk on nurses,” she said.
As a retired nurse herself, having served for 42 years locally, she said this would be a natural lead-in to speak about two specific nurses, Olive ‘Dot’ Paschke (born in Dimboola and also known as Matron Paschke) and Vivian Bullwinkel.
The school actually teaches students about Matron Paschke every February to honour the date she lost her life in 1942 after the ship she was on (SS Vyner Brooke) with other nurses was bombed off Indonesia, but Rhonda said the story deserves a wider audience.
“I’ve read her story at the RSL a couple of times, and, because the kids hear it every year, but us adults don't hear it,” she said.
“I know a few of our newer members said, ‘I'd love to hear about Matron Paschke.’”
Bullwinkel was also on the ship, but reached shore clinging to a lifeboat, with 21 other Australian nurses landing on Banka Island.
A shocking experience followed, with many of those surviving nurses, including Bullwinkel, forced into the sea by Japanese soldiers and gunned down – she was hit but managed to be the only survivor of the massacre by feigning her death.
Recaptured less than two weeks later, “she survived in prisoner of war camps with other nurses, and she then spoke at the war crimes trial in Japan in Tokyo in 1947.”
Her resilience, courage and help for other prisoners have been honoured as exemplary character under extreme circumstances, with a sculpture of her at the Australian War Memorial.
Rhonda said she was looking forward to telling both stories on Anzac Day, with both women mentioned in the 1954 book White Coolies by another nurse, Betty Jeffrey – “she kept a secret diary for the three and a half years they were kept prisoners of war.”
She said students would be receiving a copy of the book this year – the book was a best seller at the time, selling more than 70,000 copies, and was adapted the next year into a hugely successful 52-episode radio serial starring Ruth Cracknell and June Salter (available online at archive.org/details/WhiteCoolies) and also inspired the 1997 film, Paradise Road.
A common element of the stories she found especially uplifting was the attitude of the Australian nurses.
“I remember reading the book when I was about 15 ... and I was always amazed at how cheerful they could still be in what they were dealing with,” Rhonda said.
“It was a female camp, and they had children as well, and the way they looked after everyone and all that sort of stuff – it’s amazing how they still kept very cheerful.”
Dimboola Anzac Day services:
6.15am: Dawn service, Dimboola Memorial Secondary College, followed by a free gunfire breakfast.
8.20am: short march from the front gates in Ellerman Street to Memorial.
8.30am: wreath-laying ceremony.
9am: service in College Assembly Hall, followed by morning tea, RSL Hall, 113 Lloyd Street.
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