Valentine’s Day – a day filled with thoughts of love and that special someone, but for Cora Lynn’s Kathleen Kinsella on Valentine’s Day 1942 there was probably no time for such trivial thoughts. She and 64 other Australian nurses were aboard the Vyner Brooke desperately trying to avoid Japanese bombers and war ships in a last minute bid for freedom.

Kathleen Kinsella was born on 18 March 1904 in South Yarra to Michael James Kinsella, a van proprietor and his second wife Susan. Kathleen was the couple’s last child, Michael and his first wife Eliza had been blessed with 5 children and now Kathleen completed the set, being the fifth child for Michael and Susan.

The family had bought land at Cora Lynn in 1900 but waited until 1905 to relocate. At Tullamore, the Kinsella family ran dairy cattle and grew potatoes, peas and briefly, asparagus. Kathleen attended school at Koo Wee Rup North and then in 1912 transferred to Cora Lynn State School until 1918. Kathleen trained as a nurse and worked at the Heidelberg Military Hospital where she was highly regarded, she also undertook brain surgery theatre support training at the Alfred Hospital before being posted to Singapore and Malaya with the 2/13^th Australian General Hospital. A unit consisting of 18 officers, 44 nurses, 3 masseuses and 146 others equipped to treat 600 patients arrived in Singapore on 15 September 1941. By this time Kathleen had been promoted to senior nurse of the 2/4^th Casualty Clearing Station.

Australian forces spent an uneasy Christmas and New Year as hostilities increased and the British and Indian forces continued to retreat southwards along the Malayan Peninsula towards Singapore. The 2/4^th CCC was at Kluang, Malaya and would shelter in trenches during the daily air raids. The 2/4^th CCC then fell back to Mengkibol, Malaya and then to Bukit Panjang in Singapore. The Causeway connecting Malaya to the island of Singapore was blown up by British engineers by 1 February. There was little respite, Japanese troops landed on 8 February. Life was now hard indeed, nursing staff and hospitals were stretched beyond their limits coping with overwhelming numbers of casualties, continual air raids and threatened water supplies. Complete blackout conditions meant that all hospital work had to be undertaken in darkness. Recommendations in late January to evacuate Australian nurses were refused due to concerns about civilian morale. The first 6 nurses didn’t leave Singapore until 10 February with wounded on the hospital ship Wah Sui. But the nurses themselves, realising there was no hope of other hospital ships arriving to evacuate the wounded wanted to stay, even in the face of such dire adversity. And too little, too late, the order to evacuate was issued and half the nurses left the next day. It had taken the Japanese just ten weeks to overrun Allied forces on the Malay Peninsula and Singapore, and the ‘impregnable fortress’ was beginning to fall.

On 12 February, the last 65 Australian nurses met at St. Andrews Cathedral as ordered, for evacuation but the destruction around the waterfront meant that they had to leave their transportation and walk the last few miles to their ship. Fires were burning everywhere, Singapore was burning. The nurses boarded the Vyner Brooke, a small coastal steamer of 1,670 tons, 80 metres long and 13 metres wide at its widest point and requisitioned by the Royal Navy at the start of hostilities. She was fitted with guns dating back to WW1 at the front, more for show than anything else, certainly not suitable for defending the ship from enemy aircraft. The plan was to hide from the enemy by day and steam for Batavia (we now know this as Jakarta) at night, a voyage of some 800 kilometres which was expected to take about two days. The nurses were accompanied by 40 crew and estimates of 150 or more military and civilian personnel. No one is really sure; there was not enough time to list the names of those boarding the ship. There were six lifeboats to accommodate 140 people, 180 in a pinch, wooden life rafts, two toilets, no food and limited water.

The Vyner Brooke left that night, but five minutes into the voyage discovered it had headed into one of the minefields in the harbour. The thick black smoke was obscuring vision of the buoys and markers that marked the mine fields and although the Captain thought he could negotiate the mine field he was not prepared to take the risk and backed out of it and away. That was their first delay, and the ship hid during the day. On the second night out the ship steamed into open sea but spotting flashes of fire on the horizon sought cover, not wanting to be discovered by the Japanese navy. The Captain waited until the flashes disappeared and then waited a bit more to be safe, before setting off again, which was understandable but as day broke, on the 14 February, the Vyner Brooke was still in open sea. At about 11 o’clock in the morning they were circled by a Japanese scout plane and sprayed with machine gun fire, they had been found, if they stayed where they were they’d be a sitting duck when more Japanese planes returned, so it was decided to make a run for it. So at full speed the Vyner Brooke made a dash for a cluster of small islands near the entrance to Banka Strait and after about 90 minutes the ship dropped anchor in the cover of a small island at about 1.30 pm.

It was just before 2 pm that the Vyner Brooke’s lookout spotted another scout plane, it circled the ship and the island but did not attack. Once again, the ship was a sitting duck and Captain Borton ordered the ship at full speed to make for a larger island approximately 20 km away. A mere ten minutes passed before nine planes flying in three V-formations were spotted. The planes dropped their bombs and sprayed the ship with machine gun fire; the Vyner Brooke was zigzagging in a desperate effort to avoid being hit. Miraculously, over a five minute period the Vyner Brooke avoided 27 bombs, the planes reformed for a second attack and in a matter of minutes the ship was attacked again. They were not so lucky this time and one bomb went straight down the funnel, exploding in the engine room, killing or wounding the crew. Another struck between the bridge and stern, killing most of the elderly passengers in the staterooms and destroying many of the life rafts on deck. Another bomb struck the forward deck, the gun and gun crew taking the brunt of the hit. To add insult to injury, the starboard side of the ship was opened up by a bomb that just missed. The captain gave the order to abandon ship, uninjured crew and nurses, already at their battle stations swung into action.

The nurses orders were clear – they were not permitted to leave the ship before ensuring that all passengers were off safely, those who could be, were put into the lifeboats that had not been cut loose or destroyed by machine gun fire and when the lifeboats were full passengers jumped into the water, crew and nurses followed. The ship sank quickly; estimates vary between 15 and 30 minutes from the time the first bomb hit. Too few of those nurses eventually returned to Australia. Some became prisoners of war, of which not all survived and a terrible fate awaited those who were washed up on Radji Beach at Banka Island, but this is Kathleen’s story, so what happened to her? No one really knows, one nurse thought she saw Kathleen floating in the water wearing a life jacket but isn’t really certain if it was real or not, the nurse was concussed at the time and floating in the water herself. Kathleen’s body was never recovered and she was presumed to have drowned that afternoon.

In the book On Radji Beach, Ian Shaw tells us that “The AIF regarded the 2/4^th Casualty Clearing Station as the most efficient medical unit operational in Singapore or Malaya.” He describes Kathleen Kinsella as having a “rare gift for leadership and a genuine love for those she led”. He also tells us that Kathleen’s commanding officer was proposing to recommend her for a Royal Red Cross, awarded for exceptional services in military nursing, in recognition of her outstanding leadership at Kluang. In addition, he was intending to recommend to AIF Command that Kathleen be decorated and promoted to matron, putting a larger group of nurses under her exceptional care. With an exemplary nursing manner based on straight talking and compassion he was sure she would do well. And no doubt, she would have.

Kathleen Kinsella is remembered at the Cora Lynn War Memorial and the Australian War Memorial.

Sister (Lieutenant) Kathleen Kinsella
18.3.1904 – 14.2.1942

Lest We Forget

References:

Casey Cardinia -Links to our Past – The Vyner Brooke

The Australian War Memorial

On Radji Beach by Ian W. Shaw

Australia in the War of 1939–1945. Series 5 – Medical – Volume Vol4 – The Australian Army Nursing Service

Australian War Memorial – The Sinking of the Vyner Brooke

I guess another good question is why we’ve not got a link to Suzie’s blog on our website – that’s one I can fix!

While you’re there you can check out the other sites associated with UK BMD, 2,197 in fact, providing links to web sites with transcriptions of UK births, deaths, marriages and censuses plus a few parish records, wills and monumental inscriptions here and there for good measure.

But there are other service men and women who have died in peace time, on their own soil, serving their country. Their names will not be on any war memorials or honour rolls, but they might have been, had not fate intervened.  Where will these people be remembered?

We’ve recently been researching Pakenham Cemetery and we’ve recently ‘come to know’ Andrew Fisher Chalman, better known as Fisher to everyone apparently, so that’s what we’ll call him. Born in 1913, Fisher came to Pakenham as a boy and attended Pakenham State School. When he left school he commenced work at the Pakenham East Post Office and was known for his cheery, efficient and courteous manner but he wanted something more so he returned to school and got his Leaving Certificate, enabling him to join the Air Force.

He rapidly advanced to the rank of Flying-Officer but was unspoiled by success and continued to spend weekends in Pakenham with his mother and sister. He was a keen and enthusiastic member of the local football and tennis clubs.

Flying-Officer Chalman was killed on Anzac Day 1938 when the Wapiti aircraft he was piloting crashed near Whittlesea. He was returning to Laverton after participating in an Air Show in Sydney. There were severe dust storms over the Victorian border and a dense storm near Whittlesea. The plane was flying at about 200 feet when it got out of control and skimmed the tops of trees as the pilot tried to right it, but he was not successful and the plane crashed heavily. It did not burst into flames but the pilot was killed instantly. Loading Air-craftsman Ray Pine aged 25 from North Williamstown was also on board, he survived the crash and was taken to Melbourne Hospital with a fractured skull and knee in a critical condition.

Witnesses thought that the pilot was looking for somewhere to land owing to the bad visibility when the engine cut out. It started again and the plane rose to about 300 feet when the engine cut out again and the plane nose-dived. The four other Wapitis flying back from Sydney made forced landings on the return flight.

Fisher’s funeral was accorded full Air Force Honours and was the largest funeral ever seen in the district. Flags flew at half-mast and shops and businesses closed for two hours. The coffin, draped in a Union Jack was carried to the cemetery on an Air Force carriage with an AIF escort joined by detachments of the Pakenham Militia and Fire Brigade. Local school children stood at attention and there was an endless procession of cars. The last post was played and three rounds were fired in salute.

According to the Pakenham Gazette of 29 April 1938:

“No previous event in Pakenham’s history has cast such a gloom over the district as the news that Flying-Officer Andrew Fisher Chalman was killed when his Royal Australian Air Force plane crashed at Whittlesea last Monday afternoon.” “He was held in such high esteem and affection that every home and individual in Pakenham has felt in his death a sense of deep personal loss.”

So, if not for that fateful Anzac Day in 1938, Fisher would almost certainly have played a part in the Second World War, hostilities commenced just a year after his death. But what a legacy to leave behind for someone so young, just 25 years old.

Have you looked at any family history related blogs yet? If you have, do you have to check them periodically for updates? Do you forget at times? Wouldn’t it be good if you could have them delivered just like the newspaper? Actually, you can!

Many of you will recognise these symbols without really knowing what they mean and what they can do for you. In short, this indicates that new content from the website you are looking at is able to be sent to you as it becomes available, sort of like getting the newspaper delivered!

The RSS symbol stands for ‘Really Simple Syndication’ or others know it as a ‘web feed’. Simply put, it’s a uniform way to share web content, but you don’t need to understand or remember that, you only need to know that it is a secure way for a website to deliver news to you.

We could go on and on for pages but here’s a nifty little video that explains it all much better than we can – RSS in plain English, and it’s from YouTube: to play the video just click on the right pointing arrow in the middle of the video screen.

Although the video RSS in plain English highlights Google Reader, which is not a bad thing because many of you probably already have a Google account anyway, there are other feed aggregators like RSS Owl  and FeedDemon and FeedReader3  – all are free and just need to be downloaded and installed (get the grandkids to do it). It’s just a matter of personal preference as to which one you use. A feed aggregator can work hard bringing in all the latest news from your favourite websites and blogs while you’re boiling the kettle in the morning and have them ready to read with tea and toast! Well, you’ll have to cook the toast; they can’t do everything – yet! Just open the program and it will check all your subscriptions for new content and tell you what it has found. Just think, with one click you can keep up with the latest news from us, the GSV, AIGS, the State Library, PROV,………

Or, you can utilise your email programs like Outlook and Thunderbird to bring in RSS feeds. Or, you can subscribe to the feed by email if you’re not comfortable with aggregators, see our post about email subscriptions for more information.

Which is better? It’s up to you really; the one big difference between news feeds and email subscriptions is this: if you’ve got an email subscription then the website has your email address. It has no other information about you, just your email address. How else is it going to deliver your news? Most sites and organisations have privacy policies and will not divulge your information but you should check. If you use a news feed, the website has no information at all about you, it doesn’t need to, your email program or aggregator gets the content from them.

Wendy B's group listening intently to George Ritchie's story.

Sunday 30th October was a great day for ducks but perhaps not the ideal weather conditions for a cemetery tour. Nevertheless, 25 people braved the elements and joined us for a walk around the Pakenham Cemetery. The weather was kind to us in the end, only a shower here and there during our walk and most people employed their umbrellas for those few minutes. They’d come prepared, umbreallas, raincoats and gumboots!

Lynne B and company setting off on the tour

We had a great time, visiting the graves of four of the first five trustees of the cemetery, the fifth trustee is buried in Melbourne General Cemetery. We also explored the origins and accomplishments of early settlers in the Pakenham / Nar Nar Goon area like the Bourke, Dore, Connor and O’Brien families. We listened to the many accomplishments of James Joseph Ahern and wondered how he ever got time to sleep! We were entranced by the expoits of Oscar Smith and saddened by the loss of Flying-Officer Andrew Fisher Chalman.

We wondered and marvelled at the strength and tenacity of women like Mary Frawley, Annie Ritchie and Jean Fortune. All widowed at a young age and left to raise children on their own in the days before widow’s pensions and goverment assistance. And most of us truly admired Mary Jane Ellett – 15 children in 20 years and all but one reaching adulthood.

Address: Narre Warren Library Meeting Room, Overland Drive, Narre Warren.

Time: 10.30 am to 3.30 pm

Cost: free

More information: Heather Arnold <heather.arnold@cclc.vic.gov.au>

Pakenham Cemetery

We’re celebrating History Week (23-30 October) with a tour of the Pakenham Cemetery at 11 am on 30th October 2011.

Gazetted in 1865, this picturesque little cemetery has many stories to tell, so come and hear a few of them with us.

Cost – $5 per person (tea and coffee supplied). Bookings are essential, to book or for more information contact Lynne, our research officer.  If you’ve got family history intersts in the area, you might like to spend the afternoon at our Research Room which will be open from 2pm to 4 pm or the Berwick Pakenham Historical Society, also open on Sunday afternoon.

Address: Thewlis Road, Pakenham. Melways Map ref: 215 G2

There will be many exciting tours, exhibitions and events throughout Victoria during History Week, full details plus a calendar of events are available on the website: http://www.historyweek.org.au

Grill’d choose three lucky groups to submit 45 words that appear on one of 3 jars at their local Grill’d Restaurant. Customers are given a token and after reading each group’s 45 words decide which group they would like to support and place their token in that jar. At the end of the month the tokens are counted. The jar with the most tokens wins $300 and $100 goes to each of the other groups. As treasurer, I immediately saw $ signs flashing before my eyes, and decided we must put in an entry.

We are lucky enough to have a very talented writer in our group, namely Paul Stevenson. Pauls’ 45 fantastic words were – Narre Warren & District Family History Group also has a great menu, not wonderful food like Grilld Fountain Gate. A menu of information, try our sensational variety of resources served in many forms. Be helped by our friendly volunteers. Information – just as you’ll like it!  which were placed on a jar for the month of September.

So, if you’re eating out, or eating at Fountain Gate Shopping Centre, during the month of September, why not eat at Grill’d and support the Narre Warren & District Family History Group – we know we’ve got $100 but $300 would be better.

Thank you to Grill’d Restaurants and all the people who place their token in our jar, for giving us the opportunity to boost our finances, which in turn, allows us to purchase more research material for our members and visitors to use.

Anway, this morning I sat down with toast and coffee and watched the latest Legacy Webinar, Facebook for Genealogists with Thomas MacEntee, because I didn’t want to get up at 4 in the morning yesterday. Now I realise it might not be too good for anyone with a dial up internet connection but for anyone who has broadband and is interested in what Facebook is all about – this is a not to miss webinar. The bad news is that it’s available on the site until 26th September – after that you’re going to have to buy the CD if you want to watch it. I should also tell you that it’s about 90 minutes long, so if there’s nothing on the TV this week ………..By the way, if you’ve never watched a Legacy Webinar before don’t blame me if you don’t come up for air for quite a while. Not all the presentations are to do with the Legacy program itself, many of them are about general family history, how to do it, how to use resources, how to organise your files, how to use social media like Facebook and Twitter. Legacy Webinars are easy to watch and more importantly, easy to understand. And for a limited time after each webinar, they are on site for free! I think they’re probably a very under used resource for everyone, beginners and the more experienced.

Thomas MacEntee (professional genealogist) takes you through the process of activating your Facebook account, explaining recommended privacy settings (and most importantly why they are important) and what you can do and how you can find other family historians, genealogists, family history and genealogical societies, archives and museums, in fact, anything to do with family history and genealogy. Still wondering why you’d want to join? Well, there’s 750 million people who’ve already done it, and don’t think that they’re all kids either. In today’s webinar I learnt that 50+ females actually rule Facebook. How many of them are researching some of the same people that you are?