In the Archives

Mr Anthony Kelly

The archives continues to receive new acquisitions with the last being these two St Ursula's school badges sent into O'Connor by relatives of Maurine Clear. 

Maurine Clear who was born in Townsville and was sent to board at St Ursula's during WW2 when the local Catholic school closed its doors for fear of Japanese invasion.  Maurine's father was an accountant who tended to the Bishop of Armidale's finances pro bono and in around 1940, sent all of his four children to be sent to boarding school in Armidale.

The boys Maurine and Ruth went to St Ursula's and the boys, Jack and Brian, to De la Salle. They arrived in winter and Maurine has told relatives that the cold was a rude shock. Maurine has lived to a healthy age and we thank her family for organising these items to be deposited at our College Archives.  

From Mr Andrew May:

Continuing with a St Ursula's them, the anniversary of the Bangka Island Massacre, February 16, 1942 was this week. One of the nurses murdered on that day was Mary Eleanor ('Ellie') McGlade. Ellie was orphaned as a child and raised by the Ursuline Sisters in Armidale, prior to training as a nurse at Royal Prince Alfed Hospital in Sydney and then working as a nurse in the Maitland area. In 1940 she enlisted into the AIF and was deployed to Malaya as a Nursing Sister in the 2/13 Army General Hospital.Nurses of the 2/13 AGH were evacuated from Singapore on the SS Vyner Brooke. 

PHOTO: The plaque that is displayed in the De La Salle Chapel at O'Connor Catholic College.

On 14 February 1942 the ship was bombed by Japanese aircraft and sank. Survivors managed to make it ashore on Bangka Island, where on 16 February 21 nurses and an English civilian female, together with a large number of wounded British and Australian servicemen, were massacred by Japanese soldiers.Sister Vivian Bullwinkle was the only nurse to survive, and after the war gave evidence at the Tokyo War Crimes Trials. 

PHOTO: The group photo below shows members of the 2/13 AGH in Malaya in 1941. Ellie McGlade is fifth from the right, looking to her right.