Our Matron

Every year around this time, we leave our classrooms and walk out to the front of Dimboola Memorial High School, where we join our teachers and visitors wearing soldiers’ medals on their suit jackets.

Our school captain stands at the microphone and, after a few seconds, she gently starts to read a story.

Matron Paschke

It’s a story about a lady from Dimboola who went to our school. Her name was Olive Paschke and she trained to be a nurse after leaving school.

When World War II started, she joined the Australian Army medical command, and in 1941, sailed to Malaya to nurse in the military hospitals. With the Japanese army advancing into Malaya, the hospitals moved to Singapore.

In early 1942, Singapore fell to Japanese forces and Matron Paschke, along with fellow medical staff, soldiers and patients, was evacuated on the steamship Vyner Brooke.

On the 14th of February 1942, Japanese aircraft strafed and bombed the ship, sinking her in the Banka Strait.

Abandoning ship, everyone took to liferafts and started paddling for shore. Several rafts reached the shore; however, Matron Paschke’s raft was caught in a strong current and was never seen again.

Unfortunately, those nurses and British soldiers who did reach the beach were then machine-gunned by Japanese soldiers.

One Australian nurse, Sister Vivian Bullwinkel, lay wounded and motionless in the sea and eventually escaped to tell the story of their ordeal.

At the end of the story, we walk back to our classrooms.

Read more stories like this in Wayback by Gerard Dean

Wayback by Gerard Dean