Elaine Balfour-Ogilvy was born in 1912 in Renmark, South Australia. She trained as a nurse after high school and when the Second World War came, decided to use her skills to help the war effort, joining the Australian Army Nursing Service in 1940.
By March 1941 she had left the safety of Australia and was on her way to Malaysia, then known as Malaya, where she settled into life as an army nurse on active service overseas.
Nine months later, he life changed rapidly. After their attack on Pearl Harbour, Japanese forces began to strike all over the Pacific and made quick progress through Malaya, towards Singapore.
Elaine and her fellow nurses cared for increasing numbers of wounded as the fighting drew nearer. On 12 February 1942, patients and nurses began their evacuation to safety on the SS Vyner Brooke, just in time to escape the Fall of Singapore.
Two days later their ship was bombed, and wounded soldiers, medical staff, civilians and children all fled for safety. Many made it to the beaches of Bangka Island, off the coast of Sumatra, including Elaine and 21 of her fellow nurses.
While they cared for casualties, the civilians headed inland to surrender to the approaching Japanese forces. Later that morning soldiers arrived.
They forced the wounded who could still stand to walk around the headland. The nurses heard shots echo along the beach and the Japanese returned with bloodied bayonets. Then they set up a machine gun, herded the nurses into the sea and shot them. Elaine was 30 years old.
Against all odds, one nurse survived and would eventually testify to the war crime on Bangka Island.
Until then, Elaine’s family had no idea what had happened to their daughter – their sister – but that she was missing with the Vyner Brooke.
Elaine and her fellow nurses killed on Bangka Island are commemorated by name on the CWGC’s Singapore Memorial.