Uncovering the horrific story of the Sandakan Prisoner of War Camp, Lynette Ramsay Silver details the bungled rescue attempt and deadly flaws within the senior ranks that ultimately stole the lives of all but 6 Australian men in the untamed conditions of North Borneo. Through painstaking research and interviews with survivors, as well as a study of Japanese records, Lynette has pieced together a detailed and highly readable account of the lives and ultimate fate of Sandakan’s POW’s. The integration of first-hand accounts and historical records forges a merciless portrayal of the crisp trepidation and unwarranted deception behind what has become WWII’s darkest and most deadly secret.

In February 1942, when Australian Bill Reynolds escaped from beleaguered Singapore in a battered Japanese fishing boat, he had no idea that his nondescript vessel would be the catalyst for Operation Jaywick, one of the most daring missions undertaken behind enemy lines in World War II. Using Reynold’s boat, now renamed Krait, a small band of intrepid men attacked enemy shipping in Singapore Harbour – an action that would have far reaching and tragic repercussions on the people of Singapore. The following year, members of the same team embarked upon a second and far more ambitious raid, Operation Rimau. Although this mission was partially successful, every member of the party was killed.

In telling the story of both these raids, author Lynette Silver reveals a number of deadly secrets, and gives an insight into the world of covert operations, partly through the eyes of Denis Emerson-Elliott, a British secret service agent closely associated with both missions. She also lays to rest a number of myths which have arisen in the sixty-five years since the Singapore raids took place. Some are the result of assumptions, based on too little knowledge, others were spawned by rumour. In some cases they were deliberate fabrications, either to make up for lack of information or to present a particular spin. Once film-makers stepped in, the distortions increased in the name of dramatic licence. One widely circulated story claimed that the greatest contribution of the Jaywick mission (classified as top secret until after the war), was to raise the spirits of the Australian public at a time when Allied victories were few and far between. A sobering aspect of many of the special operations carried out by Australian forces during World War II is that many fine men who volunteered for hazardous service died while carrying out missions that were politically, rather than militarily, motivated. Even more sobering is the fact that on the Australian army’s post-war assessment, many of these operations, including Jaywick and Rimau, achieved nothing but death, misery and suffering.

In the 1930s, Marjorie Silver was employed by The Far West Children’s Health Scheme and became their first permanent flying sister, based in Bourke. She fought a single-handed war against heat, dust and isolation of the outback to bring vital medical assistance to the far west of New South Wales, before moving on to central Queensland where she established a clinic at Mt Margaret station, in close co-operation with the flying doctor, based at Charleville. In 1964, she moved to Brunette Downs, Northern Territory, where she continued to make use of her nursing skills at the Aboriginal Camp and in the station’s hospital. This previously untold story also involves the topical Nancy Bird, who was employed as the sister’s pilot for the first nine months.

Whilst Sister Silver was fighting a battle against the harsh elements of the bush, another dedicated woman of about the same age had graduated as a nursing sister with a view to overseas travel. Little did she know that she would shortly embark on a sea voyage to the exotic Far East, where she would engage in a battle for survival as an unwilling guest of the Emperor of Japan. Sister Pat Gunther joined the AIF and served in the Far East on the battlefield of Malaya and Singapore. She was captured and taken prisoner at Bangka Island, Sumatra. The story of the nurses imprisoned in various camps in Sumatra is not unknown, but this book delves far deeper than any other story to date and reveals the ‘secret’ that the nurses kept throughout their lifetimes. Author and military historian Lynette Ramsay Silver has an entire ‘forensic’ chapter devoted to the unravelling of this secret.

This book has been compiled from their edited memoirs, supplemented by various conversations and interviews. Interspersed throughout the book and printed in italics, are Lynette Ramsay Silver’s historical details providing additional narrative to compliment first-hand accounts.
The book also lists, for the first time, the name of every nurse who served in WW2. It also includes the fate of other internees that Sister Pat had met in Malaya and during her three years of captivity and the fate of the nurses evacuated from Singapore. It also includes the 29 women that served as doctors in the Australian Army Medical Corps during World War 2, as well as the names of the women who served as nursing sisters in the Royal Australian Navy, Royal Australian Airforce, Australian Army Nursing Service and the Army Hospital.

Angels of Mercy: Far West & Far East is a tribute to the huge contributions made by our nurses in the Australian Outback, and to those who served during wartime.