Author(s): Colin Burgess

History

For readers of Anzac Girls and The Nazis Knew My Name, the incredible account of Sister Betty Jeffrey OAM and the Australian war nurses who survived the bombing of hospital ship MV Vyner Brooke in February 1942, and subsequently spent three years in Japanese prison camps in Sumatra. During those perilous years surviving in squalid conditions, Sister Jeffrey kept a secret diary of day-to-day events which, after the war, was turned into a book and radio serial: White Coolies. She would often write of the powerful sisterhood that evolved as the POWs took strength from each other, even forming an ‘orchestra’. White Coolies was a major inspiration for the 1997 Bruce Beresford film Paradise Road, starring Glenn Close, Frances McDormand and Cate Blanchett amongst others.   Sisters in Captivity builds on those diaries to not only re-live the years the nurses spent as POWs but also learn of the early life and influences that encouraged Betty Jeffrey into a life of nursing, and the outstanding work she carried out for the rest of her life. Featuring personal photos of Betty courtesy of her family and her drawings from the prison camps.