Monday, February 16, 1942. The Bangka Massacre and the Japanese New Order of Coexistence and Co-prosperity on Ethical Principles.

Nurses of the 2/13th.

Japanese soldiers murdered 22 Australian nurses and 60 Australian and British men on Bangka Island in Indonesia.  Most of the nurses in their captivity on the island, including the murdered ones, were raped.

The nurses were part of the 2/13th Australian General Hospital who had ended up on the island when a ship carrying them, and civilian men, women and children was sunk by Japanese aircraft.   They surrendered to the Japanese, who held the island.  One nurse and two men survived the massacre, but one of the men died soon thereafter.  They all later surrendered due to the impossibility of surviving on the island.

As with some other atrocities committed by the Japanese against the Australians, the Australian government worked to suppress some of the grimmer information following the war.  That the nurses were raped was not revealed until 2019.  Japanese authorities on the island following the war claimed to have no knowledge of the killings.  Japanese atrocities of this type were common.

On the same day, Hideke Tojo appeared in front of the Japanese Diet and proclaimed that the war aim a "new order of coexistence and co-prosperity on ethical principles in Greater East Asia."