Charlotte Florence BLACK

Charlotte Florence BLACK. Sister 206670 QAIMNSR. Born 1916 to Robert and Charlotte Black, of Chorlton-Cum-Hardy, Manchester.

She was serving at the 20th Combined General Hospital, Singapore. She was a passenger on (Evacuation Ship) SS Kuala which had escaped from Singapore a day before the fall of Singapore to the Japanese. This ship was sunk 12 hours later by Japanese bombers on 14 February 1942 near Pom Pong Island. Many women and children were killed on the ship itself, but the Japanese continued direct bombing of the sea whilst the survivors, who were desperately trying to swim the few hundred yards to safety on the shore of Pom Pong island. The bombing continued even onto the Island itself as the survivors scrambled across slippery rocks and up the steep slopes of the jungle tangled hills of this small uninhabited island in the Indonesian Archipelago.

Days later she was rescued from the island by SS Tanjong Peinang, (converted tug) another evacuation ship. The ship left from Pom Pong Island at dawn on 17 February 1942. One crew man said a lifeboat had ferried people from Pom Pong Island to the ship eight times carrying 20 people each time except for the last trip of 12 people. Another crewman said there were 250 passengers on board. The ship was stopped at sea about 30 miles north of the Tanjung Ular lighthouse off Banka Island at about 8.30pm that night by a warning shot across its bows. Whilst some women and children were being lowered in the ship’s only two small boats (there were no real lifeboats), a Japanese submarine or torpedo boat opened fire at point blank range whilst its searchlights were trained on the SS Tanjong Pinang directly hitting the starboard side ship’s boat. The ship sank within five to ten minutes in the Banka Straits odd the east coast of Sumtara taking down many of the women and children passengers who had been trapped in the hold and cabins. She again survived the sinking, although she had a leg wound, she was on a raft with six other nurses and three seamen which drifted onto the shores of Banka Island.
She died of her wounds 23 February 1942 aged 26 years and was laid to rest on the beach.
Commemorated on the Singapore Memorial.

Source for some of the above https://britisharmynurses.com/ss-tanjong-pinang/