Irene Drummond

Irene Melville Drummond was an Australian Army nurse of the Second World War who held the rank of matron. Born in July 1905, she died on 16 February 1942 in the Bangka Island massacre, and she was the most senior-ranking among the 22 Australian nurses killed there. In 1946 she was posthumously mentioned in despatches for gallant and distinguished service in Malaya in 1942. Her page also points to two other nurses of the same event: Clarice Halligan, who was also killed in the Bangka Island massacre, and Vivian Bullwinkel, the sole survivor. The record is short, and it rests on the single article cited here, so details of her training and earlier career are not given.