• Entry type: Person
  • Entry ID: AWE0461

Darling, Janet Patteson (Pat)

  • Maiden name Gunther, Janet Patteson
(1913 – 2007)
  • Born 1913, Casino New South Wales Australia
  • Died 2007, New South Wales Australia
  • Occupation Servicewoman

Summary

A nursing sister serving with the 2/10th Australian General Hospital, Pat Gunther (later Darling) was one of the Australian nurses taken prisoner by the Japanese in Sumatra during World War II. She writes about her three and a half years incarceration and survival in Portrait of a Nurse published in 2001.

Archival resources

  • Australian War Memorial, Research Centre
    • Group portrait of Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS) nurses, who were former prisoners of war (POWs), ob board the hospital ship Manunda on its arrival in Australia
    • Gunther, J Pat (Nursing Sister)
    • Darling, Janet Patterson 'Pat' (Sister)
    • Dutch silver jam spoon : Sister P Gunther, 2/10 Australian General Hospital

Published resources

  • Resource Section
  • Book
    • Portrait of a nurse : prisoner of war of the Japanese 1942-1945 Sumatra, Darling, Pat, 2001
  • Resource
  • Newspaper Article
    • Horrors hidden for 53 years. After half a century of silence, Pat Darling, one of 13 nurses who survived internment in Sumatra, talked to Cassandra Jardine about life and death in a Japanese POW camp., Jardine, Cassandra, 1997
    • A poppy for the one who died in her place (in World War II), 1995
    • Nurses revisit war hell (Bangka Island, Singapore), Warnock, Steve and Chapman, Barry (Photographer), 1993

Related entries


  • Membership
    • Sydney & Metropolitan Ex-Prisoners of War Welfare Association (1999 - )
  • Related Organisations
    • Australian Army Nursing Service (AANS) (1902 - 1948)
  • Related Cultural Artefacts
    • Australian Ex-Prisoners of War Memorial