The Australian Women's Register

Dutch silver jam spoon with an irregularly-shaped bowl. Silver marks impressed into the underside of the handle, indicate that the spoon was made in 1905 from Dutch second standard silver. Associated with Sister Pat Gunther, 2/10 Australian General Hospital, who served in Malaya and Singapore. She was captured by the Japanese when they sunk the SS Vyner Brooke, the ship on which she was being evacuated, near Banka Island, in February 1942. The spoon came from a Dutch residence where she was initially held with other nurses for ten days. She retained the spoon throughout the rest of her captivity at Palembang in Sumatra.