Wyllie Street in Kepnock is so named in honour of Sister Doris Joyce Wyllie, a Bundaberg resident who volunteered as a nursing sister in World War II.
Bundaberg Regional Council’s Street of Remembrance program sees the badge under which local veterans served added to the signs of Bundaberg Region streets as a tribute to their service.
Doris Joyce Wyllie was born in September 1919 in Melbourne to Ernest Percival and Doris Marion Wyllie, with a younger brother Alan John joining the family 3 years later.
The family later moved to Bundaberg and were residing at 240 Bourbon Street (as it was then known) at the time both siblings joined the war effort.
Known as Joyce, Sister Wyllie undertook nursing training at Sydney Hospital and enlisted in the Australian Army Nursing Service in November 1942.
She was attached to 2/3rd Australian Hospital Ship Centaur, which embarked from Sydney on 12 May 1943, sailing unescorted and unarmed up the east coast of Australia.
Early in the morning of 14 May, when the Centaur was around 50 miles east north-east of Brisbane, it was struck by a torpedo from a Japanese submarine and sunk.
The Centaur was carrying no patients but had 332 persons on board, including Sister Wyllie and 11 other nursing sisters.
Only 64 people survived the tragedy, and of the nursing sisters on board, only Sister Ellen Savage survived.
Sister Wyllie was presumed drowned, killed by enemy action, aged 26 years old.
The location of the final resting place of the Centaur was unknown for many years after the war, until the wreck was found in 2009 and it is now a protected site in memory of the 268 lives lost.
Read more about the Centaur on the Australian War Memorial website.
Sister Wyllie is commemorated on many war memorials around Australia including Australian War Memorial Roll of Honour, Australian Military Nurses Memorial, Bundaberg Civic Centre Memorial and Sydney Memorial, Rookwood, Sydney.
To honour her sacrifice, relatives and friends presented a Communion table and fittings to the War Memorial Chapel at St Peter’s Church, East Sydney.
She was also posthumously awarded the Defence Medal, War Medal and Australian Service Medal.
Sister Wyllie’s brother Alan served as a pilot with the Royal Australian Air Force from 1941 to 1945, primarily in the Middle East, after which time he was discharged for having completed long service.
Information on Sister Doris Joyce Wyllie’s life and service is from the National Archives of Australia, Australian War Memorial, Victorian Government Births Deaths and Marriages, and Virtual War Memorial Australia.
Service Number: NFX138687
How special! Lest we forget!
I love what Bundy Council is doing with the street names – so people won’t be forgotten.