Mona trained with us from 1934–1937 before enlisting in the Australian Army Nursing Service in 1941. She was killed in action in Singapore in 1942.
Her niece Christobel Comerford from Castlemaine (from left) and nephew Richard Wilton from Allansford met with our community partnerships manager Suzan Morey and Warrnambool RSL president Richard Ridgwell to donate Mona’s medals this afternoon. The true set will go on permanent display in the Warrnambool RSL and a replica set will be displayed in the hospital.
ABOUT THE WALL OF POPPIES
Each ANZAC Day, our Wall of Poppies stands pride of place in the hospital foyer to honor Mona and all other past and current armed services personnel. Made with 1,000 poppies knitted and crocheted by people from all around the world, they were firstly used for the poppy mats made for the centenary anniversary of the 1918 Armistice as part of Canberra’s 2018 Parliament House Exhibition.
They are some of the 260,000 poppies Australian sisters-in-law Lynn Berry and Margaret Knight inspired the world to make when in 2012 they decided to honor their dad’s Second World War service by knitting just 120 poppies to ‘plant’ at Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance. The idea went viral and the 5,000 POPPIES PROJECT was initiated to inspire knitters (SWH’s Janet Punch included) to make 5,000 poppies for a Remembrance Day installation at Melbourne’s Federation Square. From there, more than 250,000 poppies went to London’s 2016 Chelsea Flower Show then on to the battlefields of France where, in September 2018, 62,000 of them – honoring the 62,000 Australians who died during World War I – were ‘planted’ across 4,000 square metres to commemorate the Armistice centenary. Flown back to Australia, in 2019 the poppies were offered to community groups and that’s when march4mona, established by Janet and colleague Suzan Morey in 2017 to honor Sister Mona Wilton, successfully secured 20 kilos of them. The pair created the installation and SWH carpenter David Hill framed them.
In Mona’s service to her country she lost her life by enemy action on February 14 1942 as nursing staff accompanied the wounded being evacuated from Singapore on the Vyner Brook. A memorial window is dedicated to her in the Villiers building opposite our Warrnambool emergency department. It was unveiled on March 28 1953 by Wilma Young (nee Wilma Oram), representing the Warrnambool & District Base Hospital Past Trainees’ Association. Wilma was on duty with Mona during the evacuation and subsequently was taken prisoner for the remainder of the war.
In 2019, a plaque and a brick from Mona’s Naringal rose garden was unveiled in her memory on Bangka Island, east of Sumatra. On February 16 1942, Imperial Japanese soldiers murdered 22 Australian nurses and 60 Australian and British soldiers and crew members who had survived the sinking of the Vyner Brooke. The plaque and brick were organised by local RSL members and the Panmure Action Group.