Judy Balcombe

Judy is a family doctor working in Melbourne with a keen interest in the history of the Fall of Singapore and the experiences of the prisoners in the Civilian Japanese prison camps of Muntok, Palembang and Belalau since childhood after learning her grandfather, a rubber planter in Malaya, died in Muntok Men’s Japanese civilian prison camp on Bangka Island in 1944. She has visited Bangka Island with other prisoners and their families regularly since 2011. Initially these were private visits but now annual Memorial Services are held each February 16, attended by families and the Australian, New Zealand and British Embassies. In 2015, she undertook fundraising to help establish the Muntok Peace Museum.

In addition she belongs to the Malayan Volunteers’ Group, a group which brings together families who have lived in pre-war Malaya, historians, and other interested people. The Malayan and Singapore Volunteers formed the compulsory civil defense of the Malay peninsula before and during WW2. She is a member of the History and Heritage Committee of the Australian Nurses’ Memorial Centre in Melbourne which was established in the 1950’s by Australian Army Nurses Vivian Bullwinkel, who was shot but survived the Radji Beach massacre on Bangka Island on February 16, 1942, and her colleague Betty Jeffrey, who also survived the Sumatran prison camps as wellas being a member of Friends of Bangka Island, who organise the annual Memorial Services and fundraising work for the Muntok Red Cross and online English tuition to local students.