Jakarta: "Guess you will be thinking I've gone up in smoke. There is plenty of it about," Australian Army nurse Kath Neuss quipped in a letter dated February 6, 1942.
It was characteristic Kath: a fun-loving, outgoing woman with a wicked sense of humour, whose letters home from Malaya and Singapore, where she served with the Australian Army Nursing Service as part of the 8th Division Australian Imperial Force, help bring her back to life.
Ten days after she wrote the letter Sister Neuss was dead; executed on Bangka, an island east of Sumatra, in a massacre that ranks among the bloodiest and most infamous war crimes carried out by the Japanese during World War II.
Sixty-five years later Michael Noyce discovered a little round leather box in his mother's study. Both of his parents had died and Mr Noyce, from Sydney, was clearing up their belongings. The contents of the box still gives him shivers. His mother had kept letters Kath Neuss - her best friend and her husband's sister - had sent during the war.
"This treasure trove of history … to read and transcribe them was chilling," Mr Noyce says.
Mr Noyce grew up with the story of his aunt. Sister Neuss was among 22 nurses shot on Radji beach after their ship, SS Vyner Brooke, was sunk by the Japanese off the coast of what is now Indonesia.
"In a sense my reason for being on this earth is my aunt," he says.
Kath Neuss and Philippa Noyce trained together at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and shared an apartment in Darlinghurst. Bill Noyce came to the apartment to farewell Kath before he set sail for the Middle East in 1940, but found Philippa there instead of his sister. The rest is history. Bill and Philippa were married for 60 years.
"That wouldn't have happened if my aunt was not on nursing duty."
Mr Noyce first visited Bangka Island with his cousin Ian Neuss in January 2016. A lot had changed in more than 70 years - thick jungle had made way for oil palm plantations - but he was still struck by the remoteness. "We got to the beach and it was absolutely incredible. We put a wreath on the rock and dropped some soil from my parents' grave into the beach."
While on the island Mr Noyce was impressed by memorials established by the descendents of civilian internees who were captured and held by the Japanese at a camp in Muntok, a town on the island.
Last year Mr Noyce received an email from Qantas. Flights were going cheap from Sydney to Jakarta on dates coinciding with the anniversary of the Bangka Island massacre.
"By the end of January last year six of us were going. That's all it was going to be - a small family paying a personal tribute to a long lost aunt."
But then Mr Noyce emailed the Australian War Memorial pointing out this could be the last opportunity for many of the first generation of relatives of the murdered nurses to pay their respects. The email was referred to the Australian Embassy in Jakarta and the next thing he knew an official ceremony and service was being organised on Bangka Island.
About 80 people will attend, including friends and relatives of the nurses and civilian internees and existing members of the Australian Army Nursing Corps. "It's been phenomenal."
Mr Noyce had some unusual excess baggage this trip: a 20 kilogram bronze plaque dedicated to those killed on Radji beach. "This beach is hallowed ground," it says.
The 75th anniversary event on February 16 is important for a number of reasons. "First of all to invigorate the memory of the nurses and build their story so it is more widely known," he says.
The relatives also want to do something that will help their memory endure on the island - a nurse education centre possibly, that would incorporate their names.
"There is a developing closeness between the people of Muntok and Australia and elsewhere connected with what happened 75 years ago."
Only one nurse, Sister Vivian Bullwinkel, survived the Bangka Island Massacre. She was shot in the hip but feigned dead in the surf until the Japanese executioners walked away.
When Sister Bullwinkel returned to Australia she contacted all the families of the nurses who died. She conveyed some of their remarkable final words before they were slaughtered. Mr Noyce will read these on Radji beach on Thursday.
"Girls, take it, don't squeal," said Sister Esther Sarah Jean Stewart. "Sends shivers down you, doesn't it?" says Mr Noyce. "The nurses knew their fate. Don't squeal, by God."
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