Honouring Service and Sacrifice

Bangka Day Memorial Service 2026 – 15 February 2026
Each year, the South Australian Women’s Memorial Playing Fields Trust hosts a memorial service dedicated to the nurses who died in the Bangka Island Massacre. Here we honour the service and sacrifice they made over 80 years ago. This service is the largest memorial dedicated to servicewomen in the Southern Hemisphere. The service includes a special guest speaker, followed by light refreshments.

St Peter’s Woodlands was well represented at this years’ service, with our 2026 Elaine Balfour Ogilvy Memorial Scholarship winner, Scarlett, in attendance to be personally presented with her certificate by President of the SA Women’s Memorial Playing Fields Trust Inc., Jackie Wood. Also in attendance were Mr Paul Mesecke, Community Engagement Manager, Acting Principal, Mrs Sarah Noell, Old Scholars’ Association  President Ali Cleland and Secretary/ Treasurer Lesley Woods, members of the extended Balfour Ogilvy family and four generations of Scarlett’s family. The morning featured wonderful addresses by Her Excellency, the Honourable Frances Adamson AC, Governor of South Australia, and Retired Colonel Steve Larkins OAM, who spoke on the remarkable nurses involved at Bangka, particularly highlighting Elaine Balfour Ogilvy.

The Elaine Balfour Ogilvy Memorial Scholarship
The Elaine Balfour Ogilvy Memorial Scholarship is awarded annually to a Year 5 St Peter’s Woodlands student entering Year 6, through the generosity of the St Peter’s Woodlands Old Scholars’ Association. The scholarship was established in 1944 in memory of Lieutenant Elaine Balfour Ogilvy, AANS, and has since been awarded to 87 deserving recipients. To find out more about the Elaine’s story click here. 

Article shared by Paul Mesecke, Community Engagement Manager.