This is an interesting, although somewhat harrowing, look at a group of Australians put under extraordinary pressure by their experiences in wartime.

Based on a true story, the film looks at two young Australian women, Lorna Whyte, one of a group of about a dozen nurses left behind when the Australian army withdrew in the face of the Japanese advance, and Sister Bernice, a Catholic nun at a German mission on the island. Like most films about Japanese prison camps, there are distressing scenes of cruelty and brutality, but most of the Japanese soldiers behave professionally most of the time, and some are even shown to behave more humanely.

Snook is very good as Lorna, and won the AFI Award for Best Lead Actress in a Television Drama, while van der Bloom won the Silver Logie for Most Outstanding Actress. Overall, this is a moving account of the extreme events of the war, and you can't help but be filled with admiration for what these women went through.

We should be grateful to Rod miller for many years of his inexhaustible endeavor in gathering up documentary information regarding these lost women of Rebaul. Had it not been for him we would not have heard about the fate of these nuns and nurses who were inhumanely brutalized and murdered by Japanese soldiers in WWII. The whole world must have been lucky when Japan lost the war, otherwise a terrible fate would have fallen on all of us.I did read a lot of documentary articles regarding these these nuns and nurses and the movie mostly keeps in line somehow with the real events. In different parts of movie, correct reference is made to real events and the demise of people involved with Japanese. Another side effect of this movie was about this very important matter that the fate people is not in the hands of almighty God ,as is believed , but merely subject to chances and circumstances.Bishop Scharmack saved the lives of all those nuns,nurses and wounded soldiers from a Japanese execution threat but then the same wounded soldiers lost their lives at sea when their ship was torpedoed by American Navy. God even did not save his mission from airplane bombardments ! The movie was well organized in terms of successive occurrences of events and Claire Van Der Boom and Sara Snook played their roles beautifully. There was also a clash of religious beliefs between Claire and Sara , one, Claire, believing in the cycle of their daily events as a Godly-destined manifestation and other, Sara, looking at them as haphazard series of events not being destined by any supernatural control. Who won ? I think Sara(Lorna) did.

As it is Memorial Day Weekend, I chose to watch this movie. It's Australian, and the actors are very real in their roles. We don't often think about this area; usually, it is Europe. They went through hell and these nurses and nuns were so brave. I don't want to give anyway away but please watch to the end of the movie - very interesting facts of what they went through. Remembering those who fought and fell in this horrible WWII.