was lost and one of her crew was killed. Kairanga saved herself by beaching on Goat Island, and returned to service after repairs lasting three months. Empire Star was also damaged but less seriously, and returned to service on 1 April. Evacuation from Singapore In November 1941 Empire Star left Liverpool as a member of Convoy WS 12Z to Freetown, Sierra Leone. She and another of other members of the convoy continued to Bombay, where they arrived on 6 January. On 8 December Japan had invaded Malaya, and on 19 January Empire Star left Bombay for Singapore as part of Convoy BM 11. By the time the convoy reached Singapore on 29 January Malaya was lost, and only the narrow Straits of Johor lay between Japanese forces and the island of Singapore. On 8 February the Japanese invasion of Singapore began. Within days a British and Empire defeat was inevitable, and an evacuation of key personnel was begun. By 11 February Empire Star had loaded RAF equipment and stores and had embarked what the Master, Selwyn Capon, estimated were more than 2,160 people. Later he wrote that they included 1,573 RAF, British Army and Royal Navy personnel, 139 Australian Imperial Force personnel and 133 army nurses and signalling personnel. The nurses were members of the Australian Army Nursing Service from two Australian Army Medical Corps hospitals. Many of the signalling personnel, like the nurses, would have been women. The total number of women on the ship was 160 and there were also 35 children. In the early hours of 12 February Empire Star and the Ocean Steam Ship Co cargo ship left Singapore escorted by the and anti-submarine vessel , which was a converted Singapore – Penang ferry. At 0910 hrs in the Durian Strait south of Singapore, six Japanese dive-bombers attacked the convoy. Anti-aircraft fire shot down one aircraft and damaged another, which broke off from the attack. Three bombs hit Empire Star, killing 14 people and wounding 17, including her Second Officer and an Able Seaman. She was set afire in three places but her firefighting equipment was not disabled. One of Empire Stars four lifeboats was damaged. In this or a subsequent attack one of the ship's anti-aircraft guns was destroyed. The Chief Officer Joseph Dawson organised firefighting parties that extinguished all three fires. Australian nurses tended the wounded. As aircraft machine-gunned the ship two nurses, Margaret