The devoted nursing sister, sole Banka Island massacre survivor, prison camp heroine and medical pioneer's many decorations are to be displayed next to her bullet-holed uniform in the Australian War Memorial.

Sister Bullwinkel was wearing the now faded and fragile cotton garment when she was shot by Japanese soldiers in shallow water off Radji Beach on Banka Island in what is now Indonesia on February 16, 1942.

Her medals and awards were presented to the memorial by her nephew, John Bullwinkel, on Friday, December 18, the day she would have turned 100 if she had lived.

AWM director, Dr Brendan Nelson, said Sister Bullwinkel had been one of the greatest members of what is regarded as the greatest generation in Australian history.

"While she could not be awarded the Victoria Cross she was worthy of it in every sense of the word," he said.

During her three-and-a-half years of captivity Sister Bullwinkel hid her knowledge of the Banka Island massacre from the Japanese. She also kept her uniform, whose bullet hole and bloodstain verified her account, concealed.

In December, 1946, she gave evidence at the Tokyo war crimes trials and was described as "a model witness".

Evacuated from Singapore days before the city fell, Sister Bullwinkel and 64 other nurses were aboard the SS Vyner Brooke when it was sunk off Banka Island on February 14, 1942.

She, along with 52 of the nurses, landed safely. Her group, of 22 nurses and other men, women and children, came ashore at Radji Beach. They linked up with 100 British soldiers the following day.

It was decided surrender was the best option and the civilians went off to make contact with the enemy.

"The chief engineer [of the ship] came back with about 15 Japanese," Sister Bullwinkel later wrote.

"The British soldiers... were taken around a small point out of sight. There was no sound. Then the Japanese came back wiping their bayonets. We [the nurses] just looked at each other. We didn't have any emotion about it.

"The Japanese indicated we should go into the sea. We walked into the sea. We knew what was going to happen. All I can remember thinking was, 'I am sorry mother will never know what has happened to me but it will be nice to see dad again'."

Sister Bullwinkel, who was shot in the abdomen, feigned death: "It sort of penetrated that I wasn't dying right there and then. I stayed low until I couldn't stay low any longer." She was the only one of the 22 to survive.

John Bullwinkel said while his aunt's wartime experiences had been remarkable, the family was equally proud of her post-war contributions.

These included serving as the director of nursing at the Fairfield Infectious Diseases Hospital until 1977, raising funds and establishing memorials to honour the nurses who had been killed and creating scholarships to allow Malayan nurses to study in Australia.

During her later years at Fairfield Sister Bullwinkel organised a rescue mission to evacuate Vietnamese war orphans from Saigon and supervised their convalescence before adoption to Australian families.

Her many honours included the Florence Nightingale Medal, Officer of the Order of Australia, Member of the Order of the British Empire, 1939-1945 Star, Pacific Star, War Medal and Australian Service Medal.

Sister Bullwinkel, who retired from the army in 1947 and later achieved the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Citizens Military Forces, married Colonel Francis Statham in 1977. She died on July 3, 2000, aged 84.

Sister Bullwinkel was the first female member of the Australian War Memorial Council, serving from 1964 to 1969.