Laura Verbena Theodora Ivy COWARD

Laura Verbena Theodora Ivy (k/a Laura) COWARD.
Mentioned in Despatches
Sister 206068, QAIMNS. Queen Alexander Hospital, Singapore.

Born 1897 at Barcaldine, Queensland, Australia to Hedley Samuel and Lottie Veroena Coward
Came to England and resided at 155 Sediescombe Road North, St Leonards along with her brother and sister-in-law
1901 with her parents and siblings at 02 Auckland House, Grove Road, Ventor, Hampshire.
1911 name given as Laura Evelyn Coward aged 16. Residing at 21 Merton Hall Road, Wimbledon, Surrey the home of her aunt, Caroline Margaret Coward, occupation student with the post office

In 1942 she was a passenger on (Evacuation Ship) SS Kuala which had escaped from Singapore a day before the fall of Singapore to the Japanese. This ship was sunk 12 hours later by Japanese bombers on 14 February 1942 near Pom Pong Island. Many women and children were killed on the ship itself, but the Japanese continued direct bombing of the sea whilst the survivors, who were desperately try to swim the few hundred yards to safety on the shore of Pom Pong island. The bombing continued even onto the Island itself as the survivors scrambled across slippery rocks and up the steep slopes of the jungle tangled hills of this small uninhabited island in the Indonesian Archipelago. There is no knowing where she was actually killed. She was aged 35. Commemorated on the Singapore Memorial

Wills and Admin, Ancestry -
Laura Coward of 155 Sedlescombe Road North, St Leonards-on-Sea, spinster died on of since 14 February 1942 on war service. Her effects went to Charles Henry Gifford Coward civil servant and Kathleen Coward wife of the said Charles Henry Gifford Coward.

Hastings and St Leonards Observer - Saturday 21 February 1942
Military Nurse is still in Singapore.
One of the few British nurses remaining in Singapore when it was captured was Sister LAURIE COWARD, QAIMNS, of 155 Sediescombe Road North, St Leonards, where her brother, Mrs Charles Gifford Coward, her nearest living relative and her sister-in-law are now living. Sister Coward was born at Barcaldine, Queensland, Australia and came to England to be trained in the nursing profession. In 1922 she went abroad as a nurse to Aden and India and arrived at Singapore in 1940, where she still carrying on her good work in a military hospital, though as a prisoner of war. Sister Coward is described by her friends as a woman of vital personality whose heart and soul are in her nursing work.