Nora Mildred Hildyard

Nora Mildred HILDYARD. Staff Nurse 22/125 NZANS.
Born 4 November 1888 at Lyttelton, Canterbury, New Zealand to William and Betsy Ann Hildyard, of Cressy Terrace, Lyttelton, Christchurch, New Zealand. 1913 Qualified as a Nurse at Christchurch Hospital, Christchurch, New Zealand. Employment prior to enlistment. Private Practice Nurse for Doctor Sandston, Lyttleton, New Zealand. Enlisted 6 July 1915 at Wellington, Nurses at Christchurch Hospital from December 1913 for 4 years and 8 months Embarked from Wellington New Zealand on New Zealand No 1 Hospital Ship, Maheno 11 July 1915 for Egypt. October 1915 she was on board the SS Marquette when it was torpedoed by a German submarine U-35 and sunk. She was injured by a bungled lowering of the lifeboat she was in into the Aegean Sea 23 October 1915. Her legs were crushed against the side of the ship. She drowned aged 28.
Her service records are a little sketchy.
Full extract from De Ruvigny’s Roll of Honour on Ancestry.
Nona (Nora) Milidred Hildyard. Nurse, New Zealand Expeditionary Force. Daughter of William Hildyard of Lyttleton, New Zealand, by his wife Betsy Ahh, daughter of John (and Harriet) Libballie; b.Lyttleton aforesaid, 4 November 1890 (service record shows 4.11.1888); educ. Lyttleton Public Schools; entered the Christchurch Hospital, New Zealand, where she soon attracted the attention of her superiors and on the outbreak of war was one of the nurses specially selected by the Government to go to the Front with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force. She left for Egypt 11 July 1915 and was for some time engaged in the Base Hospital, Port Said. When the New Zealand troops were being transferred to Salonika, she sailed for that port the other nurses of the hospital and was lost on the troop ship Marquetta, when she was torpedoed in the Gulf of Salonika 23 October 1915. Doctors who were eye-witnesses of the disaster affirm that she displayed wonderful courage and fortitude and sang “Tipperary” and “Are we down hearted? No!” to the last to keep up the spirits of her comrades.
Commemorated on the Mikra Memorial, Greece.