Matron Margaret Marjory Fraser, from New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, was a nursing sister working aboard the Canadian hospital ship HMHS Llandovery Castle when it was torpedoed and sunk by the German U-Boat U-86 on June 27, 1918.

The loss of Llandovery and 234 people on board would have been enough to have many Canadians up-in-arms, but once it was learned that U-86 used its guns to dispatch those in the remaining lifeboats, the event became a rallying cry for Canadian troops.

Pearl’s service in Europe

Matron Margaret Marjory Fraser – she was known as “Pearl” to many of her peers – was the daughter of Nova Scotia’s then Lieutenant Governor. Within 2 months of the beginning of the First World War, 30-year-old Fraser had enlisted with the Canadian Army Medical Corps on September 28, 1914, and before the end of October, she was serving in England, then quickly thereafter in France as part of the No.2 Canadian Stationary Hospital (CSH).

A few interesting facts about the No. 2 CSH: it was the first Canadian unit to operate in France (even before the PPCLI arrived) and its members received a 1914 Mons Star in recognition of their service in this regard. Also, the hospital was located in Le Touquet, near Ypres, and treated Canadian soldiers wounded in the April 1915 battle that saw the enemy’s first use of poison gas; chlorine, during the Second Battle of Ypres.

During the war’s middle years, Fraser’s ability, not only as a nurse but also as a leader, was recognized by her superiors. This resulted in her being transferred to the King’s Red Cross Special Hospital in England in July 1917 and promoted to the rank of Matron, a title that she retained even as she was assigned to HMHS Llandovery Castle in March 1918. The title Matron was a term taken from the British system that ranked nurses and was relatively equivalent to the rank of Major in the fighting forces. A Matron is recognized as being the senior nurse or head of the nursing staff. Put simply, Matron Fraser was the boss.

The sequence of events on that fateful June day in 1918

On June 27, 1918, the Canadian hospital ship the HMHS Llandovery Castle was torpedoed off the coast of Ireland by German U-boat U-86. The Llandovery Castle was then returning to Britain after having dropped off hundreds of injured soldiers in Halifax. The ship was even properly marked as a hospital ship; its appropriate lighting and the red cross painted on its hull were clearly visible to friend and foe alike. 

As the hospital ship quickly sank, some of the crew managed to board lifeboats. Matron Fraser was one of them, but her lifeboat, like most of the others, was drawn into the whirlpool created by the sinking ship. In her last moments, Matron Fraser said to the man beside her, a Sergeant Arthur Knight who survived the event to tell this tale: “Sergeant, do you think there is any hope for us?” Knight replied, “No”, and later wrote in his diary that the last he saw of Nursing Sister Fraser was as she was thrown over the side of the lifeboat as they entered the whirlpool.

After the Llandovery Castle had completely sunk, the German U-boat surfaced and opened fire on the remaining lifeboats. Over two hundred Canadians were killed and only 5 of 239 people originally aboard the ship survived. The sinking of the Llandovery Castle was considered one of the worst atrocities perpetrated in the war and was used as a rallying cry for Canadian soldiers during the last Hundred Days.

The tragic story of Alexina Dussault

A trained nurse from Quebec, Alexina joined the Canadian Expeditionary Force on September 25, 1914 shortly after the war was declared. In a brave and selfless act, she lied about her age in order to enlist. The ruse worked and Alexina was sent to France where she was posted to a casualty clearing station. Due to the excellent medical care provided at these stations ninety-five percent of soldiers who made it to one of these medical outposts survived their injuries. In February 1916, Alexina volunteered for hospital ship service and was granted that posting. She proceeded to spend the next two years caring for soldiers on the long voyages from England to Canada until that fateful day, June 27, 1918. As the ship sunk, one of the lifeboats was pulled into its whirlpool and all fourteen nursing sisters onboard that smaller vessel were drowned, including Nursing Sister Alexina Dussault.

Right: Alexina Dussault of the Canadian Army Medical Corps, lost on June 27, 1918, during the sinking of the Llandovery Castle.

Conclusion

Most often we think of the soldiers directly involved in the fight at the front and how they must have suffered, but we should never forget the tens and hundreds of thousands who served behind the scenes and who were also impacted and scarred very deeply. Nurses were among those who were not at the Front but were almost always on-duty. Their part was not an easy job by any means. As exposure to the tragedy of war increased, many began to “have breakdowns… ending their shifts with tears streaming down their faces, terrible insomnia, obviously what we now would call post-traumatic stress” (source). We must always remember that Canadian Nursing Sisters played a huge role during the First World War. Almost 3,000 served, and of those, 61 died.

Matron Margaret Fraser is buried at the Halifax Memorial in Point Pleasant Park, Halifax, Nova Scotia. Her youngest brother (James) had died in battle just months before Llandovery was sunk, and yet Matron Fraser did not give in. She persevered until the very end. Her other brother, Alistair, survived the war and followed their father’s footsteps by becoming Lieutenant Governor of NS for a stint in the 50’s.

Re-printed here with the permission of Valour Canada as part of a collaboration between JMS and Valour Canada. To see more articles like this one, check out their Military History Library.

For more information:

• For more information, you can consult this article from the Canadian Great War Project about the sinking of the Llandovery Castle.
• “Opera to focus on Great War nurses 100 years after hospital ship sinking”, City News.
• “Remembering Acting Matron Margaret Marjorie (Pearl) Fraser”, FWW Veterans of Guysborough County.

This article is a combination of two articles from Valour Canada: “Matrone Margaret Fraser” and “HMHS Llandovery Castle and Military Nurse Dussault.” Finally, for teachers, we also have a turnkey activity related to this event that can be done in class: “Llandovery Castle: Tragedy at Sea.”

This article was published as part of our exhibition on the Canadian Nursing Sisters: They Cared: the Origins of Military Nursing. Visit our exhibition to learn more about the history of the Canadian women who participated in the First World War!