S/Nrs. Lorna Aylmer Rattray

Lorna Aylmer Rattray was born on 10th January, 1875, in Dunedin. Her father was James Rattray, a well-known businessman in Dunedin. Her mother was Catherine Charlotte Rattray. Lorna was one of seven sisters.

As she grew up, Lorna had a busy social life. She played bridge, gave weekly tennis parties, attended dances, balls, and ‘at homes’. She gave piano solos at gatherings, helped decorate her church, St. Matthew’s, for special occasions such as Harvest Festival, and attended St. John Ambulance classes with her sister Lucy, passing exams there too.

She trained as a nurse at Christchurch Hospital where she worked for four years. She sat and passed her nursing exams in June 1914. She was 5 foot 3”, with brown hair and brown eyes.

When the war started, she planned to head to England to join a nursing corps for the Front, but then the NZ Army Nursing Corps was formed. She signed up on 6th July, 1915, (aged 40) and left New Zealand on 10th July on the hospital ship Maheno with 68 other New Zealand nurses heading for Egypt. She disembarked at Suez, and took the train for Port Said where she worked in a hospital.

She was selected to go with the New Zealand No. 1 Stationary Hospital across to Salonika, leaving Alexandra on 19th October, on the Marquette. She was with her close friend Poppy Popplewell: they had become friends on the voyage over from New Zealand on the Maheno. On the 23rd October, the ship was hit by a torpedo from a German submarine, and sank within ten minutes.

After the Marquette sank, Lorna and Poppy ended up in the Aegean Sea, clinging to a bit of wreckage “with a Tommy”, and another nursing sister, Mary Walker. Poppy tried hard to keep Lorna alive:

“We kept together the day of our disaster and hung on to the same piece of wreckage, but Lorna was not as strong as I am and simply couldn’t do it. I held her on for a long long time and then she died of utter exhaustion not long before we were picked up --- it was so dreadful. I was just able to hold up her face while she died and then so soon I had to let her go. I couldn’t hold her any longer but it was the most awful thing having to let her go and seeing her little grey body float right away from me ……” (pp. 134-135 “ANZAC Girls”)

Lorna drowned in the Aegean Sea on 23rd October, 1915.

She was posthumously awarded the 1914-15 Star, the British War Medal and the Victory Medal.

Source: Kete Christchurch

Sources

1. Cenotaph Record
2. Commonwealth War Graves Commission Record
3. Military Personnel File 1
4. Military Personnel File 2
5. New Zealand War Graves Record
6. Wikipedia contributors, 'Lorna Rattray', Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia

RATTRAY, LORNA AYLMER

• Rank: Staff Nurse
• Service No: 22/160
• Date of Death: 23/10/1915
• Regiment/Service: New Zealand Army Nursing Service
• Panel Reference:
• Memorial: MIKRA MEMORIAL
• Additional Information: Sister of Mr. C. W. Rattray, of Crawford St., Dunedin.