Royal Canadian Navy Monument, Richmond Island, Ottawa

Colonel (Ret’d) Gisèle Fontaine, President MNAC-OU joined other dignitaries including Rear-Admiral (Ret’d), The Honourable Rebecca Patterson, OMM, MSM, CD, Senator; Marie-France Lalonde, MP; Major-General Scott Malcolm, CMM, MSC, CD, Canadian Armed Forces Surgeon-General; Colonel Carolyn Blanchard, CD, Canadian Armed Forces Chief Nursing Officer; and more in a solemn remembrance ceremony to commemorate the 108th Anniversary of the Sinking of HMHS Llandovery Castle, the deadliest Canadian naval disaster of the First World War.

On June 27, 1918, HMHS Llandovery Castle was sailing from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Liverpool, England, when it was torpedoed off southern Ireland by German submarine SM U-86. Of the 258 souls on board, 234 were lost. Only 24 survived. Nursing Sister Rena Maude MacLean, a featured nurse on our site, was one of the 14 nursing sisters who died that night.