Rena Maude McLean (14 June 1879 – 27 June 1918) was among the first Canadian Nursing Sisters to volunteer for overseas service during the First World War. Over nearly four years she served in Canada, England, France, and Greece, caring for wounded soldiers in military hospitals and aboard hospital ships. She was one of the fourteen Canadian Nursing Sisters who lost their lives when HMHS Llandovery Castle was torpedoed by a German U-boat in June 1918, an attack widely regarded as one of the war’s most infamous atrocities.

Born in Souris, Prince Edward Island, McLean was the daughter of businessman and politician John McLean and Matilda Jane Jury. Known to family and friends by the nickname “Bird,” she attended Mount Allison Ladies’ Collegebefore graduating from Halifax Ladies’ College in 1896. She completed her nursing education at Newport Hospital in Newport, Rhode Island, graduating in 1908, and later became head operating room nurse at Henry Heywood Memorial Hospital in Gardner, Massachusetts.

McLean was appointed to the Canadian Army Medical Corps as a Nursing Sister on 28 September 1914, only weeks after the outbreak of war. She sailed for England the following month and, in November, joined No. 2 Canadian Stationary Hospital in France. At Le Touquet she was among the thirty-five Canadian nurses who transformed a luxury hotel into the first hospital in France staffed entirely by Canadians. During the aftermath of the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915, the hospital received hundreds of soldiers suffering the effects of chlorine gas.

Her wartime service took her to a remarkable variety of postings. She served briefly with No. 12 British Stationary Hospital at Rouen before transferring to the Duchess of Connaught’s Canadian Red Cross Hospital at Taplow, England. In 1916 she began transport duty, escorting wounded soldiers between Britain and Canada aboard hospital and troop ships. Later that year she was posted to No. 1 Canadian Stationary Hospital at Salonika, Greece, before returning to England when Canadian nursing personnel were withdrawn from the Mediterranean theatre. She subsequently served at No. 16 Canadian General Hospital at Orpington and, in early 1918, aboard the hospital ship HMHS Araguaya.

Despite years of demanding service, MacLean remained optimistic. In her final surviving letter written aboard Llandovery Castle on 16 June 1918, she wrote:

Voices of Service

Here we are once more approaching Halifax, but still as far from home as ever… This trip more than half our patients are amputation cases and would make you heartsick only they are so cheerful and happy themselves… This may be my last trip over and, if it is, that means that I don’t get home until dear knows when, for as soon as I get to England I am going to put in for France and once there it will be hard enough to get away.

Rena Maude MacLean, RRC Nursing Sister, HMHS Llandovery Castle 1918

In March 1918 McLean joined HMHS Llandovery Castle, which carried wounded Canadian soldiers across the Atlantic. During the return voyage to England, the ship was torpedoed by German submarine U-86 off the coast of Ireland on 27 June 1918. The vessel sank rapidly, and all fourteen Canadian Nursing Sisters aboard lost their lives. Their deaths became a powerful symbol of the sacrifice and courage of Canada’s military nurses.

Rena McLean’s memory has been honoured in numerous ways. Memorial plaques commemorate her in St. James United Church in Souris, at Mount Allison University, and at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Charlottetown. A veterans’ hospital established in Charlottetown in 1919 bore her name, and today the Rena McLean Veterans Garden marks the site where that hospital once stood. Her name is also inscribed among more than 3,000 women of the British Empire commemorated in the Five Sisters Window at York Minster, England. Within the Canadian Armed Forces, the Llandovery Castle Award, presented annually to an outstanding Nursing Officer, continues to honour the legacy of McLean and her fellow Nursing Sisters who made the ultimate sacrifice. Rena Maude McLean’s medals are held by the Borden Memorial Museum and Archives at Canadian Forces Base Borden, ON. They were placed there by Dr Gustave Gingras following the death of his wife, Rena M. MacLean Gingras, Rena’s niece.