Gladys Maude Mary Wake | Nursing Sisters | Great War

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Mount Wake named to remember Canadian Army Medical Corp Nursing Sister Gladys Maude Mary Wake, of Esquimalt, who died 21 May 1918 of wounds received 2 days earlier during the air raid on No.1 Canadian General Hospital at Etaples, France.

Photo of Gladys Wake – © IWM (WWC H22-10)

Gladys Maude Mary Wake born 13 December 1883 at Esquimalt, graduated from Victoria’s Jubilee Hospital School of Nursing in 1912, and volunteered with the Canadian Expeditionary Force in 1916.

Canadian Army Medical Corps

Posted to the Duchess of Connaught Canadian Red Cross Hospital at Taplow, then to the Canadian General Hospital at Salonica, Greece, before being taken on strength 12 May 1918 at No.1 Canadian General Hospital, Etaples, the week before the air raid.

19 May 1918

The air raid of 19 May 1918 described in detail by Sergeant-Major A P Reid.

Mary Wake Eyewitness Account Page 1
Mary Wake Eyewitness Account Page 2
Mary Wake Eyewitness Account Page 3
Mary Wake Eyewitness Account Page 4

Etaples Military Cemetery

Casualties buried 7pm, 22 May 1918. Nursing Sister Gladys Maude Mary Wake buried in the Etaples Military Cemetery, France, grave 5, row L, plot XXVII. Also a tablet to her memory in St. Paul’s Church, Esquimalt.

Note British photographer Second Lieutenant Thomas Keith Aitken also in attendance. His partner, Lt. John Warwick Brooke captured film footage of the ceremony.

Following another largely attended funeral, German aircraft return before midnight and drop a few more bombs, though none near the camp.

In its early years, the cemetery visible as the train from Boulogne to Paris passed close by. Sir Fabian Ware, the founder of the Imperial War Graves Commission, ensured that trains would linger for a minute or so to allow passengers a glimpse.

Casualties

Sixty-six patients and staff (including two other Canadian nursing sisters: Nursing Sister Margaret Lowe and Nursing Sister Katherine Maud Mary MacDonald) died as a result of this raid.

Twenty-eight Other Ranks arrive on 23 May to replace the hospital’s own casualties.

Nursing Sister Katherine Maud Mary MacDonald

Mount Wake (2,320 m)

NE of junction of Meager Creek and Lillooet River, NW of Pemberton, Lillooet Land District. 50°39’31″N, 123°18’07″W at the approximate centre of this feature. Adopted 11 November 1998 on 92J/11.

Nursing Sister Gladys Maude Mary Wake in the Great War

Canadian Army Medical Corps

19 May 1918

Etaples Military Cemetery

Casualties

Mount Wake (2,320 m)

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