Hero nurse among 10 WW2 women being commemorated
BBCA 27-year-old nurse who died at sea while trying to save wounded men during World War Two is being commemorated in a new exhibition.
Sister Mollie Evershed, from Soham, Cambridgeshire, is one of 10 women being featured in a display of 8ft (2.5m) steel silhouettes.
The structures will make up part of a new exhibition at the International Bomber Command Centre (IBCC) near Lincoln, from 14 March.
Nicky van der Drift, chief executive of the IBCC, said: "We are proud to honour the women who played such a vital role in protecting the freedoms we enjoy today."
Sister Evershed died alongside fellow nurse Sister Dorothy Field, from Ringwood in Hampshire, on 7 August 1944, when a hospital ship they were on struck a mine off the French coast.
Sister Evershed lived with her parents in Soham and went to school in Ely, before training as a nurse in Norwich.
Both nurses helped to bring the 75 wounded men on the ship to safety, but were below deck when it sank.
They were the only women out of 22,442 people under British command to die in the 12-week Battle of Normandy.
Silhouettes of Sister Evershed and Sister Field formed part of a D-Day memorial on Gold Beach in Normandy last year.
The latest installations, made by the Standing With Giants project, are meant to be a reminder of the efforts of women during the war by commemorating each individual woman's story.
The other women being commemorated are:
- Physicist Joan Curran
- Physicist and engineer Dorothy Robson
- Pilot Lettice Curtis
- Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) Sergeant Margaret Hourigan
- WAAF safety officer Muriel Blake
- Renee Woods from the Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes
- Philanthropist Stella Charnaud
- Matron Dorothy Anyta Field
- Agent Madeleine Damerment
The IBCC said each woman was chosen for representing courage and leadership during World War Two.
"These women were chosen thanks to their bravery and resilience during the wartime efforts, and to represent all of the women who contributed and sacrificed throughout the war," said Ms van der Drift.
The silhouettes will be unveiled on 14 March, in front of family and members of the Armed Forces, and an all-female flypast will take place.
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