Brothers George and Miles Hamill (1890 – 1957) enlisted into the New Zealand Medical Corps; their mother, Alice, had instructed that if they were to go to war it would be “to save lives, not take lives”.
On 29 July 1915, they embarked on the Mānuka, a Union Steamship Company vessel requisitioned as a troop transport ship.
Less than three months later, on 23 October, George Hamill was on board the transport ship S.S. Marquette enroute from Alexandria (Egypt) to Salonica (Greece) when it was torpedoed by a German submarine.
George Hamill spent several hours in the Aegean Sea before being rescued by a French destroyer.
Of the 741 people on board the Marquette, 167 were lost, including ten members of the New Zealand Army Nursing Service, 19 male Medical Corps staff and three New Zealand soldiers.
George Hamill married Olive McLean in 1920 and settled in Whakatāne in 1922. Together with Miles, he established a motor vehicle dealership, Hamill Bros Ltd in 1928.
More about the sinking of the S.S. Marquette »
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