Taken as a prisoner of war during the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong, she remained in captivity for fourteen months.

[6] In 1940, following the outbreak of the Second World War, she enlisted in the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps (RCAMC) and was appointed as the nursing-sister-in-charge of the Fort Osborne Military Hospital.

[1][2] On 27 October 1941, she became one of the first two Canadian nurses to serve in an operational area during the war, when she and Kathleen Christie sailed aboard the HMT Awatea for Hong Kong with the Winnipeg Grenadiers.

[10] Though they were prisoners of war, the sisters continued to care for the patients under their charge until they were sent to Stanley Internment Camp in August 1942.

[1] She was awarded the Associate Royal Red Cross on 6 April 1944, by Brigadier J. C. Stewart, commanding officer of military district 6.

[13][14] On 5 September 1945, she was shipped out to rejoin her unit as part of the staff on the TSS Letitia,[15] and was briefly reunited with some of her fellow former prisoners of war in Hawaii in October.