Hilda Berry served in the Women's Army Corps in England, assigned to the 2nd Air Division Headquarters.



In July 1942, when she enlisted, she was working as a clerk in Ithaca, New York.



Her father, Romeyn Berry, was an alumnus of Cornell University. The following short article ran about his daughter in the newsletter of 15 October 1943:

'WAC COMPANY commanded by Lieutenant Hilda Berry, daughter of Romeyn Berry '04, was the subject of a feature article from Norfolk, England, in The New York Times for October 2. Lieutenant Berry's command, one of the first WAC companies to go to England, is on duty at an American Air Force headquarters.'



In February 1944, Hilda Berry's unit were involved in the christening ceremony for the B-24 Liberator 42-100187 "Pallas Athene".



By October 1944, she had been made a Captain. This small news item featured in the Cornell newsletter at that time:

'Major Marcus M. Mason, Army Veterinary Corps, has been in England for twenty-eight months with duties of food inspection and care of Army dogs. He has written expressing pleasure at the way he has been received by the English; also writes of meeting Major Mary Dixon '38, WAC, Helen Crum '41 of the American Red Cross, and Captain Hilda Berry, WAC, daughter of Romeyn Berry '04.'



In 1949, she married Charles Hamilton Sanford Jr at Yale's Branford College Chapel. Her husband was serving as the Executive Secretary of Alumni Board at that time.

Their daughter, Sally Allis Sanford, would go on to graduate from Yale in 1975 and be married at New Haven's Trinity Episcopal Church on the Green the following year.