Nurses in WWII: The Army Nurse Corps

The oldest US women's military organization, the Army Nurse Corps sometimes traces their roots back to the Revolutionary War, although, its more official start came in 1861, when Dorthea Dix was appointed Superintendent of Women Nurses for the Union Army. And, so started a tradition of valor for the Army Nurse Corps, serving along side of the Army from the Spanish American War to World War I and on through to World War Two. In fact, Army nurses were caught in some of the first cross fire of the Second World War, having been stationed at Pearl Harbor and in the Philippines during the time of their attack on Dec 7th, 1941. During WWII, the Army Nurse Corps was awarded more than 1,600 military decorations. Army Nurses had landed on the beaches of Anzio on the day of the invasion, and Normandy just 4 days after. The only German POW was an Army Nurse, and several Army Nurses were captured by the Japanese and spent the war in a POW camp.

Contrary to popular belief, all nurses stationed overseas were Army Nurses. Eligible civilian nurses signed up with the American Red Cross Nursing Service, however, upon volunteering to serve overseas, one was officially sworn into the Army. At one point, so many nurses were needed to fill Army positions both here and abroad, that some serious consideration was given to drafting all available nurses into the military.

While not all Army Nurses were stationed overseas, many did, working with field and evacuation hospitals. These hospitals were often close to the front lines, and condtions were not always ideal. Nurses often lived in tents or quonset huts in the field, and worked exhausting hours with sometimes little or no supplies and difficult sanitary conditions, subject to the same combat situations as the fighting troops.

The Army Air Forces also used specially trained nurses as part of their flight evacuation program. These nurses, known as flight nurses, were specially trained to help transport stable patients from frontline makeshift hospitals in Europe to regular medical facilities in England for further medical treatment, using the same transport planes that the Airborne used to "drop" paratroopers. Although considered experimental for most of the war, the flight nurse program was considered highly successful, and were believed to have saved thousands of lives. The advancements in air evacuation became the forerunner of the helicopter rescue airlift operations during Korea and Vietnam. However, the flight nurse program had the added risk of air travel in addition to being close to the front line. In fact, the only female German POW was a flight nurse. Several other flight nurses narrowly escaped capture, and still others were killed when their planes went down.

For more information on Army Nurse Corps uniforms or building an Army Nurse Corps impression, visit the reenactor's guide.

Nurses in WWII: The Army Nurse Corps

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