On a Wing and a Prayer

Flight Nurse History

• Before World War Il, the U.S. military showed little interest in using aircraft and flight nurses to evacuate wounded soldiers to rear areas. However, the global war forced the US to revolutionise military medical care through the medical development of air evacuation, which was later known as aeromedical evacuation and flight nurses.
• With the rapid expansion of USAA air transport routes around the world it was made possible to fly wounded and sick servicemen quickly to hospitals far from the front lines. This helped save the lives of many wounded men, and the introduction of flight nurses helped make it possible.
• Due to a pressing need for this service, the USAAF created medical air evacuation squadrons and started a rush training program for flight surgeons, medics and flight nurses at Bowman Field, near Louisville, Kentucky.
• The increasing need for flight nurses became critical after the Allied invasion of North Africa in November 1942, however many of the nurses at Bowman Field had not finished their training. Nevertheless, the USAAF sent these nurses to North Africa on Christmas Day.
• On Feb. 18, 1943, the U.S. Army Nurse Corps' first class of flight nurses formally graduated at Bowman Field.
• Due to the C47s used as air evacuation also transported military supplies, they could not display the Red Cross.
This meant that without any markings to indicate their non-combat status, these evacuation flights were vulnerable to enemy attacks. For this reason, flight nurses and medical technicians were volunteers.
• To prepare for any emergency, flight nurses learned crash procedures, received survival training, and studied the effects of high altitude on various types of patients. They also had to be in top physical condition to care for patients during these rigorous flights.
Eventually, about 500 Army nurses served as members of 31 medical air evacuation transport squadrons operating worldwide. It is a tribute to their skill that of the 1,176,048 patients air evacuated throughout the war, only
46 died en route. Seventeen flight nurses lost their lives during the war.

The Flight Nurses Creed
I will summon every resource to prevent the triumph of death over life. I will stand guard over the medicines and equipment entrusted to my care and ensure their proper use. I will be untiring in the performances of my duties and I will remember that, upon my disposition and spirit, will in large measure depend the morale of my patients. I will be faithful to my training and to the wisdom handed down to me by those who have gone before me.l have taken a nurse's oath, reverent in man's mind because of the spirit and work of its creator, Florence Nightingale.
She, I remember, was called the "Lady with the Lamp." It is now my privilege to lift this lamp of hope and faith and courage in my profession to heights not known by her in her time. Together with the help of flight surgeons and surgical technicians, I can set the very skies ablaze with life and promise for the sick, injured, and wounded who are my sacred charges. ...This I will do. I will not falter in war or in peace.

Famous Flight Nurse

Elsie S. Ott - As the flight nurse on the first intercontinental air evacuation flight, she demonstrated the potential of air evacuation in January 1943. She was an Army nurse who had never flown in an airplane and had no air evacuation training, she successfully oversaw the movement of five seriously ill patients from India to Washington, D.C. This six-day trip would have normally taken three months by ship and ground transportation. For her actions on this historic flight, Ott received the first Air Medal presented to a woman, and she also received formal flight nurse training.
Suella Bernard - On March 22, 1945, two CG-4A gliders landed in a clearing near the bridgehead at Remagen, Germany, to evacuate 25 severely injured American and German casualties. Once the gliders were loaded, C-47 transports successfully snatched them from their landing site and towed them to a military hospital in France. In the second glider, Suella who had volunteered for the mission, cared for the wounded en route. One of the first two nurses to fly into Normandy after the D-Day invasion, Bernard became the only nurse known to have participated in a glider combat mission during World War II. For this mission, she received the Air Medal.
Aleda E. Lutz - One of the most celebrated flight nurses of World War II, she flew 196 missions and evacuated over 3,500 men. In November 1944, during an evacuation flight from the front lines near Lyon, France, her C-47 crashed killing all aboard. Aleda was awarded the Air Medal with four Oak Leaf Clusters, and the Distinguished Flying Cross.
Mary L. Hawkins - On Sept. 24, 1944, she was evacuating 24 patients from the fighting at Palau to Guadalcanal when the
C-47 ran low on fuel. The pilot made a forced landing in a small clearing on Bellona Island. During the landing, a propeller tore through the fuselage and severed the trachea of one patient. Hawkins made a suction tube from various items including the inflation tube from a "Mae West." With this, she kept the man's throat clear of blood until aid arrived 19 hours later. All of her patients survived. For her actions, Hawkins received the Distinguished Flying Cross.