Angels on Board: Heroic flight nurses of World War II

by Nancy Polette

Between 1942 and the end of 1944, 1514 flight nurses were trained at Bowman Field, Louisville, KY. 18 Medical Air Evacuation Squadrons were formed that transported 1,176,048 sick and wounded soldiers, sailors and Marines. These flight nurses were pioneers in the intensive care of patients in flight in Europe, the Pacific, China and Burma using the C-47, C-46 and C-54s as flying hospitals from battle aid station to inter-theatre and inter-continental flights back to the U.S. In spite of the hardships, only 46 of the 1,176,048 patients who were evacuated by air during World War II died en route. Here are the stories of nineteen of these women who represent more than 1500 flight nurses who made this amazing statistic possible.

266 pages, Paperback

Published January 19, 2015

About the author

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_P...

Reviews

[Judith Huck · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stories of the flight nurses who cared for wounded soldiers leaving the combat areas during WWII. I was particularly interested in the Pacific, since Guam was used as a major stopover and staging area. My father was stationed on Guam during WWII and this gave me some additional idea of what it was like. This coves flight nurses in both the Pacific and in Europe. They had to campaign very hard to get the opportunity to serve, as it was not thought that women would be able to stand up to the rigors of this job, but they eventually were successful and after extensive training proved vital to the effort to move wounded GIs out of harms way and to hospital treatment.