United States Air Force Flight Nurses

United States Air Force Flight Nurses. . By the end of 1944, more than 6,500 nurses, all commissioned officers, were serving in the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF). Of that number, 500 were Flight Nurses based wherever casualties required evacuation by air. On entering the USAAF, all nurses went through a program of military training and physical conditioning before being assigned to a Station Hospital. After completing six months' hospital duty, nurses could apply for Flight Nurse training and, if selected, begin an intense eight-week course at Bowman Field, Kentucky. The demanding curriculum at the School of Air Evacuation integrated academic, professional, military, and physical training to prepare students for the rigors of combat operations. The school's graduates wore flight wings with a superimposed Nurse Corps insignia. , , The practice of air evacuation began in the Pacific and China-Burma-India Theaters in 1942 where poor roads impeded timely land evacuation. Cargo aircraft that otherwise would have returned empty to their bases evacuated the severest casualties, a practice which resulted in the eventual fielding of Medical Air Evacuation Transport Squadrons (MAETS). A typical MAETS consisted of four Evacuation Flights, each comprising a flight surgeon, six flight nurses, and eight medical corpsmen. , , Aircraft used for air evacuation also carried troops and military supplies. This dual capacity meant they were not marked with the Geneva Red Cross to indicate their non-combat status. This made evacuation flights vulnerable to enemy attacks. For this reason, all nurses who entered this field were volunteers. , , Air evacuation continued during Operation Torch (North Africa), but the efficiency of the process improved in the follow-on Tunisian Campaign. C-47 transports were rigged with litter racks and staffed by MAETS personnel who would load and evacuate non-ambulatory casualties. Standard evacuation kits contained, among other items, blood plasma, oxygen, morphine, splints, hypodermics, medicine, portable heaters, and blankets to care for the wounded in flight. The standardization of both the evacuation kit and the procedures for rigging the C-47 as a flying ambulance (which could hold 18-20 casualties), increased the efficiency of the evacuation process. , , On D-Day the casualties were evacuated only by sea, but by D+3 evacuation by air was fully operational. In constant danger and often under enemy fire, flight nurses worked feverishly to help load patients onto transport planes. They used whatever resources available to tend to the devastating injuries they found on board. By the end of July, IX Troop Carrier Command had flown 25,959 wounded troops (about a third of all casualties) to British airfields controlled by the Ninth Air Force. As the speed and efficiency of air evacuation became undeniable, the Medical Department and Army Air Forces established receiving facilities at other English airfields near general hospitals. By the end of September, medical-service facilities at those sites had the collective capacity to handle 6,000 air-evacuated casualties per day, but there was still a 7,000 patient backlog in the battle area. , , The importance of Flight Nurses to the wounded soldiers they evacuated and cared for cannot be overstated. They tended, comforted, treated, kept alive, mothered, helped die, and anointed their charges with tears they masked with their unstinting valor, fidelity, and sacrifice. Until war's end, they continued to serve in all embattled theaters, and they did so with distinction. It is a testament to their training and dedication that of the 1,176,048 patients air evacuated during the war, only 46 died en route. Seventeen flight nurses gave their lives during the war. , , In honor of 1st Lt. Evelyn “Chappy” Kowalchuk, who served with the 818th MAETS and evacuated wounded soldiers from Omaha Beach on D+3.