Beyond the Call of Duty: Army Flight Nursing in World War II

03 Flight Nurse Training

39 Thanks for the memories of drilling in the sun And making it seem fun and eating sand And killing flies and guarding with a gun Oh thank you so much. Thanks for the memories of swimming every week Of forming in the street of scrubbing clothes And dusting doors and bathing in the creek Oh thank you so much. Flight nurse training at Bowman Field, Kentucky, was a memorable event for those army nurses selected for air evacuation duty. Class songs such as this one written by members of the fifth class, which graduated in August 1943, often commemorated this time of rigorous military preparation with a hint of nostalgia. Air evacuation itself was relatively new, and the use of flight nurses to provide in-flight patient care was unprecedented in the U.S. military. Training of flight nurses was thus a priority. This training evolved and became more relevant over the course of the war as input from air evacuation squadrons overseas helped determine what was most useful to include in coursework and practical instruction. The first two squadrons received minimal training because of the need for immediate deployment overseas, but by January 1943, members of the other squadrons being formed benefited from a didactic course of study under the direction of the 349th Air Evacuation Group, with responsibility for the actual training of the flight nurses delegated to Leora B. Stroup, shown in illustration 3.1. 349th Air Evacuation Group The American Journal of Nursing kept its readers updated on the latest military needs and news relevant to nurses. Thus the August 1942 issue began with a plea for more nurses to enroll in the ARC First Reserve to Flight Nurse Training ★ ★ ★ 03 40 Beyond the Call of Duty meet wartime requirements on the battlefront and on the home front. To help nurses determine where their skills could be used most effective­ ly, the journal provided an easily read guide to whether nurses should serve with the armed forces or at home, based on marital status, age, and civilian nursing position. In brief, unmarried nurses under age forty engaged in private duty or office nursing, in nonessential head nurse or public health positions, or in non-nursing jobs should enter military service. Older nurses in essential teaching, supervisory, or public health positions should remain at home in their current employment.1 Leora Stroup, who had already enrolled in the ARC First Reserve, must have read with particular interest the article in the same issue titled “Army Nurses in the Air,” which spelled out the initial plans for air evacuation in the army air forces, especially the final three sentences: “It is the plan of the War Department to assign nurses who have had flying experience to hospitals at air fields. They will be on call for duty in connection with transportation of patients by plane. Experience as pilots is an asset but not a requirement.”2 3.1 Leora B. Stroup, 1942 (AMEDD) Flight Nurse Training 41 At forty-one, Stroup may have wondered if she was too old to be mobilized for military service, though by June 1943 the age limit for joining the Army Nurse Corps had been raised to forty-five.3 Her answer came two months later, in the form of military orders to report to Walter Reed General Hospital in Washington, D.C., as a member of the Army Nurse Corps. As a nurse, aviator, and educator, Stroup had a background of special interest to the army air forces, and she expected an air evacuation assignment. A photograph in the Detroit Free Press over the caption “Ordered to Active Service” shows a radiant Stroup, who obviously was optimistic about what lay ahead.4 When Stroup reported for active duty in the United States Army, she was already an experienced and highly educated nurse. Following high school graduation, she had attended a year of college before entering Lakeside Hospital School of Nursing—renamed the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western University—from which she earned her nursing diploma in 1923. She had become a licensed nurse that same year. And she was among the Jubilee Class of 1927 when she earned her Bachelor of Science in Education and a certificate in public health nursing from Ohio State University. A letter to her mother from the Dean of the College of Education indicates that Stroup had shown unusual scholarship...