Weaving together information from official sources and personal interviews, Barbara Tomblin gives the first full-length account of the US Army Nurse Corps in the Second World War. She describes how over sixty thousand army nurses, all volunteers, cared for sick and wounded American soldiers in every theater of the war, serving in the jungles of the Southwest Pacific, the frozen reaches of Alaska and Iceland, the mud of Italy and northern Europe, and the heat and dust of the Middle East. Many of the women in the Army Nurse Corps served in dangerous hospitals near the frontlines—201 nurses were killed by accident or enemy action, and another 1,600 won decorations for meritorious service. These nurses address the extreme difficulties of dealing with combat and its effects in World War II, and their stories are all the more valuable to military historians because they present a very different viewpoint on war than that of male officers. Although they were unable to achieve full equality for American women in the military during World War II, army nurses did secure equal pay allowances and full military rank, and they proved beyond a doubt their ability and willingness to serve and maintain excellent standards of nursing care under difficult and often dangerous conditions.
Barbara Brooks Tomblin taught military history at Rutgers University and is the author of several articles and books.
Table of Contents
Preface Mobilizing for War War Comes to the Pacific: U.S. Army Nurses at Pearl Harbor and in the Philippines Across the Pacific: Nursing in the Central Pacific and Southwest Pacific Area The Torch Is Lit: Army Nurses Support the Invasions of North Africa and Sicily Fifth Army First: Nursing in the Italian Campaign To the Rhine and Beyond: Army Nurses in the European Theater of Operations The End of the Line: Nursing in the China-Burma-India Theater of Operations They Also Served: The Army Nurse Corps at Home and in the Minor Theaters of War Peace at Last! Demobilizing the Corps
