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Evacuation Flights Flight nurses revolutionize military medical care publication U.S. Dod Information / FIND published March 14, 2013 U.S. Air Force Releases 3/14/2013 FORT MEADE, Md. (AFNS) Before World War II, the U.S. military showed little affinity for using aircraft and flight nurses to evacuate wounded soldiers to rear areas. The global war, however, forced the U.S. Army Air Forces to revolutionize military medical care throughout the growth and development of air evacuation (later known as aeromedical evacuation) and flight nurses. The rapid expansion of USAAF air transportation routes around the world gave the chance to fly wounded and sick servicemen quickly thoroughly equipped hospitals not even close top lines. This revolution saved the lives for many wounded men, and the introduction of flight nurses helped make it possible. At the begining of 1942, airlift units in Alaska, Burma and New Guinea successfully evacuated patients with similar transport aircraft which in fact had carried men and supplies towards front. A result of pressing need, the USAAF created medical air evacuation squadrons and commenced a rush workout for flight surgeons, enlisted medical technicians, and flight nurses at Bowman Field, near Louisville, Ky. The advantages of flight nurses became critical once the Allied invasion of North Africa in November 1942, though the women at Bowman Field we 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’ top notch of flight nurses formally graduated at Bowman Field. 2nd Lt. Geraldine Dishroon, the distinction graduate, received the initial wings offered to a flight nurse. In 1944, Dishroon served on the first air evacuation team to land on Omaha Beach following the D Day invasion. Because the aircraft used by air evacuation also transported military supplies, they couldn't display the Red Cross. Without any markings to say their non combat status, these evacuation flights were liable to enemy attacks. This is why, flight nurses and medical technicians were volunteers. To get ready for any emergency, flight nurses learned crash procedures, received survival training, and studied the end results of high altitude on various patients. On top of that, flight nurses would have to be in top health to take care of patients through these rigorous flights. A pair of those flight nurses, 1st Lt. Aleda Lutz, and 1st Lt. Mary Hawkins, can be awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, another highest honor a military member will get beside the Medal of Honor. The most celebrated flight nurses of World War II, 1st Lt. Aleda E. Lutz flew 196 missions and evacuated over 3,500 men. In November 1944, in an private health care from the front lines near Lyons, Italy, her crashed killing all aboard. Awarded mid-air Medal with four Oak Leaf Clusters, she posthumously received the Distinguished Flying Cross. On Sept. 24, 1944, 1st Lt. Mary Louise Hawkins was evacuating 24 patients with the fighting at Palau to Guadalcanal if your C 47 ran tight on fuel. The pilot made a forced landing in a tiny clearing on Bellona Island. Over the landing, a propeller tore from the fuselage and severed the trachea of 1 patient. Hawkins designed a suction tube from various items including the inflation tube from your “Mae West.” Because of this contrivance, she kept the man’s throat totally free of blood until aid arrived 19 hours later. Most of her patients survived. For my child actions, Hawkins received the Distinguished Flying Cross. On March 22, 1945, two CG 4A gliders landed inside a clearing at the bridgehead at Remagen, Germany, to evacuate 25 severely injured American and German casualties. As soon as the gliders were loaded, C 47 transports successfully snatched them from them landing site and towed those to a military hospital in France. Inside the second glider, 1st Lt. Suella V. Bernard, who had volunteered for your mission, maintained the wounded on the way. One of the first two nurses to fly into Normandy as soon as the D Day invasion, Bernard took over as the only nurse recognized to have participated in a glider combat mission during World War II. With this mission, she received the Air Medal. As being the flight nurse on the first intercontinental air evacuation flight, 2nd Lt. Elsie S. Ott demonstrated the chance of air evacuation in January 1943. An Army nurse who hadn't flown in a airplane along with no air evacuation training, she successfully oversaw the movement of five seriously ill patients from India to Washington, D.C. This six expedition would have normally taken 90 days by ship and ground transportation. actions within this historic flight, Ott received the 1st Air Medal given to women, and she also received formal flight nurse training. Eventually, about 500 Army nurses served as people in 31 medical air evacuation transport squadrons operating worldwide. It's a tribute with their skill that from the fir,176,048 patients air evacuated through the war, only 46 died en route. Seventeen flight nurses lost their lives throughout the war.

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