, World War II Preparation for the conflict again saw the Nurse Corps grow, with nearly eight hundred members serving on active duty by November 1941, plus over nine hundred inactive reserves. By war's end there would be 1,799 active component nurses and 9,222 reserves (with the overwhelming number of reserves on active duty) scattered across six continents. Though black nurses applied, until 1945, African-American nurses were rejected by the Navy.
Phyllis Mae Dailey became the first black nurse accepted in the Navy Nurse Corps on March 8, 1945.
Edith DeVoe, the only black navy nurse to be transferred at the end of the war to the regular service, took her oath on April 18, 1945, and Eula L. Stimley entered service on May 8, 1945. Along with
Helen Fredericka Turner, these four nurses were the first African-American women to serve in the Navy during World War II. Navy nurses were on duty during the initial Japanese
attack on Pearl Harbor,
Kāneʻohe Bay, the
Philippines,
Guam, and aboard the
Solace; they were vital in preventing further loss of life and limb. In fact, the nursing profession's vital role was quickly recognized and it became the only women's profession that was deemed so essential as to be placed under the War Manpower Commission. Despite shortages of qualified nurses during the war, the navy was able to hold to its standards and enroll nurses of outstanding qualifications and experience. These outstanding nurses received advanced training in surgery, orthopedics, anesthesia, contagion, dietetics, physiotherapy, and psychiatry, the latter helping men understand and manage Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (then known as shell-shock) and battlefield fatigue. But the navy nurses' duties not only included the tending to the injured and sick but also to the equally serious task of training Hospital Corpsmen. Many of these young men had never seen the inside of a hospital unless they themselves had been admitted, and as such it was training from the ground up. Once trained, the men were sent to work aboard fighting ships and on invasion beaches, where nurses were not yet officially assigned. Additionally, nurses trained
WAVES for the Hospital Corps. In the Pacific, Navy Nurses were the first American women to be sent to the islands north of
New Caledonia, and the first group to
Efate, in the
New Hebrides. At
Efate they cared for the wounded from the long
Guadalcanal campaign, Army as well as Navy and Marine personnel. Others were stationed in
New Caledonia,
the Solomons,
New Zealand, Australia,
New Guinea,
Coral Sea,
Savo,
Samoa,
Tarawa,
Attu,
Adak,
Dutch Harbor,
Kwajalein,
Guam,
Saipan,
Tinian,
Leyte,
Samar,
Iwo Jima, and
Okinawa. The purpose of these forward operating areas was stabilization. Only when patients were fully stabilized were they sent on to
Pearl Harbor, and then eventually to the
contiguous United States. In Europe, navy nurses served in both England and Italy and in North and South America at
Trinidad,
Panama,
Puerto Rico,
Bermuda,
Brazil, and
Newfoundland. Navy nurses were even stationed in Africa. In the
contiguous United States, navy nurses were stationed at 263 locations, consisting of both large naval hospital complexes such as
USN Hospital San Diego, California and
Bethesda,
Maryland as well as at a multitude of smaller naval convalescent hospitals and training station facilities. One of the more colorful convalescent hospitals was the USN Convalescent Hospital located at the Sun Valley Lodge in
Idaho. After the lodge – built by the
Union Pacific Railroad and its chairman
W. Averell Harriman – opened in 1936, it quickly became a hotspot for the rich and famous. Notables included
Ernest Hemingway who worked on
For Whom the Bell Tolls in room No. 206,
Clark Gable,
Errol Flynn,
Claudette Colbert,
Bing Crosby and
Gary Cooper. However, as supporting the war became a top priority and recreation secondary, the lodge was converted into a hospital, opening its doors in July 1943. In 1946 it reverted to its intended use. The story of the USN Convalescent Hospital is not unlike a host of other facilities which were converted, including the Averell Harriman estate in the Bear Mountains of the
Catskills and the
Ahwahnee Hotel at
Yosemite National Park. Aboard hospital ships, navy nurses followed the fleet in their assaults, and were eventually permitted to go to the beaches with the fighting men to pick up the wounded. Early in the war only the
USS Solace and
USS Relief brought comfort to the wounded fighting men via all-navy medical personnel. Later the
Bountiful,
Samaritan,
Refuge,
Haven,
Benevolence,
Tranquility,
Consolation,
Repose,
Sanctuary, and
Rescue were added. The nurses were awarded the
Bronze Star Medal by the Army, a second award by the Navy and the Army's Distinguished Unit Badge.
Ann Agnes Bernatitus, one of the
Angels of Bataan, nearly became a POW; she was one of the last to escape
Corregidor Island, via the
USS Spearfish. Upon her return to the United States she became the first American to receive the
Legion of Merit.
Flight nurses The first group of 24 Naval
flight nurses graduated from the Navy Flight Nurse School at the
Naval Air Station Alameda, California on 22 January 1945. In addition to flight nurse procedures, they were trained to swim one mile, tow or push a victim for 220 yards, and swim 440 yards in 10 minutes. The newly minted flight nurses soon began active flying service on 24 flying teams, consisting of a nurse and a pharmacist's mate. Each 12-plane squadron operated with the following medical personnel: 24 flight nurses, 24 pharmacists' mates, one flight surgeon, and one Hospital Corps officer. After a certain number of transcontinental trips with wounded servicemen, the teams were sent to the Pacific to serve in the Naval Air Evacuation Service, the first arriving in
Guam in early February 1945. There were three main flights of air evacuation planes to which flight nurses were assigned. First, from target areas to forward hospitals, such as
Guam: second, from those forward hospitals to
Pearl Harbor; and third, from
Pearl Harbor to the
contiguous United States. Nurses were rotated so that flight hours did not exceed 100 per month and they were also rotated between combat and noncombat flights. Later that year she was also the first flight nurse to arrive in
Okinawa. ==Korea==