As early as the revolutionary war, there have been women in the military. Although women were not officially accepted in the military during the Revolutionary War, many found ways to serve. It was during the Civil War that women were officially allowed to enlist. Over 3000 women served in the Union Army. In 1901, the U.S. Army Nurse Corps was formally established. Over 3000 American nurses were deployed to hospitals in France to care for American soldiers. Even though women were allowed to serve in the military, they still didn’t have the right to vote. The Nurse Corps was not the branch where women served. The Navy had approximately 12, 000 women serving stateside as clerks, telephone and radio operators and translators. The U.S. Army Signal Corps also had telephone and switchboard operators. During World War II, the U.S. Army formed the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps, the Navy had the Waves, the Marine Corps enlisted women in the Women’s Reserve and the Coast Guard also formed a Women’s Reserve. The women had non-combat roles, therefore allowing the men to go into combat. During WWII, the Army Nurse Corps had 57,000 women serving as nurses, the Navy Nurse Corps had 11,000. Eighty-eight nurses were taken prisoner and 432 were killed in the line of service.
In fact, one of the WWII nurses has family in Rosebud county. Lois Johnson’s mother, Pearl Leona Will Haugeland Taylor Bach served three years and three months in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps. After hearing the news that Pearl Harbor had been attacked by Japanese planes, she joined and was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps. She arrived at Fort Lawton, Seattle, Washington on October 22, 1942, ten months after the December 7th, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor. Six months later, she volunteered for duty in Alaska. She worked at a small clinic and hospital in Skagway Alaska, then moved on to Fort Nelson, British Columbia. In December 1944, she was shipped to Leyte, on the Philippine Islands. Working in the 133rd General Hospital, she cared for medical, surgical and wounded men. The war ended with the Japanese surrender on September 2, 1945, after the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Pearl Haugeland was a First Lieutenant when she was officially discharged from the Nursing Corps on January 14, 1946. Have a story to share? Email or call me [email protected] Phone: 406-351-9775 Dr. Irene Dickerson is a retired Army Colonel living her best life in Big Sky Country.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
April 2024
Categories |