There’s an iconic picture of a U.S. sailor kissing a nurse in Times Square on VJ (Victory in Japan) Day, August 14, 1945. I’ve always thought of the sailor as a future veteran, but I never considered whether the nurse could also become a veteran.
General Mari K. Eder wrote of the heroic efforts of many women who risked their lives during World War II in the book “The Girls Who Stepped Out of Line.” One of the women she wrote about was Katherine (Kate) Flynn Nolan.
Kate became a registered nurse in 1943 and applied to be a nurse in the Army. She completed the basic training which also include 10-mile hikes with a full backpack, aircraft identification and proper military decorum. She then headed to England to be part of the Fifty Third Field Hospital Unit. Her training included setting up and taking down the mobile field hospital so their unit could follow the troops as they fought the German Army in Europe.
On July 15, 1944, her unit arrived on Utah Beach in Normandy. They literally had to swim to shore. They were greeted with the smell of death and visions of the carnage from the invasion that had occurred a few weeks before their arrival. Their equipment and vehicles were missing for a month, so she slept in a pup tent with another nurse.
Once the equipment arrived, they were attached to General Patton’s Third Army. They moved with the troops. While they were supposed to be five miles from the battlefront, they experienced times where the IV bottles rattled, and medicines fell off the shelves because of artillery shells landing nearby.
A field hospital had an average of 18 nurses on staff and could handle 75-100 patients a day. Patients stayed at the hospitals until they could be transferred out. When the last patient left, the nurses dismantled the hospital and moved closer to the front to treat injured soldiers.
Her unit moved through France, Holland, Belgium and finally Germany. They served at the Battle of the Bulge. On May 18, 1945, they were stationed 90 miles southwest of Frankfurt where they helped treat survivors of the concentration camps. Kate’s unit returned to the states in the fall.
In January 1946 she married the love of her life, Captain James Nolan. They had met in England and exchanged letters as they both served their country in different places.
The movie and TV series MASH taught us about the heroism and dedication of the medical staff that saved so many lives during the Korean War. Kristin Hannah has written about the service of three nurses in the field hospitals in Vietnam in her novel “The Women.”
As we celebrate Veteran’s Day, let’s not forget the women who helped soldiers recover from their war injuries.
