Pearl Harbor Nurse History

This paper will summarize the history of Nursing during World War II – The attack on Pearl Harbor. On the historic date known as December 7th, 1941, at 7:55 am- over three hundred Japanese pilots attacked the base known as Pearl Harbor in Oahu, Hawaii. This left over 2,235 military personnel and roughly 68 civilians dead. This attack, over 60 years ago, was one of the greatest milestones and historical turning point for women in the United States as they would become military nurses. The calm response and skill of these nurses contributed to low post-injury mortality rates during the war. There were only 82 nurses working at three medical facilities in Hawaii on the day of the attack. Here is a quote through an interview with one of the Registered
Nurses at the time named Harriet Moore Holmes. "My first three patients suffered burns over most of their bodies and shortly died, "When I tried to swab one’s with alcohol for an IV, his entire forearm skin came off.” In the weeks after the attack and declaration of war by the United States against Germany and Japan, the hospital staff worked in nearly complete darkness at night. In fear of another attack, black curtains were hung over windows at night and the lights were kept low. Corpsmen held flashlights so the nurses could work on patients. - (Holmes, 2003) This is only one of the countless examples of the intensity these young Nurses had to face during this time period. “The government at that time provided free education to all nursing students. The army developed a special training program for 2,000 nurses. The six-week course had guided students, and trained significant numbers of nurses in specialties such as anesthesia and psychiatric care, how to administer anesthesia, blood and blood derivatives, and oxygen therapy. They in turn taught army medics the proper methods of treating wounded soldiers with those therapies.” - (Army Nurse Corps - United States American History, 2015)

Even though this drastically improved social economic inequality between the genders – women were still not given full rights.
The reason why the Navy was in the most desperate need for nurses is because of their countless restrictions on race, marriage status, and age. During the year of 1942, Navy Nurses had to be singles and under the age of 40. Not only this – but if she wanted to get married, she had to resign. With this ruling, many Nurses switched to the Army Corps- which permitted marriages. It wasn’t until the year 1941 that the U.S. limited the racial segregation and permitted Black nurses. There were over three hundred Black nurses that served in the Army Nurse Corps. However, The Navy Nurse Corps would still not accept any Black nurses. “A catastrophe in the low number of nurses was only avoided by the quick surrender of Japan following the atomic bombings. It wasn’t until the year 1945, that the Navy halt their active recruiting of nurses.” - (Blizkriegbaby) The inequality for military nurses had not ended even after the War was won. “When America entered World War II, the Navy Nurses had been granted neither the status of Naval officers nor the rating of enlisted personnel. Only Army Nurses had received the relative rank of officers in 1920. Eventually, the Congress reconciled this inequality and authorized permanent relative rank for Navy Nurses as well, on 3 July 1942.” - (Blizkriegbaby) This concludes my paper on the history and start of military Nursing during World War II. “Overall, fewer than 4 percent of the American soldiers who received medical care in the field or underwent evacuation died from wounds or disease.” - (Archard, (1945)) With my research, I can easily say that around the world, and no matter the time period, there will always be a huge demand and serious need for Nurses. It was disheartening to learn even in the past, they barely received the recognition and praise for their selflessness as they all
deserve.
This is one of the countless reasons why I am personally eager to follow in these courageous women’s footsteps and carry on in this career and our ancestor’s legacy.