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  • Tactical Support

    On July 25, the Allies launched a massive attack at St. Lo to break out southward from the invasion bridgehead. The AAF and RAF committed their forces based in England to support the ground offensive, both on the front lines and in rear areas. Fighter-bombers and tanks operated as a team, with the

  • Strategic Bombing Resumed

    On June 20, the AAF's heavy bombers returned to strategic operations to destroy Germany's war production industries. Throughout the summer, they waged their campaign, halting only long enough during the latter part of July to join tactical air units in assisting the ground forces in breaking out of

  • Flight Nurse's Creed

    Flight Nurse's CreedThe Flight Nurse's Creed first appeared in a speech given by Major General David Grant, the Air Surgeon of the U.S. Army Air Forces, on November 26, 1943, to the seventh graduating class.I will summon every resource to prevent the triumph of death over life.I will stand guard

  • 1st Lt. Mary L. Hawkins

    On Sept. 24, 1944, 1st Lt. Mary Louise Hawkins was evacuating 24 patients from the fighting at Palau to Guadalcanal when the C-47 ran low on fuel. The pilot made a forced landing in a small clearing on Bellona Island. During the landing, a propeller tore through the fuselage and severed the trachea

  • 1st Lt. Aleda E. Lutz

     One of 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, during an evacuation flight from the front lines near Lyon, France, her C-47 crashed killing all aboard. Awarded the Air Medal with four Oak Leaf

  • 1st Lt. Suella Bernard

    On March 22, 1945, two CG-4A gliders landed in a clearing near the bridgehead at Remagen, Germany, to evacuate 25 severely injured American and German casualties. Once the gliders were loaded, C-47 transports successfully snatched them from their landing site and towed them to a military hospital in

  • 2nd Lt. Elsie S. Ott

    As the flight nurse on the first intercontinental air evacuation flight, 2nd Lt. Elsie S. Ott demonstrated the potential of air evacuation in January 1943. An Army nurse who had never flown in an airplane and had no air evacuation training, she successfully oversaw the movement of five seriously ill

  • Winged Angels: USAAF Flight Nurses

    Before World War II (WWII), the US military was not properly equipped to evacuate wounded soldiers from the front lines. The need to access the remote battlefields of WWII drove the US Army Air Forces (USAAF) to revolutionize military medical care through air evacuation. At the same time, commercial

  • D-Day Paratrooper Uniform

    This figure, dressed and equipped as a typical D-Day paratrooper is hooked up to a static line and ready to jump. Paratroopers wore specialized jump suits with large pockets to carry extra rations, ammunition or grenades. The paratrooper helmet, a modified version of the standard infantry helmet,

  • Gliders and Paratroops

    The invasion of France on June 6, 1944, began from the air. Huge skytrains of transports and gliders carried more than 17,000 men across the English Channel between midnight and dawn. Low clouds and fog over the Cherbourg Peninsula made aerial navigation difficult, and even trained pathfinders had