A new book delves into stories of heroism from a specialty team of nurses and takes readers into their role in saving lives in some of the bloodiest battles of World War II. That includes the story of an Omro nurse who traveled from small-town Wisconsin to the war’s final battle in the Pacific Theater.
The book “The Flight Nurses’ War: The American Women Who Saved Thousands of Lives at Iwo Jima and Okinawa” was released Oct. 13. It tells the story of a group of nurses who were trained to treat wounded soldiers as they were flown away from Iwo Jima and Okinawa for treatment in Guam nearly six hours away.
A central character of the book is Jeanne Doll — a thrill-seeking nurse from the small town of Omro near Oshkosh. Author Leah Garrett told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” that Doll joined the military in the wake of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
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Omro resident and flight nurse Jeanne Doll poses for a portrait. Photo courtesy of Leah Garrett
“She’d come from very middle-class small-town origins,” Garrett said. “Her dad was a dentist. She knew all the neighbors, but she also really wanted to travel and serve.”
Toward the end of World War II, the U.S. military adopted a new approach to treating injured soldiers: increase the number of evacuation flights to safer hospitals in Guam and Hawaii and place trained flight nurses in charge of their care.
This strategy saw nurses play a much larger role in caring for wounded soldiers, operating without doctors present and treating critically injured soldiers in moving planes without cabin pressurization or antibiotics.
“As I started to really investigate this story and meet with the families and go through the archival material, I realized not only was it essential to tell their stories because these women had done this remarkably brave thing, but also that they had actually made a difference in the Pacific battles,” Garrett said. “They were actually crucial to, in my opinion, us winning the war.”
Garrett told WPR about Doll and what nurses like her faced on the front lines of WWII.
The following interview was edited for clarity and brevity.
Eight flight nurses are photographed during World War II. Photo courtesy of Leah Garrett
Kate Archer Kent: In 1945, Ensign Jeanne Doll arrived in Iwo Jima with the goal of evacuating injured soldiers off the island. What did she see when she landed?
Leah Garrett: She flies into Iwo Jima, and when she gets there, she talks about the smells. She called it “the smell of death” because it was just overwhelming. They’re under live fire when they’re landing. She can see shell tracers in the distance. She gets off the aircraft. The ground is shaking because of all the explosions nearby.
(Doll and other nurses) immediately had to triage the men who were lying in the dirt on the airstrip and try to save their lives. The men were in much worse shape than she expected, and so they had been taught to only select men who can go on flights back. But when you’re standing there and you have a young guy who is 19 saying, “Mom, can I go on the aircraft?” She’s going to say yes, regardless of what the wounds are.
She would go around with the doctor and select about 13 of the wounded men. The men would be carried onto the aircraft, and then it’s Jeanne and her corpsman — who’s her assistant — flying these litters of men back to Guam on a six-hour flight. (She is) learning as she’s flying, learning how to do an intravenous shot, learning how to deal with wounds the likes of which she’s never seen before.
Jeanne said that one of the first things she would do when the aircraft was flying back was to go to each of the boys and and after inspecting what the wounds actually were, ask them questions so that it would divert them from where they were: “What’s the name of your sweetheart? What’s your favorite song?” While she did that, Jean would start (treating) them and taking care of them for the flight back.
Injured soldiers receive medical aid on an evacuation flight during World War II. Photo courtesy of Leah Garrett
KAK: These cargo planes — they’re stripped down. They are not pressurized. They’re cold. They’re going through turbulence. They’re seeing mortar rounds outside of their windows. How could they work in these conditions and keep the Marines alive?
LG: They learned as they went along. They shared the things that they had figured out, but they all talked about the visceral aspects of being on those aircraft.
There was very little water on these aircraft, so they couldn’t clean out the wounds properly. What Jeanne said she always liked to do was for any of the boys who were in slightly better shape: she would walk around after (providing aid) and give them food. Many of them couldn’t take the food … she said the others would always like to touch the warm loaves of bread we had brought from Guam, because it was just an entrance to another world.
A downed airplane photographed by flight nurse Jeanne Doll in 1945. Photo courtesy of Leah Garrett
KAK: While at Iwo Jima, Jeanne Doll breaks protocol and performs this daring climb off base. What did she do?
LG: Jeanne is on her second flight into Iwo Jima, and as they land, they get a flat tire on the aircraft. The people who are around say, “we’re going to fix it. Come back in an hour.” They didn’t literally mean to leave, but Jeanne is incredibly adventurous.
This is the point just after the iconic photo of the flag raising on Mount Suribachi had been transmitted all around the world, including at Guam, where she and the other nurses were based. So Jeanne decides that she’s going to climb up Mount Suribachi. This is a point at which there are still snipers — it’s very dangerous — but she just felt something pulling her to go to that holy flag where so many men had died, and put her hand on it and say a prayer. So she pulls her flight jacket over her hands because the ground is very craggy, and leaves the airstrip right by Mount Suribachi and slowly climbs up it.
All of the flight nurses are very small because they have to be able to fit on the aircraft, so she can’t fully reach the flag. But she holds the flagpole and she does a prayer, and then she goes back down. She never tells anyone about it, because she knows it completely breaks protocol. But it was just something she had to do. She tells (historian) Stephen Ambrose about it towards the end of her life, and he can’t believe it. And then I’m listening to it and I can’t believe it.
Flight nurse Jeanne Doll and her husband Cosy Dolan. Photo courtesy of Leah Garrett
KAK: Doll’s return to civilian life surprised me. She said it was, “fairly easy for me. In fact, it almost seemed like I never left.” That was surprising because they had seen such really gruesome aspects of war. What helped to make Jeanne Doll’s transition easier?
LG: I think part of what made it easier is that one of the stories I tell with Jeanne is a deep, beautiful love story. Before the war, she falls in love with a fellow serviceman called Cosy Dolan. He’s also serving in the Pacific, but not where she is. After the war, they reunite. And as she says at the end of her life, the love remains strong the entire time. So she’s deeply in love.
The pair of them move to Miami, and both of them end up having these very fulfilling lives. She works in an emergency room, and then she works in different leadership roles in hospitals. She has three kids who she adores and raises, and they just love her. Their kids said it was a house of music and books and literature and love.
She always said that, when she came back from the war, she felt she wanted to look forward like other members of her generation. Later in her life, she did write some very moving poems about her service that go into the darker aspects of it. She was always a writer and she liked to paint. I think she used her creativity as a way to come to terms with the very, very difficult stuff that she had seen in the Pacific.