TRAILBLAZING NAVY FLIGHT NURSE
OF WORLD WAR II
Late during World War II, a revolutionary idea was developed to utilize aircraft to remove wounded personnel from active battlefields. Thus, in late 1944 the Navy formed Air Transportation Evacuation Squadron One VRE-1 which was based in Guam and developed procedures for such evacuations. On March 5, 1945, a Navy R4D (C47) flew from its base on Guam to Iwo Jima. When it arrived, the island was under bombardment from offshore Navy ships which forced the plane to circle for ninety minutes as the crew watched bursting shells beneath them. Upon landing, history was made as the first female Navy flight nurse arrived at an active battlefield to care for casualties. The flight was so successful that soon regular air evacuation flights carrying female nurses were being made to Iwo Jima as well as Okinawa so wounded personnel could be flown to Guam hospitals. Okinawa became particularly significant in the program as it marked the first time the Navy evacuated more casualties by air than sea.
Kathryn Van Wagner was one of the nurses who participated in this urgent endeavor. In December 1944 she was one of twenty-four flight nurses, the first group selected to undergo specialized training at Alameda, California. Their eight weeks of training was particularly rigorous as in addition to air evacuation techniques, physiology of flight, first aid with emphasis on shock, and water landing/crash scenarios, they were required to swim under water, swim one-mile, and tow victims 220-yards in 10 minutes, much of the time fully clothed and wearing shoes.
Van Wagner was a 1942 graduate of St. Luke’s School of Nursing in New York and had extensive experience in trauma care as an assistant supervisor of operating rooms at Jersey City Medical Center by the time she enlisted in the Navy Nurse Corps in 1943. Her early training put her in good stead when she later confronted battlefield injuries. She was an Ensign stationed at the Naval Air Station, Norfolk, Virginia, when she volunteered for the flight nurse training at Alameda. She later said her training there was difficult but her 12-years of acrobatics and ballet training had made her muscular and capable of success. Upon completion of their training, Van Wagner was one of twelve nurses flown to Guam where they were housed in tents surrounded by barbed wire. An early recollection of Guam was that whenever she left the nurse compound, she had to be accompanied by two men both wearing sidearms.
On March 8, 1945, only three days after the first flight to Iwo Jima, Van Wagner flew to the island aboard a Navy R4D configured to carry twenty-four patients. Every four days thereafter during March, she returned to Iwo Jima. She described her first flight as “unreal” advising that when they arrived at the island, she could see ships firing at the island as the Japanese returned fire, saw hits on destroyers and LSTs, and had the feeling she could not believe what she was seeing. She recalled landing under the barrage and upon landing a marine standing next to the plane said to her, “Do you want to shoot Japanese?” When she replied “Sure” he handed her a round which she dropped in a mortar and it shot over a hill.
According to Van Wagner, on another flight to Iwo Jima she was loading patients from a tent onto the plane when a Zero flew over and strafed the tent and one shot also pierced the wing gas tank. However, it was not a tracer and the tank being full it did not burst into flames. After repairs to the tank, patients were loaded aboard which included three who had received seriously additional injuries during the strafing. Despite her efforts while airborne, the three patients soon died. Not wanting other patients to know of their deaths she purposely talked to each deceased patient during the flight. The pilot found it necessary to make an emergency landing on Saipan and upon arrival the three deceased patients were taken from the plane. As they waited under a wing for an ambulance, Van Wagner used grapefruit juice to sprinkle on each man and pronounced, “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.” She has said that although she was not particularly religious, it was something she had to do. A patient aboard the plane was able to see what had occurred and quickly informed the remaining patients. When Van Wagner returned aboard, she was greeted by complete silence and when she announced, “Okay guys, next stop is Guam,” there was still no answer. When a patient called to her, he said he wanted to tell her something. When she leaned over to listen, he put his arms around her and gave her a kiss on the cheek. Than, one by one each of the other .patients grasped her hand or pulled her to him. She has described the experience as the most emotional thing she ever experienced. According to Van Wagner she always felt a close bonding to her patients knowing they were depending on her at a very critical time in their lives which they also felt as she found many patients gave her a kiss or hug upon deplaneing.
Historical records report that Van Wagner survived the downing of one plane that was hit by enemy fire, but details of the incident could not be found. After the war she married a career U.S. Army officer and reportedly left the Navy in 1951. Her husband was an intelligence officer and was assigned to embassy duty in Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and Czechoslovakia. She accompanied him on these assignments and worked as embassy nurse. She died on February 9, 1999, survived by her husband and two children. She is buried at Arlington National Cemetery where her grave marker carries the inscription: LT – US NAVY – WORLD WAR II – IWO JIMA – AIR MEDAL. Her husband, COL Otto Ewald Pribram, USA (Ret), died on August 1, 2011 and is buried beside his wife.
CONSOLING AN IWO JIMA PATIENT
Submitted by CDR Roy A. Mosteller, USNR (Ret)
