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Beyond the Call of Duty: Army Flight Nursing in World War II Judith Barger. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2013.
In the Flight Nurses' Creed of 1943, new recruits affirm, "I will be faithful to my training, and to the wisdom handed down to me by those who have gone before me." Judith Barger, a former air force nurse, in Beyond the Call of Duty, celebrates these women, exploring the beginnings of flight nursing and how it developed as a distinct branch of nursing during World War II. What makes this book most valuable are the interviews that she conducted with twenty-five World War II flight nurses in 1986, using their experiences as a lens through which to discuss the broader issues connected with nursing under very hazardous conditions.
Over 59,000 women served as nurses in the army during the war, although only five hundred of them were flight nurses. Nurses were in the air as early as 1930 when Boeing Air Transport hired them as stewardesses. These women were supposed to allay the fears of apprehensive passengers and, with rare exceptions, were more likely to serve...