Mary Louise Hawkins: The WWII Flight Nurse Who Refused to Let Anyone Die

Mary Louise Hawkins: The WWII Flight Nurse Who Refused to Let Anyone Die

I have been learning about some of the remarkable people who served during the World Wars, and over the past couple of days have been finding out about some of the incredible nurses. So I want to tell you about Mary Louise Hawkins.

She was an American flight nurse who waa born on the 24th of May 1921 in Denver, Colorado. During World War II, she served with the U.S. Army Air Forces as part of the air evacuation service. She cared for wounded soldiers being flown out of combat zones.

On the 24th of September 1944, while she was evacuating patients from the fighting in Palau to Guadalcanal, her aircraft was forced to crash-land on Bellona Island after it ran low on fuel. In the chaos, one patient suffered a devastating throat injury. With no proper equipment, Hawkins improvised a suction device and worked for 19 hours to keep him alive until help arrived. Every patient survived.

For her incredible and amazing actions, she was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. After the war, she continued nursing.

Mary Louise Hawkins died on the 9th of July 2007, at the age of 86.