The Pacific Theatre was the setting for some of World War II's bloodiest battles, and yet much of its history remains untold. As the war in Europe was winding down, fierce Japanese resistance and mounting casualties slowed the US advance toward Japan. The terrible death toll of doctors, medics and corpsmen forced the United States Navy to deploy combat nurses to contested airfields, where they triaged desperately wounded men and evacuated them to safety.





In The Flight Nurses' War, award-winning historian Leah Garrett traces the lives of eight nurses from their small-town origins to the devastation of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. They risked their lives on rickety, unpressurized aircraft and braved constant enemy assaults. As the battles intensified, Army nurses were also deployed to hospital ships and the infantry front-line, where they endured disease, snipers, and Kamikazes. Successfully evacuating thousands of wounded men from danger, the combat nurses freed up troops to secure both islands and help win the war.





Uncovering an extraordinary story of Second World War heroism, The Flight Nurses' War powerfully brings to life the remarkable women who risked everything to save lives and assure Allied victory.



Leah Garrett is a professor at Hunter College, City University of New York. The author of five previous books, most recently X -Troop: The Secret Jewish Commandos of World War Two Who Helped Defeat the Nazis, she lives in New York City.



Leah Garrett's latest is a wonderful, important look at the women who served with incredible compassion and courage in the hell of the Pacific in 1945. Unsung, until now forgotten, these true angels showed that women were not only essential to victory but also the difference between life and death for so many wounded and dying warriors of the Greatest Generation. A fabulous book! I loved it!



Impeccably researched, The Flight Nurses' War provides new insights into female military service. A moving and important book.



As personal as a confessional, these incredible stories of WWII flight nurses pull us onto the rocking planes with them, into the crowded hospitals, and across the bloody beaches. To the soldiers, Marines and sailors on Iwo Jima and Okinawa, these young women were the light of life itself. This heartfelt tribute to their courage and dramatic efforts to save their patients is a story that echoes down through the generations; we need to hear their truth.



The Flight Nurses' War is incredibly fascinating and moving. As I devoured the book, I occasionally paused to reflect on what these remarkable women who saved and improved so many lives must have experienced. As Professor Leah Garrett demonstrates in her skilled narrative, the cost to them, in terms of trauma, peace of mind, and so much more, was incalculable. Put simply, this book has soul, and it shines a long overdue spotlight on an overlooked aspect of World War II in the Pacific.