1LT Edna Moon Oral History

title:

1LT Edna Moon Oral History

creator:

Moon, Edna (Brackett) (1920 May 14 - )

subject:

Army Nurse Corps Air Forces

description:

Edna Moon (formerly Brackett) was born in Palmyra, Maine on May 14, 1920 to parents Sheldon and Rose Brackett. Her family moved to Rhode Island when Edna was 16 years old, where she attended South Kingston High School and graduated in 1938. She got into nursing right after high school because her mother was a nurse with the South Kingstown-Narragansett Visiting Nurses Association. After graduating from Rhode Island Hospital School of Nursing in 1941, she came back to Kingstown and worked at South County Hospital. While there, she decided to sign up with the Army Nurse Corps in 1942 and was among the first group of women ever admitted into the US Army Air Corps as a flight nurse. She was stationed at Grenier Field in Manchester, New Hampshire when the chief nurse told her they were training flight nurses at Bowman Field in Kentucky. Edna went there and trained for 6 weeks. She was among twenty-five nurses sent to the 812th squadron of the 7th Air Force. After her training, she was shipped to Hickam Air Force Base on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. Edna and her fellow nurses flew missions out of Hickam to islands in the South Pacific to pick up wounded soldiers. They flew in a C-54 transport plane and carried anywhere from 20-40 men on each flight. There were 5 planes and 10 crews. Edna's first mission was to Tarawa and Guam. She shared a story about a time when their flight was coming into Hamilton and the pilot circled the Golden Gate Bridge so the patients could see it. She noticed one patient was unable to sit up, so she lifted his head so he could see out the window. When Edna lifted his head, she knew his skull had been crushed and felt like eggshells. The patient said he never thought he would see the Gold Gate Bridge again and thanked Edna. While in Hawaii she met her husband, Howard Moon, a navigator on one of the planes. They married in Honolulu. As a tribute of her service and legacy, the city of Austin proclaimed June 23 as Edna Brackett Moon Day. Edna was discharged in November 1945 with the rank of 1st lieutenant, and for her service she was awarded an American Campaign Medal, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, and World War II Victory Medal. No transcript of this interview is currently available.

publisher:

Military Women's Memorial Foundation

contributor:

Unknown

date:

2007-09-02

type:

Moving Image

format:

DVD-R

identifier:

1226; 2007.1226

source:

SAFN | CLIR - Recordings at Risk

language:

English

relation:

064434

coverage:

World War II (1939-1945) | 1942-45

rights:

Unrestricted