Excerpt:

Kendeigh was one of just 122 women who trained as Navy flight nurses as part of a program initiated in late 1944. Sent to Naval Air Station Alameda, Calif., and NAS Oakland, Calif., the young women, most of them in their twenties, learned about the types of wounds they would see on the battlefield. As flying personnel — they were awarded wings to wear on their uniforms — the nurses underwent some training not unlike that experienced by naval aviators, including learning to survive a ditching at sea and spending time in a low pressure trainer so that they could become accustomed to flying at high altitude. They even learned the basics of hand-to-hand combat.