The Trailblazing Nurses Who Kept the Tuskegee Airmen Flying

In 1940, under growing social and political pressure, President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the enlistment of Black aviators in the Army Air Corps. From 1941 until 1946, about 1,000 men were trained as Tuskegee pilots and 16,000 graduated as ground crew. While an impressive number for the time and circumstances, there were also many others at the Tuskegee Army Air Field (TAAF) training, teaching, learning and working to defeat fascism overseas.

When the Army Air Corps launched a pathway for Black men to serve in the air, it did so through a separate, segregated support infrastructure, which included separate, segregated health care. Only Black medical staff could treat Black service members and civilians, and that created quite a problem: There simply weren't any Black nurses in the Army.

This was the result of two problems. First, men -- no matter their race -- were unable to join the Army as nurses. (That prohibition lasted until 1955.) Second, the Army Nurse Corps (ANC) was dragging its feet on accepting Black women. Technically, Black women could join the ANC at the end of World War I, but only 18 successfully did before being barred again for the next two decades.

As the U.S. war machine churned to life during World War II, the need for manpower began to push the limits of the conventional structures that held women and people of color back. While Black and white Rosies pop-riveted boats and planes, civil rights groups put immense pressure on the still-reticent ANC to allow Black women to serve.

The Army begrudgingly recanted, first offering a paltry 56 openings. Despite the overwhelming need, leadership only authorized that about 500 Black nurses be given the opportunity to serve, as compared with the nearly 60,000 white nurses who did so throughout the war.

Of those 500, somewhere between 29 and 41 worked at Tuskegee. Leading the group (and making history in the process) was Della H. Raney. The first Black nurse to enter the ANC since World War I, Raney was promoted to chief nurse at TAAF, eventually becoming the highest-ranking Black woman in the Army by the end of the war.

"It was a commitment to give my life for a cause -- that of caring for those who were ill. ... It was this strong desire to elevate my profession that led me to volunteer for military service in 1940 with the U.S. Army Nurse Corps," Raney wrote, reflecting on her career 40 years later.

The nurses were highly educated and professional; admittance to the ANC required that an applicant was a registered nurse who had graduated from nursing school and was a current member of a national nursing organization. Their individual expertise included surgery, specialized care for polio patients and the very new field of flight nursing. The nurses worked at the on-post hospital, caring for service members, civilian workers and their families. They were also responsible for knowing how to deal with enemy attacks, including chemical and air assaults. In 1944 -- the height of the war and the base's operations -- the air field's hospital held 154 beds and saw more than 1,000 cases.

Operated by a nearly all-Black staff, TAAF was located in Jim Crow Alabama. Those who served within its borders did so under a constant threat of racially motivated violence. Nurses traveling across the South to the air field experienced segregation and discrimination on trains. After refusing to leave a "whites only" bus, one Tuskegee nurse was arrested and beaten by Montgomery police; separately, a Tuskegee military police officer was beaten by members of the Alabama Highway Patrol.

Nurses served at TAAF until the hospital was closed after the war. In 1948, President Harry S Truman signed Executive Order 9981, integrating all branches of the military and all organizations within the military, including the ANC. Just as the Tuskegee nurses dispensed their duties with honor and distinction in uniform, many went on to fill medical leadership roles in their communities, with some, such as Raney, continuing to serve in the military.

Unfortunately, so much about the nurses at Tuskegee has been lost to history. Most of what we know comes from the nurses, largely preserved by family members and shared through personal passion projects and obituaries. While rare, their letters, scrapbooks and interviews offer insight into their pioneering work.

Pia Marie Winters Jordan, daughter of a Tuskegee nurse and author of "Memories of a Tuskegee Airmen Nurse and Her Military Sisters," perhaps sums their impact best: "Not only have they opened the door for other African American nurses, they've opened the door to broaden the experience of white nurses, nurses of other races."

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