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Does anyone recognize this medical unit?


vintageproductions
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vintageproductions

A good friend of ours bought this uniform over the weekend and was wondering if anyone knew what unit it was?

I know I have seen the patch before, but can't remember the exact id.

Thank you in advance for any info.

Bob

 

Nurse1.jpg

 

Nurse2.jpg

 

Nurse3.jpg

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US Victory Museum

I've seen one of these uniforms (complete) that sold on Ebay.

 

It was listed as a WWII era Aerial Nurse Corps (of America) uniform.

This was a civic organization like WADCA, and not affiliated with the

US Armed Forces like the SPARs, WAVES, WACs, or USMCWR.

 

Observe the partial view of her shoulder patch:

post-1529-0-13424300-1431783245.jpg

 

Also observe her hat pin.

post-1529-0-11264300-1431783256.jpg

 

 

Msn

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US Victory Museum

I was digging around on an old USB memory stick I've backed up a lot of old junk upon and I came

across these additional images:

 

Please note: In the Ebay auction, the uniform has a CAP (Civil Air Patrol) patch, as well as hat pin.

I don't believe these organization we ever affiliated; therefore, they were likely added to enhance the

value of an unknown (at that time) uniform.

post-1529-0-28972100-1431803454.jpg

post-1529-0-65798600-1431803466.jpg

post-1529-0-29455400-1431803484.jpg

post-1529-0-81845400-1431803499.jpg

post-1529-0-96848200-1431803517.jpg

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.

 

Build: Slender?

 

Complexion: Fair?

 

What the heck do those terms even mean? Times have hopefully changed for the better.

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These are the women that eventually become the Army Air Forces' flight nurses.

 

I find the CAP patch interesting because there was a woman named Ruth Nichols, a record-breaking aviator from NYC, who formed an aerial ambulance service that was absorbed into the CAP at the beginning of WW II.

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Please note: In the Ebay auction, the uniform has a CAP (Civil Air Patrol) patch, as well as hat pin.

I don't believe these organization we ever affiliated; therefore, they were likely added to enhance the

value of an unknown (at that time) uniform.

 

Actually, the CAP and the ANCOA were related. The uniform you showed on e-bay was actually a true uniform.

 

The ANCOA was started in the 1930's. Prior to WWII, Schimmoler was looking for military support for the ANCOA but was rejected by the American Nurses Association. The Civil Air Patrol which was a civilian organization ended up as the platform to coordinate ANCOA activities.

 

This is an excerpt from the book "Beyond the Call of Duty - Army Flight Nursing in World War II".

 

"The Civil Air Patrol, which had been created in December 1941 as a noncombat voluntary auxiliary of the US military was a focus of ANOCOA collaboration. Stroup, the deputy medical officer of the Detroit women’s squadron of the Civil Air Patrol, likely used that platform to coordinate ANOCOA activities with this national defense organization. By 1942, ANCOA members had joined the ranks of the Civil Air Patrol but maintained some degree of autonomy by gaining permission to wear their own uniforms, on which Civil Air Patrol insignia was displayed."

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I find the CAP patch interesting because there was a woman named Ruth Nichols, a record-breaking aviator from NYC, who formed an aerial ambulance service that was absorbed into the CAP at the beginning of WW II.

 

The ANCOA pre-dates Nichol's group, "Relief Wings".

This is from the Air and Space website:

 

"In 1940, Nichols founded Relief Wings, a humanitarian air service for disaster relief that quickly became an adjunct relief service of the Civil Air Patrol (CAP) during World War II. Nichols became a lieutenant colonel in the CAP."

https://airandspace.si.edu/explore-and-learn/topics/women-in-aviation/Nichols.cfm

 

 

Here is some more information again from the book "Beyond the Call of Duty"

 

ANCOA’s association with Relief Wings, Inc a civilian program begun in 1941 for the humanitarian use of airplanes during war or in peacetime disasters at home and overseas, for which Schimmoler served on the advisory committee for technical aeronautical problems, was strained at best. Relief Wings planned to establish and maintain a voluntary corps of flight nurses, but in 1941 Ruth Nichols, its executive director and a licensed pilot, wrote to Harriet Fleming, a member of the California State Nurses Association, ‘Although I have felt that Miss Schimmoler has evolved a fine detailed piece of training program for aerial nurses, we have not found any basis upon which she was willing to co-operate with Relief Wings’.

 

Nichols thought they had an agreement that Schimmoler was not honoring. In short, Nichols would help ANCOA obtain more members if those members would be available for disaster service under Relief Wings but Schimmoler apparently was not encouraging this collaboration. At stake was each woman’s control over the limited number of nurses available for civilian aerial work during time of war and her claim to the uniqueness of that work. Their differences may not have been reconciled. Nichol’s 1942 letter to Fleming suggests that Relief Wings did not know the present status of ANCOA: Nichols had heard, however, that it ‘had died a natural death’.

 

ANCOA had not died, but the ultimate association Schimmoler sought for it – to form a unit of the US military – was beyond her control.

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Build: Slender?

 

Complexion: Fair?

 

What the heck do those terms even mean? Times have hopefully changed for the better.

 

Believe it or not, numerous law enforcement agencies (in CONUS) still use these sorts of descriptors when describing wanted subjects, such as in an arrest warrant. Slender means thin and a fair complexion generally means lighter (white) skin. For example, some other skin tone terms used are olive, ruddy, sallow, etc. These sorts of descriptors are used for both sexes. May seem behind the times but they can help to better to ID the right people when there are questions related to an identity. The National Crime Information Center (NCIC, run by the FBI) uses them as well.

 

 

 

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