GRACE CHICKEN (BORN 1914)

Grace Chicken wanted to see the world. As a young woman, her ambition was to be a nurse in the war, so she joined the Red Cross and was stationed in Joplin, Missouri. When she heard that the Air Force was looking for nurses, she enlisted to train as an Army Air Force Specialized Flight Nurse, and was sent to Bowman Field Kentucky. Her first posting was to Newfoundland, Canada, and from there she went on to be stationed in the Azores, a country that was neutral during WWII. Injured US Military personnel were flown to the Azores from other arenas, such as Europe, Asia and Africa. From the Azores, the Aerovac teams would fly the patients back to the United States for treatment. After VE Day, Grace was sent to Hawaii and from there they flew to all the small Pacific Islands picking up wounded Americans along the way. She was on the second US plane to arrive in Japan after the surrender. After the war, Grace went back to school on the GI Bill and then enlisted to serve in Korea.