11/04/2020
What a story! Thank you for sending it in! She was a Paxico girl!
https://www.facebook.com/susankeewriter/posts/1451351165055779
HONORING LT. COLONEL VERENA ZELLER,
First Chief of the US Air Force Nurse Corps - Korean War
I found this story from the US Air Force website, about an incredible woman who served as the first chief of the Air Force Nurse Corps during the Korean War.
According to this article, "Verena M. Zeller, the first chief of the Air Force Nurse Corps, was promoted to lieutenant colonel in April 1950. Zeller led the Nurse Corps during the Korean War, overseeing its growth and evolution into an organization focused on flight care. At the onset of the Korean War, only 181 of 1,170 Air Force Nurse Corps nurses were designated as flight nurses. During the war, Air Force nurses in Korea served mainly as flight nurses. There were few fixed Air Force hospitals on the Korean Peninsula, requiring the Air Force to use aeromedical evacuation for most injured service members. At the peak of the Korean War, 2,991 Air Force nurses were on active duty."
Many were wounded so seriously that they had to be flown from the field or MASH hospitals in Korea to larger hospitals in Japan and America. The US Air Force flight nurses performed a critical role of caring for these seriously wounded men while they were being flown to Japan and the United States.
This post is dedicated in honor of Lt. Col. Zeller and all the incredible women who served as nurses during the Korean War. With utmost respect, love, and gratitude to these servicewomen who saved the lives of so many during the Korean War, Susan Kee at Susan Kee - Honoring Korean War Veterans
HERE'S THE ARTICLE FROM THE US AIR FORCE WEBSITE:
"First Chief of the Nurse Corps"-Written By Judith Taylor, Air Force Medical Service History Office
"Verena M. Zeller, the first chief of the Air Force Nurse Corps, was promoted to lieutenant colonel in April 1950. Zeller led the Nurse Corps during the Korean War, overseeing its growth and evolution into an organization focused on flight care.
Zeller began serving as chief of the Nurse Corps in 1949, while still a captain. Her promotion to lieutenant colonel was unusual, as she skipped over the rank of major to match the rank requirement for her position. In June 1950, just two months after her promotion, the Korean War began, signaling a significant change in the scope and mission of the Nurse Corps.
At the onset of the Korean War, only 181 of 1,170 Air Force Nurse Corps nurses were designated as flight nurses. During the war, Air Force nurses in Korea served mainly as flight nurses. There were few fixed Air Force hospitals on the Korean Peninsula, requiring the Air Force to use aeromedical evacuation for most injured service members. At the peak of the Korean War, 2,991 Air Force nurses were on active duty.
Zeller commissioned as a general duty nurse in the Army Medical Department’s Nurse Corps at Fort Riley, Kansas, in June 1936. The Army transferred her to Sternberg General Hospital, Manila, in July 1939, where she remained until October of 1941. Zeller departed shortly before the Japanese invaded the island.
“I was the last one out of our group of eight nurses that got to go home,” she stated. “I was the only nurse left in the Philippines that was on orders. And they almost didn't send me on this ship because it was the President Coolidge, and the President Coolidge had a ship's nurse on their crew, so they didn't need a nurse to go along.”
Zeller, however, was allowed on to accompany a seriously ill friend back to Letterman Army Hospital in San Francisco, California. “Otherwise, I probably would have been a prisoner of the Japanese,” she stated.
In June of 1946, Zeller completed the U.S. Army Air Forces School of Aviation Medicine’s Flight Nurse Course at Randolph Field, in San Antonio, Texas. She later served with the Military Air Transport Service in domestic and foreign air evacuation. Promoted to captain, she started working in the Air Surgeon’s Office in January of 1949 and transferred from the Army to the Air Force six months later.
Zeller served throughout the Korean War and guided nursing in the Air Force Medical Service’s infancy. In August 1951, the Air Force Surgeon General, Maj. Gen. Harry G. Armstrong, promoted her to colonel and she officially assumed the duties of the chief of the Nurse Corps. She held the position until her retirement in 1956.
When asked about her Air Force career, she stated, “I look back on it many times as just a wonderful part of my life.”
Zeller passed away in 2007."
OBITUARY
(I found the following obituary online):
"Verena Zeller Seberg, 95, Topeka, died Sun., Dec. 30, 2007. Verena was born Nov. 1, 1912 in Paxico KS, the daughter of Michael and Mary Meinhardt Zeller. She graduated from Mount St. Scholastica Academy in Atchison in 1931 and received her diploma as a registered nurse from St. Francis Hospital, Topeka KS in 1934. During the spring of 1935, Verena served with the Red Cross in the dust bowl area of western Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas panhandle. After that she was assigned to general duty at Fort Riley KS on civilian status. Verena was commissioned in the Nurse Corps of the Army Medical Dept. at Fort Riley in June 1936 and remained assigned there three years.
She was transferred in July 1939 to Sternberg Army Hospital in Manila, Philippine Islands. She was assigned as Asst. Chief Nurse at March AFB, Calif. until 1944 when she was transferred as Chief Nurse to Walla Walla AFB, Wash. From there she went to Brandley AFB, Conn. as Chief Nurse and then to Mitchel AFB, Long Island NY as Chief Nurse. Verena completed the Flight Nurses course at the School of Aviation Medicine, Randolph AFB, Tex. in June 1946 followed by a year at Columbia University. Following that Verena served almost a year on a regular Army Integration Board in the Pentagon reviewing records of applicants for the regular Army Nurse Corps and presenting the recommendations to the Integration Board. Following that assignment, she served with the Military Air Transport Service in Air Evacuation of patients from Europe to the US and from coast to coast in the US.
She was then assigned to the Air Surgeons office in Jan. 1949 when the Air Force established a separate Medical Services and she was designated acting Chief Nurse of the Air Force Nurse Corps.
In Aug. 1951, she became Chief of the Air Force Nurse Corps and was promoted to the grade of Colonel. Among other citations, Verena was awarded the Legion of Merit upon retirement. During Verenas tenure as Chief of the Air Force Nurse Corps, she traveled extensively, visiting AF nurses assigned to AF bases world-wide. This took her to England, Germany, Tripoli, North Africa, Casablanca, Saudi Arabia, Hawaii, Okinawa, Philippines, Japan, Korea, Alaska, Greenland, Newfoundland and AF bases in the continental US.
On Dec. 28, 1949, Verena and Col. Marco Pettoruto were married. He died in 1976. On June 23, 1990, Dr. G. Herbert Seberg and Verena were married."
#koreanwar #nursecorps #airforcenurse #flightnurse