Ruth M. Gardiner

Second Lieutenant  Ruth M. Gardiner  (August 8, 1914 – July 26, 1943) was a nurse in the United States Army Nurse Corps, the first American nurse to lose her life in the line of duty during World War II. An Army hospital was named in her honor.

Early life
Gardiner was born on 8 August 1914 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. She moved to the United States with her family when she was three years old. Gardiner attended Sacred Heart High School in Indianapolis. Gardiner had training in nursing at the White Haven, Pennsylvania, sanatorium and graduated from there in 1934.

Career
Gardiner entered the army nursing service in January 1943. Her first assignment was at the 349th Air Evacuation Group, Bowman Field, Kentucky. She served in the Alaskan Theater of Operations with Flight A of the 805th Medical Air Evacuation Transport Squadron and rose to the rank of Second Lieutenant. Gardiner's plane crashed while on a medical evacuation mission near Naknek, Alaska on 27 July 1943 and she was killed while transporting patients. She was the first American nurse killed in World War II while on military active duty. Gardiner was one of a group of six nurses in Alaska during the Aleutian Islands Campaign of World War II during April 1942 to July 1943 that assisted in medical evacuations by plane. During this time the group of nurses covered 3,500,000 air miles and evacuated over 2,500 sick and wounded without injury or death to any of their patients.

Hospital
The Army General Hospital, a former Chicago hotel, was named in honor of Gardiner who was the first Army Nurse Corps' nurse killed while serving in World War II. Major General H. S. Aurand selected her to be honored this way. It was the first Army hospital named for a woman or nurse. Gardiner was killed in July 1943 and the hospital was officially dedicated in July 1944. The Army General Hospital of Chicago became known as the Ruth M. Gardiner General Hospital. The hospital was one of the medical installations in the Sixth Service Command.

The 1,250 bed hospital received a portrait of Gardiner at its official dedication on July 9, 1944. The portrait was done by Chicago artist Edmund Giesbert. There was a crowd estimated at 3,000 that looked on at this ceremony of the delivery of the portrait. The Gardiner hospital was already in operation at the time with a quarter of its patients from overseas.