Arlington National Cemetery

Remembering Ruby Bradley
Ruby Bradley was born on December 19, 1907, in Spencer, West Virginia, and died on May 28, 2002. She was buried at Arlington National Cemetery in honor of her service. She joined the Army Nurse Corps in 1934, one year after becoming a nurse. Her service started with being commissioned as a surgical nurse in Washington, D.C. for five years.  However, she continued her service at a higher level, demonstrating her dedication to the Army. Bradley was serving when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in the Philippines, where she was captured three weeks later, on December 29, 1941, becoming a prisoner of war (POW).  For those three years as a POW, She assisted in over 230 major surgeries and delivered 13 babies.  The other POWs named Bradley and the other nurses ‘Angles in Fatigues,’ for their wholehearted commitment to helping the patients.  However, Bradley’s compassion and selflessness made her stand out amongst the POW nurses. With tight food rations, she became skilled at smuggling food and often went hungry to give food to others, mainly children. When the cam was liberated in 1945, Bradley had gone from 110 to 84 pounds.  When nurses returned, they were given promotions and awarded the Purple Heart.  The work of these POW nurses as well as the Army Nurse Corps greatly contributed to the exceptionally low post-injury mortality rate. In total, less than four percent of American soldiers who received medical care or were evacuated died.  After WW II, Bradley worked in several hospitals and earned her bachelor's degree in nursing education from the University of California. Then, in 1950, a month after the start of the Korean War, she went overseas to serve as a combat nurse in evacuation hospitals and later became a chief nurse.  In one instance during the war, Bradley refused to leave an evacuating plane until she had helped the wounded patients, jumping into the plane while her ambulance exploded.  She was the first woman to receive a national or international guard salute, and the third woman in Army history to become a colonel. For the entirety of her service, Bradley received 34 medals. Despite these accomplishments, she told a reporter that she didn’t see herself as anyone special and said, “I want to be remembered as just an Army nurse.”   Ruby Bradley served with resilience and altruism and should be remembered for her years of dedication. 


RUBY GRACE BRADLEY

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