She wrote a well-received memoir, 'Mission Accomplished,' and was appointed to the French Legion of Honor.
For more than two months, starting before the Battle of the Bulge commenced in December 1944 and continuing through the New Year, they faced a near-constant barrage of German attacks, with V-1 buzz bombs exploding every 15 minutes, day and night. Nazi planes strafed the field hospital, and the camp was hit three times by bombs even thought its tents were painted with large red crosses..
Mrs. Engelman was 101, and one of the last surviving Army nurses to serve near the front lines during World War II, when she died June 30 at a board-and-care home in Laguna Niguel, Calif. Her children, Curtis and Suzanne Engelman, confirmed the death but did not cite a cause.Nearly 60,000 American nurses volunteered to serve in the Army during World War II, caring for soldiers at field hospitals and on trains, ships and medical transport planes. Mrs.
The next year, she reported for duty as a second lieutenant in the Army Nurse Corps. She had considered joining the Navy, she said, but wasn’t a great swimmer. “I thought that I’d rather get killed on land than on the water.” They camped in a cow pasture in Normandy, where they waited for Allied forces to clear the Germans out of Belgium and passed the time by playing baseball and softball. By November 1944 they were in Liège, where they set up a 1,000-bed field hospital at an old apple orchard. It was soon filled with wounded soldiers.Nearly 20,000 Americans were killed during the Battle of the Bulge, and tens of thousands more were wounded, missing or captured. As the fighting escalated, Mrs.