On September 26, 1944, Second Lieutenant Mary Louise Hawkins, a flight nurse with the 801st Medical Air Evacuation Squadron, was aboard a C-47 Skytrain transporting wounded Marines from Palau to Guadalcanal when disaster struck. The aircraft ran out of fuel and crash-landed on Bellona Island in the Solomon Islands.

In the chaotic aftermath, Lt. Hawkins moved through the wreckage to assess the wounded. One Marine had suffered a catastrophic neck injury when a propeller blade tore through the fuselage and severed his trachea. He was suffocating on his own blood.

Shaken but steady, Lt. Hawkins improvised under unimaginable pressure. With no proper medical equipment available, she tore the inflation tube from a Mae West life jacket and used it to clear and maintain the Marine’s airway. For 19 exhausting hours, she kept his airway open by hand until rescue arrived.

Because of her skill, courage, and refusal to quit, every person aboard that aircraft survived.

For her extraordinary heroism and achievement while participating in aerial flight, Mary Louise Hawkins was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.

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