About: Ruth M. Gardiner

Ruth M. Gardiner (May 20, 1914 – July 27, 1943) was a nurse in the United States Army Nurse Corps. She was the first American nurse to lose her life in the line of duty during World War II. She served in the Alaskan Theater and rose to the rank of Second Lieutenant. She was one of a group of six nurses in Alaska during the campaign of World War II that assisted in medical evacuations by plane. The group covered 3,500,000 air miles and evacuated over 2,500 sick and wounded without injury or death to any of their patients. Gardiner was accidentally killed while on one such evacuation, when the aircraft on which she was traveling crashed. A 1,250-bed hospital was named in her honor and was the first Army hospital named for a woman or nurse.