Nurses on the frontline
In honor of Florence Nightingale, who paved the way for army nurses, a look back at the brave women who tended to soldiers in the trenches


Feb. 24, 1855
Florence Nightingale makes her rounds in the hospital in Scutari, Turkey, during the Crimean War.

1942
A Soviet nurse helps a wounded soldier at the front.

Nov. 28, 1940
A nurse continues to work in her bombed-out hospital in London, England.

Sept. 18, 1944
Mile Mereau — former POW and a nurse of the Belgian White Army — bandages a wounded British soldier in Antwerp, Belgium.

March 15, 1944
U.S. Army nurses crowd the deck of a transport as they prepare to debark at a British port.

Dec. 31, 1943
A British nursing officer washes her clothing outside of her tent in Kenya.

Dec. 9, 1943
A U.S. Army nurse, with shoes slung around her neck, wades ashore from a landing craft in Naples harbor, Italy.

1941
A nurse aids a wounded soldier in a field in the former Soviet Union during World War II.

Dec. 26, 1917
German nurses wearing gas masks administer first aid to soldiers who were gassed on the Italian front.

1918
American nurses walk through a trench in France.

Early 1940s
A nurse aids a wounded soldier in the former Soviet Union during World War II.

July 14, 1965
U.S. Army nurses rest on sandbags while waiting for transportation to another field hospital in Vietnam.

1917
English Nurses decorate the grave of a fallen soldier.