Louisville, Kentucky (UP) –
The first Air Medal ever awarded a woman was presented yesterday to 2nd Lt. Elsie S. Ott of St. James, New York, for her care of five wounded officers and enlisted men during a 10,000-mile flight from India to Washington.
Lt. Ott, 29, an Army nurse, received the medal from Brig. Gen. Fred S. Borum on the recommendation of Maj. Gen. H. H. Arnold, commanding of the Army Air Forces.
The trip was her first experience with airplane travel. She later admitted she was airsick during most of the journey, but doctors said her care of the wounded left nothing to be desired.
Did the US rank insignia for women differ from the men? I thought a 2nd Lt would have a single gold bar (a “butterbar”), but she appears to be wearing a silver bar.
Yeah, the thing about a lot of these color photographs is they are (artfully!) colorized black-and-white images. My admiration for the folks who do this well. (Which, I gotta say, is not everybody, but certainly includes Mr. Stewart.)
Tiny bit of ego: This story (without the excellent photo) appeared in my (entirely not part of TimeGhost) weekly supplement to their weekly vid on their reddit board – 5 days ago.
After this shameless act of self-promotion, I return you to the story of WW2, which is already in progress!
You can pat yourself quite heartily on the back here, because I assumed it was an original colour photo, not a colourized one. Clearly you did an excellent job on it, because it never crossed my mind that it might have been an oversight.
