Fort Campbell nurses celebrate the 116th Army Nurse Corps birthday Feb. 2, 2017 at Blanchfield Army Community Hospital. This special celebration enables nurses and staff to also reflect on the hospital's namesake, Col. Florence Blanchfield.
In 1943, Col. Blanchfield was appointed Chief of the Army Nurse Corps. During her tour, she supervised the establishment of basic training schools for nurses in the nine Continental Service Commands and in all overseas theaters. She also planned and implemented a program, which took nursing teams close to the front lines in order to provide expert nursing care to battlefield casualties.
Col. Blanchfield was a lady of great personal warmth who has a wise understanding of nurses and their problems. Much of her time was spent in the field engaged in extensive morale-building activities as well as ensuring that a high standard of nursing was maintained. She constantly strove to improve the working and living conditions of her nurses and succeeded, in large part, because she insisted on being readily accessible to all under her command.
Col. Blanchfield's tireless efforts to obtain permanent commissioned status for military nurses resulted in Congressional passage of the Army-Navy Nurse Act of 1947. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, then the Chief of Staff, presented Col. Blanchfield with the first Regular Army Commission conferred on a woman in the United States Army July 18, 1947; her new serial number was N1.
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