Ruby Bradley

Most Decorated Woman in US Military (1907 to 2002) Col. Ruby Bradley of the Army Nurse Corps was the most highly decorated army nurse, receiving 34 medals and citations of bravery for her military service during the Japanese and Korean War, on World War II. Her awards included Legion of Merit Medals, Bronze Stars, Presidential Emblems, WWII Victory Medal, U.N. Service Medal, and Florence Nightingale Medal. Bradley began her service in the Army Nurse Corps as surgical Nurse in 1934. Her risky service followed on 1941, while assigned at Camp John Hay, Philippines. Only three weeks after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Bradley was captured, and tended to fellow captives after being moved to Santo Tomas Interment Camp on 1943, in Manila. There, she and several other nurses were given the name Angels in Fatigues for feeding starving children and risking their lives in smuggling surgical equipments into the POW camp so as to provide medical aid. The U.S. Army liberated Bradley and the rest of the captives from the Japanese three years later, and then, she headed back home to West Virginia. However, military service has not yet ended in the Philippines for Bradley. She went back to the battlefield as chief nurse of the 171st Evacuation Hospital during the Korean War only after 5 years. In 1951, Bradley became chief nurse for the Eight Army, shouldered the responsibility of supervising 500 Army Nurses all over Korea, wherein she had to face near death situations while ensuring the sick and wounded were safe. Ruby Bradley managed to escape 100,000 Chinese soldiers holding guns on her back, and ambulance exploding right after shes gone off it.