Posted on 02/06/2005 7:49:14 AM PST by knighthawk
SEATTLE -- Rosalou Freeland Etue, a World War II combat nurse who survived capture by the Nazis and received a Bronze Star from General George Patton, has died. She was 85.
The former Army captain died Jan. 30 of natural causes, her family said.
Ms. Etue was born in New Orleans. In early December 1941, she graduated from New Orleans Charity Hospital nursing school and celebrated by visiting her father, a lawyer with the Justice Department in Washington.
While driving past the White House, they saw black curtains and learned of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. A day later, at 21, she joined the Army Nurse Corps.
Toward the end of the war, Nazi SS troops captured Ms. Etue's unit as it followed Patton's 3d Army pushing into Germany.
At one point, a Nazi officer accused her of being Jewish. After reading her dog tags, he forced her unit to treat wounded Germans, until Patton's army approached and the Germans suddenly fled.
Though relieved of duty in the closing days of the war, she took time to visit a liberated concentration camp.
Ping
American hero ping!
God bless you, Rosalou.
May she RIP.
BTTT
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