Frances Y. Slanger Army Nurse Corps 8 August 1914 – 21 October 1944 Francis Y. Slanger was born to Mr. and Mrs. Slanger in 1914 in Lødz, Poland, three months after her father left for America, seven-year-old Frances, her mother Eva and sister Sally boarded a steamship to America to escape the persecution of Jews in Poland. They arrived at a United States Immigration Station in Boston. Francis graduated from Boston City Hospital School of Nursing in 1937. In 1943, she enlisted in the Army Nurse Corps. Four days after the D-Day invasion, Frances walked onshore at Normandy,France. Slanger was then killed in a German Artillery attack, she was the first nurse to die in WWII. She was awarded the Purple Heart. In June 1945 the Frances Y. Slanger was commissioned as a hospital ship in her honor. Francis was buried in Belgium. In 1947 her remains were returned home for a memorial service with 1,500 friends, relatives and the Mayor of Boston was in attendance.
