Veterans Services

Heros Square Details
Veteran FRANCES Y. SLANGER
Service
Location ANGELL ST,AND BLUE HILL AV
Neighborhood MATTAPAN
Type SQUARE
Post MT. HOPE MEMORIAL DAY COMMITTEE
Dedication 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.
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