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This Remembrance Profile was originally created by CMSgt Don Skinner - Deceased
Contact Info
Home Town Arcata
Date of Passing Jun 03, 2008
Location of Interment Riverside National Cemetery (VA) - Riverside, California
Captain Lillian Kinkela Keil was born on November 17, 1916 in Arcata, CA. Her father left the family when she was a young girl. She and her mother lived in a convent at Sisters of St. Joseph, where her mother performed cleaning tasks. After high school, she entered the nursing program at St. Mary's Hospital in San Francisco, CA. Upon receiving her nursing degree, she was employed by United Airlines. One of the airline's rules was that in order to be a stewardess, one had to be a registered nurse.
In 1943, when asked why she did not better utilize her nursing talents, Keil answered by enlisting in the USAAF and requested flight nurse duty. After completed required training at the Air Evacuation School at Louisville, KY, she soon found herself in England, assigned to the 801st Medical Air Evacuation Squadron at Bottesford, England. But she was assigned temporary duty at the air field at Shinbone, treating wounded B-17 crew members who were wounded or suffered frost bite while on bombing raids, and, in some instances, caring for them on air evacuation flights to the U.S.
After D-Day, duty became more rugged as she and the air evacuation crew would have to go on the flight to France and Germany to retrieve the wounded. Because the aircraft carried supplies in to the battlefield, the aircraft could not be marked with the Red Cross, thereby depriving the aircraft and crew of protection under the Geneva Convention. In spite of this detriment, she participated in many evacuation flights from the beaches at Normandy to the Ardennes Forest. She later stated the Ardennes campaign was especially harrowing because of the extreme weather conditions. She recalled one particular flight when the aircraft she was on could not land because of severe weather. Although the aircraft circled the area many times, a landing was impossible, so the mission was aborted. Captain Kinkela recalls that she could plainly see at least 12 litters with wounded men, waiting for help. She said it was heartbreaking to leave.
Captain Kinkela flew more than 250 air evacuation missions as well as 25 trans-Atlantic crossings.
In 1946, she was discharged from the USAAF, and returned to her employment with United Airlines. In fact, she flew on the inaugural flight to Hawaii in May, 1947. However, in 1950, when the Korean War began, she returned to active duty as a flight nurse with the USAF. She flew 175 hundred air evacuation missions as a flight nurse in Korea, including evacuations at Chosen Reservoir and near vicinity.
In 1954, she married Walter Keil, a Naval intelligence officer. However, in 1955, she was discharged because of pregnancy. She and Walter went on to have a family of two daughters.
Captain Keil was the most decorated women in World War II, receiving a total of 19 medals, decorations, and campaign credits.
She served as technical director for the 1953 movie "Flight Nurse," inspired by her life story and her actions in Korea. She was honored on several occasions in her adopted hometown of Covina, CA. The Postal Service building there was named for her, and she participated in the dedication ceremonies of the World War II Memorial Monument in Washington, DC.
Captain Lillian Kinkela Keil passed away at the age of 88 in 2005. She is buried in Riverside National Cemetery at Riverside, Ca in Section 20, Site 1235.
There is an article in the Rock Hill, SC "Herald" newspaper dated July 3, 2005 that refers to her as "Major Keil." Her tombstone in Riverside Cemetery lists "Captain."
Other Comments:
Captain Lillian Kinkela Keil is regarded as the most decorated woman who served in combat situations as a member of the USAAF and USAF.
World War II
From Month/Year
December / 1941
To Month/Year
December / 1946
Description Overview of World War II
World War II killed more people, involved more nations, and cost more money than any other war in history. Altogether, 70 million people served in the armed forces during the war, and 17 million combatants died. Civilian deaths were ever greater. At least 19 million Soviet civilians, 10 million Chinese, and 6 million European Jews lost their lives during the war.
World War II was truly a global war. Some 70 nations took part in the conflict, and fighting took place on the continents of Africa, Asia, and Europe, as well as on the high seas. Entire societies participated as soldiers or as war workers, while others were persecuted as victims of occupation and mass murder.
World War II cost the United States a million causalities and nearly 400,000 deaths. In both domestic and foreign affairs, its consequences were far-reaching. It ended the Depression, brought millions of married women into the workforce, initiated sweeping changes in the lives of the nation's minority groups, and dramatically expanded government's presence in American life.
The War at Home & Abroad
On September 1, 1939, World War II started when Germany invaded Poland. By November 1942, the Axis powers controlled territory from Norway to North Africa and from France to the Soviet Union. After defeating the Axis in North Africa in May 1941, the United States and its Allies invaded Sicily in July 1943 and forced Italy to surrender in September. On D-Day, June 6, 1944, the Allies landed in Northern France. In December, a German counteroffensive (the Battle of the Bulge) failed. Germany surrendered in May 1945.
The United States entered the war following a surprise attack by Japan on the U.S. Pacific fleet in Hawaii. The United States and its Allies halted Japanese expansion at the Battle of Midway in June 1942 and in other campaigns in the South Pacific. From 1943 to August 1945, the Allies hopped from island to island across the Central Pacific and also battled the Japanese in China, Burma, and India. Japan agreed to surrender on August 14, 1945 after the United States dropped the first atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Consequences:
1. The war ended Depression unemployment and dramatically expanded government's presence in American life. It led the federal government to create a War Production Board to oversee conversion to a wartime economy and the Office of Price Administration to set prices on many items and to supervise a rationing system.
2. During the war, African Americans, women, and Mexican Americans founded new opportunities in industry. But Japanese Americans living on the Pacific coast were relocated from their homes and placed in internment camps.
The Dawn of the Atomic Age
In 1939, Albert Einstein wrote a letter to President Roosevelt, warning him that the Nazis might be able to build an atomic bomb. On December 2, 1942, Enrico Fermi, an Italian refugee, produced the first self-sustained, controlled nuclear chain reaction in Chicago.
To ensure that the United States developed a bomb before Nazi Germany did, the federal government started the secret $2 billion Manhattan Project. On July 16, 1945, in the New Mexico desert near Alamogordo, the Manhattan Project's scientists exploded the first atomic bomb.
It was during the Potsdam negotiations that President Harry Truman learned that American scientists had tested the first atomic bomb. On August 6, 1945, the Enola Gay, a B-29 Superfortress, released an atomic bomb over Hiroshima, Japan. Between 80,000 and 140,000 people were killed or fatally wounded. Three days later, a second bomb fell on Nagasaki. About 35,000 people were killed. The following day Japan sued for peace.
President Truman's defenders argued that the bombs ended the war quickly, avoiding the necessity of a costly invasion and the probable loss of tens of thousands of American lives and hundreds of thousands of Japanese lives. His critics argued that the war might have ended even without the atomic bombings. They maintained that the Japanese economy would have been strangled by a continued naval blockade, and that Japan could have been forced to surrender by conventional firebombing or by a demonstration of the atomic bomb's power.
The unleashing of nuclear power during World War II generated hope of a cheap and abundant source of energy, but it also produced anxiety among large numbers of people in the United States and around the world.
