Combat-decorated nurse remembered by family, parishioners

Published: 2005-07-18

COVINA, Calif. (CNS) -- Family, friends and parishioners bid a final farewell July 8 to one of the most decorated women -- and, by all accounts, one of the most dedicated nurses -- in U.S. military history. Capt. Lillian Kinkela Keil, a longtime member of Sacred Heart Parish in Covina, died June 30 of cancer at age 88. A flight nurse with the Army Air Corps (now the Air Force), Keil flew on 425 combat evacuation missions in World War II and the Korean War. She helped load wounded soldiers onto airplanes, and took part in 11 major campaigns, including the Battle of the Bulge in Normandy during World War II and the Inchon invasion in Korea. By rough calculations, Keil tended to about 10,000 soldiers while they were being flown to military hospitals. "She represented hope for them," Keil's daughter, Adrianne Whitmore, told The Tidings, newspaper of the Los Angeles Archdiocese. "She said she always tried to have a look on her face that everything was going to be OK."

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