“I was young and I didn’t know what war was… I guess in a way that was a saving grace.” (Video Interview, 21:54)

Marcella Ryan Le Beau

Marcella Le Beau [2004] War: World War, 1939-1945 Branch: Army Nurse Corps Unit: 76th General Hospital Service Location: United States; England and Wales, United Kingdom; France; Belgium Rank: First Lieutenant Place of Birth: SD

In 1943 Marcella Le Beau had just finished her nurse’s training in her native South Dakota and was working at a hospital in Pontiac, Michigan, when she heard about the Army’s need for nurses. A year later, she was camped out in a cow pasture in Normandy, in the wake of the D-Day invasion, on her way to Paris. That December she was in Liege, Belgium, where she and her comrades were told to open their Christmas presents ten days early, as the Battle of the Bulge had just begun and they might have to evacuate. She never encountered discrimination because of her background; in fact, when colleagues learned that her great-grandfather was a chief, they assumed she must be an Indian princess.