Sea legs for yet another blog...

Over the past three weeks I have brought you 3 blogs on the newest USCGC Munro that has now become home to over 100 men and women. Guardsmen and women  who serve their country, and the free world whilst carrying on the wonderful story of North America's great hero Ist Class Signalman Douglas Munro.

While working on the latest chapter in this story, about a month ago I stumbled onto yet another story that needs to be told in this space. It involves a navy woman hero... and another ship being built by the same Ingalls shipbuilders of Mississippi that have just brought the world the latest Munro Cutter.    

About a year ago, then serving Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus announced that the US Navy had contracted for, and at the time,  had under construction 5 new Arleigh Burke Class Guided Missile Destroyers like the one above. The fifth would be named after a woman. He was a strong advocate for the employment  and promotion of women within the navy and wanted to honour this special lady, a nurse and hero in the Naval service back in the early 1900's.

The was not the first in her honour.  From 1945 to 1979 another sailed the oceans of the world and did such  heroic service in WW11 and Korea she was awarded 8 Battle Stars. She was known as the " Leaping Lenah," but the official records called her the USS Higbee (DD806). 

Well, not quite the first, but anyway, here is the first USS Higbee...

And her crest...  

This 1975 article pointed out that a number of vessels had been named after women prior to the Higbee. Even though the article misspelled her first name.  Here is a sketch of the Harriette Lane, of which you may recalling reading  in past blogs in this space.

The Harriette Lane was a Northern vessel launched before the beginning of the Civil War, and captured mid-war by the South. It is understandable that they may not have liked her. She fired the first shot at Southerners in  the Civil War on entry to the harbour. She was attempting to resupply the handful of Northerners at Fort Sumter. 

The ship was named in honour of Harriett Lane who was the niece of the then serving President... Buchanan, who was unmarried. She acted as a sort of First Lady if you will!

But who, you ask, was Lenah Higbee?

Lenah had been nursing for many years when, at the age of 25 she married a Marine Corps Lt. Colonel by the name of Higbee,. he was slightly older. Actually 36 yrs older. And lost his wife a year earlier. Lenah had been practicing nursing for many years and also taking post graduate training when an opportunity came her way in 1908 after her husband had passed away. 

In May of that year President Roosevelt passed legislation creating the Navy Nurses Corps. Many applied, and with about a decade of nursing already, she was one of the 20 accepted into the corps that would see then become known as the Sacred Twenty.

Here are the first 20 nurses in the new Navy Nurses Corps of 1908. Lenah is in the front row and 6 from the left. The following year she was appointed as the Head Nurse at the Naval Hospital on Norfolk.

By 1911 she would be not only the Chief Nurse but the top nurse, the Superintendent of the entire Corps. A title she would hold until retirement in 1922. Between its formation and today, the  Corp was first headed by 7 Superintendents. The title was then changes to Director and a further 17 would follow suit as the head of the Corps.

Many years after her service the civilian heads were given military ranks. Six would hold the rank of Naval Captain, the later 10 would hold the rank of Rear Admiral. 

Of all the heads of the corps, Lenah's service was within two months of tying the longest service of any of them.

This picture of Lenah was taken about 1920. She appears to be wearing some form of insignia on her left sleeve, which I have yet to figure out. She is also apparently wearing  the ribbons of 2 medals, but I have yet to discover what they are.

Here's an interesting  news-clip a few years later...

And another most fascinating article...

Not long before this article appeared there was quite a stir up in the world of military medals. (This is not the story of the Purge of 1916-17.) Such that it caused the government to take a major step backwards, revisiting the awarding of many medals and the results are partially shown above. I have edited out much that is not of concern to this article but left in the  quite shocking news that Lenah, according to this article was awarded a Medal of Honor. This would make her the second of only two, to women in the entire history of the medal.

I have done quite a bit of research in this, more is needed, but I have yet to find ANY other document supporting this award being made. I also note that at the Arlington National cemetery site, where Lenah lies at rest today, the internet article says she was awarded a Navy Distinguished Service Medal as well. A bravery medal just 4 down from the Medal of Honor. Again I can find no confirmation yet regarding this.

However it is very well documented that only 4 women in the history of the US Navy have been awarded the Navy Cross, just the 1st medal down from the Medal of Honor, Three of these were posthumous awards and the fourth, the only medal awarded to a nurse still alive, was that awarded to Lenah.

Here we see the US Navy Cross on the left and the navy's Distinguished Service Medal. Two very prestigious medals indeed. But note the ribbons, nothing like what Lenah seems to be wearing above.

By the way, I should probably mention that Lenah W. Sutcliff Higbee, almost the longest serving Superintendent of the US Navy Nurse's Corps and only living Navy Cross recipient, when awarded, was born on 18 May 1874. And her birth place, with a population of about 3,000 at the time,  called itself Chatham.

And that is in the Canadian province of New Brunswick!

see you next week,

Bart