Laura M. Cobb
| Laura M. Cobb | |
|---|---|
 ;
Lt. Cdr. Laura M. Cobb
Chief Nurse, USN, and one of the "Angels of Bataan" |
|
| Born |
May 11, 1892 Atchison, Kansas |
| Died | September 27, 1981 (aged 89) Wichita, Kansas |
| Place of burial | Maple Grove Cemetery, Wichita, Kansas |
| Allegiance |
 United States Navy
|
| Service/ |
United States Navy Nurse Corps |
| Years of service | 1918–1921 and 1924–1947 |
| Rank | Lieutenant Commander |
| Battles/wars |
Battle of Bataan World War II |
| Awards |
Bronze Star Medal with Gold Star Presidential Unit Citation Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with two Battle Stars |
Laura Mae Cobb (May 11, 1892–September 27, 1981) was a member of the United States Navy Nurse Corps who served during World War II. She received numerous decorations for her actions during the defense of Manila and her 37 months as a POW of the Japanese, during which she continued to serve as Chief Nurse for ten other imprisoned Navy nurses—some of the "Angels of Bataan." She retired from the Nurse Corps as a Lieutenant Commander in 1947.
Laura Cobb was born in Atchison, Kansas on May 11, 1892, and moved with her family to Mulvane, Kansas (near Wichita) the following year. She graduated from Mulvane High School in 1910, taught school for a time, entered the nursing training program at Wesley Hospital in Wichita in 1915, and graduated from that program in 1918.
Cobb served as a nurse in the United States Navy from July 5, 1918, to July 21, 1921 (including brief service at the Canacao Naval Hospital in Manila at the end of World War I), and then worked in civilian hospitals in Iowa and Michigan for three years. She rejoined the Navy in April 1924 and served in naval hospitals throughout the US in the 1920s and 1930s. After serving for more than a decade in a naval hospital in Washington DC, rumors of war prompted her to request "to go overseas because someone had to go." She was subsequently transferred to the naval hospital on Guam in April 1940, where she received a commendation for "continuous duty for forty-eight hours, during which she repeatedly risked life and limb in her efforts to insure the safety and comfort of the patients..." during the typhoon of November 3, 1940.
Cobb transferred from Guam to the Philippines in February 1941, where she was again assigned—now as Chief Nurse—to the Canacao Naval Hospital in Manila (located next to the Cavite Navy Yard). When the Japanese attacked the Cavite Navy Yard on December 10, 1941, Cobb and ten other navy nurses remained with the wounded in Manila until the US Military there surrendered to the Japanese on January 2, 1942. Cobb's quiet, professional manner was reassuring to the other nurses and apparently respected by the Japanese. When ordered by their captors to inventory medical supplies, Cobb instructed the nurses to mislabel valuable quinine as mere soda bicarbonate to preserve the quinine for the treatment of malaria patients.
...
Wikipedia