As soon as she passed her state board exams, Jane Marcum Blevins, fresh out of school, headed into the Army Nursing Corps. From that brave action, postings took her far from home and into China and India, where her story would end.

Jane’s parents, Isaac Newton “Ike” Blevins and Elizabeth Trammel Blevins, both hailed from Tennessee as did all her grandparents. But in 1920, two years before Jane arrives, her family is living in Stearns, Kentucky. Ike is managing a lumber company. The family of seven lived in a home they were renting. The older siblings were Dorothy Gurney Blevins Grass, 1904, Paulina S. Blevins, 1909, Elizabeth Fiona Blevins Smith, 1912, Virginia D. Blevins McDonald, 1913, and Howard Kinne Blevins, 1915.

Their youngest child, Jane Marcum Blevins arrived on September 22, 1922. She was born in Tennessee.[i] There were 18 years difference between Jane and Dorothy, her oldest sister. All her siblings were attending school by the time she was born, making her the only child at home with her mother.[ii]

As the Great Depression years roll around, the family has returned to its Tennessee roots and are living in Scott County. While they have crossed state lines, they have only moved 18 miles. Ike is now farming and living in a home that they own, according to the 1930 census. Jane is now 7 and attending school along with Elizabeth, Virginia and Howard. Her sister, Dorothy, 26, is no longer at home. Next oldest, Pauline, 20, is working as a clerk for the state.[iii]

The war years are looming as Jane is finishing high school, graduating in 1939 from Oneida High School. In 1940, the family is still in Tennessee. They are living in Oneida on Leatherwood Road in a home they own. Ike’s back in the lumber business as an operator. Jane’s brother, Howard, is 24 and driving a lumber truck.[iv]

At Oneida High School, Jane was a member of the glee club and sang on the WNOX radio station.[v]

HER LIFE BEFORE MILITARY

As 1940 arrives, Jane starts the new decade with a new venture. On September 1st, she was one of fifty young women from Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Kentucky, Florida and North Carolina accepted to enter the Baroness Erlanger Hospital School of Nursing in a three-year program. According to a news article, the class of fifty arrived in the last week of August and would be probationers for four months. After passing examinations, they would become the first-year class.[vi]

During her time in nursing college, Jane has a room in the nurse’s home.[vii]

While Jane is in nursing college, her only brother, Howard, joins the U.S. Army. Technician 5th Grade Howard K. Blevins was in the parachute infantry.

Captured, he was a prisoner of the Germans and held at Stalag 344 Lansdorf. He was taken prisoner during the African campaign.[viii]

In 1943, Jane graduated from Chattanooga’s Baroness Erlanger Hospital School of Nursing.[ix] After graduation, she worked at the Oak Ridge, Tennessee project.[x]

HER MILITARY STORY

In Tennessee, the 17-county region of District 4 of the Tennessee Nurses Association saw campaigning to encourage nurses to join the war effort. Married nurses were asked to step forward and take positions, both military and industrial, so that single nurses, like Jane, could become a military nurse. One of the nurses who stepped forward for Army Nurse duty was Jane Marcum Blevins, according to the Chattanooga Daily Times newspaper.[xi]

Once Jane had passed her State Board Examination for Nursing, she applied for a commission in the Army Nursing Corp.[xii]

Jane was stationed at Lowery Field in Denver, Colorado where she had been called by the Army Air Corp. She left Tennessee in mid-February of 1944 for her post.[xiii] She was also stationed in Brigham, Utah[xiv] and Denver, Colorado.[xv]

By the fall, Jane and another Chattanooga classmate, Leila Allen, are preparing for overseas duty.[xvi] She was sent overseas to the 172nd General Hospital in India.[xvii] Her obituary states that she also went to China to aid the wounded in the China-Burma-India Theatre. She had an outstanding record in service.[xviii]

HER LAST DAY- March 4, 1945

On her last flight, Jane was in route from a hospital along the Ledo road to a new assignment[xix] in the India-Burma Theater to care for wounded in Imphal.

[xx]

Her Douglas C-47 Skytrain (#41-18554), assigned to Air Transport Command, 11th Combat Cargo Squadron,[xxi] took off from Dinjan Army Airfield in Assam, India on a mission to ferry passengers. The plane came in too low during the last turn in the process of landing and crashed. Twenty-five passengers, including Jane, plus the crew of two were killed. Most of the passengers were Army nurses and medical personnel.[xxii]

Jane was the first nurse from Chattanooga to be killed in a combat area.[xxiii] Her death was widely reported in newspapers from all over her state of Tennessee.

She was 22.

COMMENDATIONS

World War II Victory Medal

Nurse Corps Badge

American Campaign Medal

Army Presidential Unit Citation

Army Good Conduct Medal

Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal[xxiv]

MEMORIALS

The East Tennessee Veteran’s Memorial remembers 2nd Lt. Jane Marcum Blevins. You will find Jane Blevins page here which includes some photos.

HER FUNERAL AND GRAVE

After the crash, Jane was buried at a temporary military cemetery in Kalaikunda, India.[xxv]

In the spring of 1948, 2nd Lt. Jane Marcum Blevins body returned home to her parents. Along with 2024 other Americans, she was transferred from India to Honolulu on the Cardinal O’Connell ship, a U.S. Army transport ship. The vessel moved the bodies from Hawaii to San Francisco, California.[xxvi]

2nd Lt. Jane Marcum Blevins was buried at Somerset City Cemetery in Somerset, Kentucky on June 8, 1948.[xxvii] Somerset, Kentucky is less than an hour away from her hometown in Oneida, Tennessee. A military service was held grave side by the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the American Legion.[xxviii]

LIST OF THOSE KILLED IN THE MARCH 4, 1945 LEDO, INDIA AIR CRASH

Capt. John J. Lukaszczyk, Co-Pilot
Capt. Nicholas J. Mandoukos, Pilot
1st Lt. Walter S. Amsler, Jr.
2nd Lt. Francis W. Blalock
2nd Lt. Julia S. Barnes
2nd Lt. Jane M. Blevins
2nd Lt. Evelyn M. Bruton
2nd Lt. Thomas E. Dellinger
2nd Lt. Rita F. Erard
2nd Lt. Evelyn M. Gerdrum
2nd Lt. Lyndell A. Glisson
1st Lt. Henry D. Hammack, Jr.
2nd Lt. Eathel L. Harris
2nd Lt. Helen J. Henley
1st Lt. Catherine M. Larkin
2nd Lt. Joseph R. Launier
1st Lt. Kathryn L.Lloyd
Capt. Charles W. Loucks
1st Lt. Grady A. Masters
2nd Lt. Kathryn L. McCarthy
2nd Lt. Ann L. Merrill
2nd Lt. Genevieve R. Monahan
Capt. Edward R. Moore
2nd Lt. Mayo C. Onken
Lt. Col. Jack P. Scott
Leona A. Thomey, Civilian, Red Cross
1st Lt. Robert W. Tibbetts

AFTER THE WAR

In June of 1945, some three months after Jane’s death, Technician 5th Grade Howard K. Blevins was liberated from Stalag 344. He was discharged in October 1945. He passed away in 1956 in a trucking accident[xxix] and is also buried in Somerset, Kentucky.[xxx]

RESEARCH NOTES

A few places listed 2nd Lt. Jane Marcum Blevins as being from Kentucky. However, research show that Jane was born in Oneida, Tennessee and grew up there. She graduated from Oneida High School. She attended nursing college in Tennessee. She is recognized on the East Tennessee Veteran’s Memorial. On Ancestry.com, her family’s roots in Oneida, Tennessee extend back to 1800. Jane and family members are buried in Somerset, Kentucky. Research did not reveal why that is so.

ABOUT THIS STORY

This story is part of the Stories Behind the Stars project (see www.storiesbehindthestars.org). This is a national effort of volunteers to write the stories of all 400,000+ of the US WWII fallen saved on Together We Served and Fold3. Can you help write these stories? Related to this, there will be a smartphone app that will allow people to visit any war memorial or cemetery, scan the fallen's name and read his/her story.

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