Maude C. Davison

Maude C. Davison (1885 to 1956) was a Canadian-born American nurse who served as Chief Nurse of the United States Army Nurse Corps in the Philippines during the Second World War. Born Maude Campbell in Cannington, Ontario, she studied home economics and worked as a dietitian before entering the Pasadena Hospital Training School for Nurses, and she graduated as a registered nurse in 1917. She joined the Army Nurse Corps Reserve in 1918, served at Letterman General Hospital and Fort Leavenworth, and in 1921 and 1922 worked with the Allied occupation forces at Coblenz. Posted to Corregidor in 1939 and made chief nurse of the Philippine Department, she organised nurses after the Japanese invasion, coordinated nursing at two jungle field hospitals and the underground hospital in the Malinta Tunnel, and led the group later known as the Angels of Bataan, the first and largest group of American military women taken prisoner of war. She was posthumously granted an Army Distinguished Service Medal in 2001.