Pauline Kirby

Pauline Kirby (1905 to 1981) was an American nurse and military officer who spent thirty years in the United States Army Nurse Corps. Born in Greenwood, Mississippi, she graduated from Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis in 1926 and entered the Corps in 1927, rising from second lieutenant to colonel. During the Second World War she served as assistant director of nurses in the South West Pacific Area and helped lay the foundations of the neuropsychiatric hospitals there. She later led nursing services at several army hospitals, ending at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and in 1956 she and Agnes A. Maley were the first Corps members allowed to hold temporary colonel rank.