D. Clarke Evans Photographer

Dr. Eleanor Bjoring

Cadet, Civil Air Patrol, 1943–1947
Colonel, Air Force Nurse Corps, 1952–1957

CAP Cadet, Eleanor Bjoring
Harrisburg, PA, 1943

Dad said not to volunteer for anything. I volunteered for everything and had a blast. 

I was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. I loved airplanes and would watch the mail plane go over at 5:00 every night.  Mother embroidered a pillow cover, which I still have, of a little girl looking up at an airplane. I was 13 when I joined the Civil Air Patrol in 1943. We went to formal classes and then we did so many hours a week spotting airplanes. We learned the fundamentals of flight and how to fold a parachute. At 16, we started to learn to fly PT-17 Stearmans.

I wanted to be an engineer and my father wouldn’t let me. I was the only girl accepted to Penn State’s engineering school in 1947. My dad said I had to be a nurse first, so I went to nursing school at the University of Pennsylvania. I graduated as a registered nurse and worked as a staff nurse, camp nurse, OR supervisor and also for a polio foundation. I applied to be a stewardess. You had to be an RN at that time but you had to quit when you were 26. I thought that was stupid, so I applied to the Air Corps in 1952.

Dad said not to volunteer for anything. I volunteered for everything and had a blast. My first duty station was Moses Lake, Washington. I went to Korea in 1953. Then I went to Langley for flight school and San Antonio to fly Air Evac. In Korea I wanted to go up in a jet so badly. My hospital CO said, “No one can go up in a jet before I do.” The Marine CO said to me, “I’ll get you up in a jet.” It was the most thrilling thing I had ever done. I’m still excited about it.

I got out of the Air Force in 1957 as a first lieutenant. I’ve had a wonderful life. I was married to a career officer and we were stationed in India. I had four sons in five years and took them to India by myself. Both of my husbands were pilots.

I went back to school at UT in 1967. They kept expanding the GI Bill and I wasn’t about to waste any of it. I got my Ph.D. in 1979. In 1969 I declared I was going to be a nurse historian and they said I couldn’t do that. Well, you don’t tell me I can’t do something. I did my master’s thesis and my doctorate dissertation in history and that’s my research area. I taught at UT for 19 years. I then went to Penn State for five years where I directed the graduate program in nursing until 1996.

My son was really active in Civil Air Patrol in Montgomery, Alabama. He established the glider program there. He sent in a photo of me in my CAP uniform and I was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for service in Civil Air Patrol during WWII.

Published in Army Residence Community The Eagle, July, 2017:

2016 marked the 75th anniversary of the Civil Air Patrol. The 112th U.S. Congress marked the anniversary by awarding “a single gold medal honoring CAP WWII volunteers for their unusual combat and humanitarian service at a critical time of need for the nation.” {05-02-2019 • San Antonio, TX}