Fighting to Save Lives: Lt. Marion Clark Phillips of the Army Nurse Corps

Second Lieutenant Marion Clark Phillips of Orlando served with distinction in the Army Nurse Corps in World War II, before her untimely demise on February 2, 1945. As a track and field athlete, she broke three collegiate records. 

Marion Clark Phillips was born in Florida on November 27, 1911, to Louis Ross Phillips and Theresa Frances Fish.¹ She had one older brother, Roger Earle Phillips, who was born five years prior.² Phillips attended Orlando High School, graduating in 1928 and then enrolling at the Florida State College for Women, the institution that would later become Florida State University.³ She was an athlete during her academic career. While in college, she broke the school’s record for the high jump (4’5”), the standing broad jump record (7’11”), and the record for the basketball throw.⁴ She won first place in the 100-yard dash, the high jump, the broad jump, the basketball throw, and the hurdles, earning a spot as the highest point winner for the Florida state track meet for colleges.⁵  

Phillips served as the president of the Florida State College for Women’s Athletic Association from 1931-32 and was one of a select few women at the college to be given the coveted rank of “wearer of the emblem,” the highest athletic honor awarded at the college.⁶ In that same year, she represented her school at a national athletic convention at Syracuse University.⁷ After graduating from college in 1932, she received nursing training at the Presbyterian Hospital in Philadelphia, and became a member of the hospital’s nursing staff. She later worked at John Sealy Hospital in Galveston, Texas, and Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, before entering military service.⁹  

In June 1942, shortly after the United States entered World War II, Phillips joined the Army Nurse Corps and was sent overseas that October as a 2^nd Lieutenant.¹⁰ She served with distinction in the Allied North African and Italian campaigns at the 114^th Station Hospital.¹¹ Phillips and her unit were awarded a multitude of commendations, including the American Campaign Medal, the Nurse Corps Badge, and the European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal.¹² 

Tragically, on February 2, 1945, as she was heading home on furlough, she was a passenger on a C-47 transport flight from Florence to Rome when extreme weather caused the plane to crash into a mountain near Montieri, Italy.¹³ Many service members on the flight, like Phillips, were close to ending their tour of duty overseas. Of the twenty-six passengers and crew aboard, only three survived.¹⁴ Initially buried in Italy, Phillips remains were returned to the United States in 1949 and reinterred in the American Legion Plot of Greenwood Cemetery.¹⁵ The remains of nine service members who perished along with Phillips are buried together in Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery.¹⁶ 

After her death, Phillips’ legacy continued to make a positive impact on the lives of her community. In 1946, American Legion Post #227, the first American Legion Post in Orlando exclusively for women veterans, was named in her honor.¹⁷ That same year, a scholarship was created at Phillips’ alma mater, by a former classmate, Dr. Hilda Jane Walters, at Florida State College for Women, for students majoring in science or physical education.¹⁸ A newspaper article about the scholarship notes that of 400 Florida State College alumnae to serve in WWII, Phillips was the only one to lose her life.¹⁹

Marion Clark Phillips was just one of over 350,000 courageous women to join in the Allied war effort. These women served as nurses, clerks, pilots, gunnery instructors, and more. Such opportunities were first opened to women in 1942 when Congress created the Women’s Army Corps—a key step towards gender equality in the armed forces. After the war, in 1948, Congress passed the Women's Armed Services Integration Act, which allowed women to serve as regular members of the military.²⁰ 

1. “Applications for Headstones for U.S. Military Veterans, 1941-1949,” database with images, FamilySearch, entry for Marion Clark Phillips, accessed March 29, 2024, https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-9944-YZC2; "United States Census, 1920,” database with images, FamilySearch, entry for Louie R Phillips and Theresa H Phillips, accessed March 29, 2024, https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MNBQ-18H  

2. “United States Census, 1920,” database with images, FamilySearch, entry for Louie R Phillips and Theresa H Phillips, accessed March 29, 2024, https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MNBQ-18H

3. “Lt. Marion Philips Memorial Service,” Orlando Sentinel, May 13, 1945, 8.

4. “Winner,” Orlando Evening Star.

5. “Winner,” Orlando Evening Star.

6. “Local Girl Honored,” Orlando Morning Sentinel, March 26, 1931, 3.; “Flastacowo 1932,” Florida State College, 1932, 275, Special Collections and Archives, Florida State University Libraries, accessed April 1, 2024, https://diginole.lib.fsu.edu/islandora/object/fsu:59999#page/158/mode/2up   

7. “Army Nurse Dies in the Line of Duty,” Pensacola News Journal, February 25, 1945, 7.

8. “Lt. Marion Philips Memorial Service,” Orlando Sentinel, May 13, 1945, 8. 

9. “Service,” Orlando Sentinel.

10. “Service,” Orlando Sentinel.

11. “Duty,” Pensacola News Journal.

12. “Marion Clark Phillips: Second Lieutenant From Florida, World War II Casualty,” accessed April 1, 2024, https://www.honorstates.org/index.php?id=447075

13. “ASN Wikibase Occurrence # 338744,” Aviation Safety Network, accessed April 1, 2024, https://aviation-safety.net/asndb/338744; “Missing Air Crew Reports (MACRs), compiled 1942 – 1947,” database with images, Fold3, entry for report 8911, accessed April 1, 2024, https://www.fold3.com/image/29430038/us-missing-air-crew-reports-macrs-wwii-1942-1947-page-13557-us-missing-air-crew-reports-macrs-wwii-1  

14. “Occurrence # 338744,” Aviation Safety Network.

15. “Miss Marion Phillips,” Orlando Evening Star, March 3, 1949, 4.; “Applications for Headstones,” FamilySearch.

16. “Charles H Apple III,” Veterans Legacy Memorial, National Cemetery Administration, accessed April 1, 2024, https://www.vlm.cem.va.gov/CHARLESHAPPLEIII/7D05586 

17. “The Marion Clark Phillips Post,” The Orlando Evening Star, September 25, 1946, 1. 

18. “Dr. Walters Gives Memorial Award,” Cumberland Evening Times, February 4, 1946, 7.; “Junior Volleyball Team of 1931,” Special Collections and Archives, Florida State University Libraries, accessed April 1, 2024, http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/671159 

19. “Dr. Walters Gives Memorial Award,” Cumberland Evening Times, February 4, 1946, 7.

20. “Women in the Military During World War II,” U.S. National Park Service, accessed March 29, 2023, https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/women-in-the-military-during-world-war-ii.htm