Ward Four, Chu Lai

Sharon Ann Lane was born on 7 July 1943 in Zanesville, Ohio, the daughter of John and Mary Lane, whom everyone called Kay. When she was two the family moved to North Industry, near Canton, and it was there that she grew up. She graduated from Canton South High School in June 1961.^1,2

That September she entered the Aultman Hospital School of Nursing in Canton, and she qualified as a nurse in 1965. She worked at Aultman Hospital until May 1967 and then took classes at a business college in Canton.¹

Joining up

By 1968 the United States had more than half a million troops in South Vietnam, and the Army needed nurses. On 18 April 1968 Lane joined the Army Nurse Corps Reserve. On 5 May she began her officer training at Brooke Army Medical Center, Fort Sam Houston, in San Antonio, Texas. She finished on 14 June, was commissioned a second lieutenant, and three days later reported to Fitzsimons General Hospital near Denver, Colorado. While she was there she was promoted to first lieutenant.^1,3

Early in 1969 she volunteered for service overseas, in Korea or Vietnam. The Army sent her to Vietnam. On 24 April 1969 she reported to Travis Air Force Base in California for the flight out.¹

The 312th Evacuation Hospital

On 29 April 1969 she reported to the 312th Evacuation Hospital at Chu Lai, a large American base on the coast of central South Vietnam. The hospital was part of the 67th Medical Group of the 44th Medical Brigade. It received wounded and sick soldiers by helicopter, treated them and sent on those who needed longer care.¹

Lane worked as a general duty staff nurse, first in the intensive care unit and then on the Vietnamese ward. That ward treated Vietnamese civilians, including many children, and prisoners of war, as well as South Vietnamese soldiers. It was housed in two Quonset huts, and it was known as Ward 4.^1,2

About eleven thousand American servicewomen served in Vietnam. Eight died there, all of them nurses.

Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund

The nurses’ war

Most of the American women who served in Vietnam were nurses, in the Army, Navy and Air Force Nurse Corps. Many were in their early twenties and only a year or two out of nursing school. They worked in evacuation and field hospitals across South Vietnam and aboard hospital ships offshore, often on twelve-hour shifts, six days a week.

The war they saw was shaped by the helicopter. Wounded soldiers could be picked up from the battlefield and flown straight to a hospital, often within an hour. That saved many lives that would have been lost in earlier wars, but it also meant that nurses faced a constant stream of terrible injuries: gunshot and fragment wounds, burns, amputations. Many of their patients were very young.

At a hospital like the 312th, nurses also cared for Vietnamese civilians caught up in the fighting, many of them children, and for prisoners of war. Working on the Vietnamese ward meant working across a language barrier, with patients who had often lost their homes and families. It was the ward where Sharon Lane was on duty when the rockets came.¹

The attack on 8 June

Like many American bases in Vietnam, Chu Lai was within range of enemy rockets fired from the surrounding countryside. On 8 June 1969 the base came under rocket attack. One 122mm rocket struck Ward 4.^1,2

Lane was on duty there, and had been hurrying to her patients to try to protect them. She was hit by fragments of the rocket and killed. A Vietnamese child on the ward was killed with her. She was twenty-five, and had been in Vietnam for less than six weeks.^1,2

Of the eight American servicewomen who died in Vietnam, all of them nurses, Sharon Lane was the only one killed as a direct result of enemy fire.^2,4

Home to Canton

Her body was brought home to Ohio. On 14 June 1969 she was buried with full military honours at Sunset Hills Burial Park in Canton, not far from the hospital where she had trained.¹

She was awarded the Bronze Star Medal with “V” device for valour and the Purple Heart. The Republic of Vietnam awarded her the Gallantry Cross with Palm and admitted her as a Knight of its National Order. In 1969 the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution named her its Outstanding Army Nurse of the Year, and in 1970 presented its Dr. Anita Newcomb McGee Award in her memory.¹

A statue at Aultman

In 1973 a life-size bronze statue of her was dedicated in the courtyard of the Aultman Hospital School of Nursing in Canton; it now stands at the entrance of the building. Over the years that followed, a chapter of the Vietnam Veterans of America in Canton, a volunteer centre at Fort Hood in Texas and a medical library at Fort Carson in Colorado were all named after her.¹

In 2002 the Sharon Ann Lane Foundation built a health clinic in her name in Tam Hiep, near Chu Lai, in Vietnam, to care for the families of the region where she died. She was inducted into the Ohio Military Hall of Fame in 2003, and in 2019 the U.S. Army Medical Department Museum at Fort Sam Houston, where her military career had begun, opened a new exhibit about her.¹

Her name is on panel 23W, line 112, of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington. Nearby, at the Vietnam Women’s Memorial, eight yellowwood trees stand for the eight servicewomen who did not come home. One of them is hers.²

Timeline

• 7 July 1943 Born in Zanesville, Ohio.
• June 1961 Graduates from Canton South High School.
• 1965 Qualifies as a nurse at Aultman Hospital School of Nursing.
• 18 April 1968 Joins the Army Nurse Corps Reserve.
• 14 June 1968 Commissioned a second lieutenant at Fort Sam Houston.
• 17 June 1968 Reports to Fitzsimons General Hospital, Denver.
• 29 April 1969 Reports to the 312th Evacuation Hospital, Chu Lai.
• 8 June 1969 Killed by a rocket that strikes Ward 4.
• 14 June 1969 Buried at Sunset Hills Burial Park, Canton.
• 1973 Bronze statue dedicated at Aultman Hospital.
• 1993 Vietnam Women’s Memorial dedicated in Washington.
• 2002 Sharon Ann Lane clinic opens near Chu Lai.