This Military Service Page was created/owned by
PO1 Jeff Frey (Ace)
to remember
Bernatitus, Ann Agnes, CAPT.
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Contact Info
Home Town Exeter, PA
Last Address Wilkes-Barre, PA
Date of Passing Mar 03, 2003
Location of Interment Saint Casimir Cemetery - Pittston, Pennsylvania
Official Badges
Unofficial Badges
Additional Information
Last Known Activity:
First American to be awarded the Legion of Merit. Capt Bernatitus donated her medal to the Simithsonian Institution in 1976.
RADM Randell Jabobs, Chief of Naval Personnel noted when he presented the award to then LTJG Bernatitus, "Your ecellent service in a time of stress and under such dangerous conditions in worthy of the distinction shown you in becoming the FIRST PERSON IN THE UNITED STATES NAVAL SERVICE TO BE SO DECORATED."
Among the last group to be evacuated from the Philippines just prior to the fall of Corregidor aboard the USS Spearfish(SS-90).
Capt Bernatitus was the only Navy Nurse to evade capture at Corregidor.
A monument in her honor is at the Exeter Borough Building in Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania was unveiled on Memorial Day in 2007.
Legion of Merit
Awarded for Actions During World War II
Service: Navy
Citation: The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Legion of Merit with Combat "V" to Lieutenant, Junior Grade Ann A. Bernatitus (NSN: 64916W), United States Navy, for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services to the Government of the United States as a member of Surgical Unit No. 5 during the Japanese attack on the Philippines, December 1941 through April 1942. Nurse Bernatitus maintained her position in the front lines of the Manila-Bataan area rendering efficient and devoted service during the prolonged siege. Miss Bernatitus was regularly attached to the NavalHospital, Canacao, Philippine Islands having reported for duty there on 20 July 1941. Shortly after hostilities commenced in December 1941 the Naval Hospital Staff and patients were moved to a new establishment in Manila. On 24 December 1941, when Manila was being evacuated Miss Bernatitus accompanied by two Navy Medical Officers proceeded to the ArmyHospital at Limay, Bataan. The remainder of the hospital staff stayed in Manila and were taken prisoners. On 25 January 1942, Miss Bernatitus was transferred to Army Field Hospital No. 1 at Little Baguio, Bataan and remained there on active duty until that hospital was destroyed by enemy bombing on 7 April. When Bataan fell Miss Bernatitus was transferred to Corregidor. During her stay in Bataan she worked directly under Lieutenant Commander C. M. Smith (MC), USN, who is now a prisoner of war. The conditions under which the nurses lived and worked lacked everything in the way of comfort. They were constantly exposed to enemy bombing attacks and experienced several as well as the endemic jungle diseases of that area. Miss Bernatitus suffered from both dysentery and beriberi during her tour of duty in Bataan. In spite of all difficulties Miss Bernatitus performed her duty in an exemplary manner with courage and good spirit. She was officially transferred from Corregidor three days before the surrender of that fortress. (Lieutenant, Junior Grade, Bernatitus is authorized to wear the Combat "V".)
On September 4, 1946, the U.S. Navy opened its newly constructed hospital on 118 acres of land adjacent to the fledgling Texas Medical Center in Houston, Texas. At that time, the hospital, completed at a cost of $12 million and consisting of 39 buildings and a patient capacity of 943 beds, was one of the largest and most modern hospitals in the South (Figure 1). Two years earlier, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had issued a memorandum expressing the intention that the Navy hospital in Houston, as well as other specified military hospitals, would be transferred to the Veterans Administration at the end of WWII. Of course, the Navy hospital was not completed until after the war, and the Navy was reluctant to complete construction only to immediately turn its hospital over to another agency. Consummation of this transfer required an executive order from President Harry Truman. The transfer took place at 10:30 A.M. on April 15, 1949. Thus, the Houston VA Hospital was born, although it had been a somewhat difficult birth.
