She had been there for a year when she volunteered for the Medical Air Evacuation Transport Squadron. She had been there for three months, in a combined unit with American air forces flight nurses, and some British and Australians. They flew on Douglas C-47 Skytrain cargo planes, heavy, dependable two-engine planes perfectly suited to short flights and heavy cargo. They carried up to twenty-four litter patients, and sometimes the walking wounded. The patients were tended to by a nurse and two medical corpsmen on each flight. A flight surgeon and senior nurse oversaw the squadrons from the ground. The planes flew into areas of heavy fighting and brought out as many wounded as they could, those who could be saved and would survive the journey. They had to do rapid triage when they picked up the wounded, and there were sometimes terrible decisions to make. But they saved many lives by removing the wounded by plane instead of ambulance, which was slow going and often over rough terrain. They lost far fewer patients transporting them by air. The planes faced all the perils of battle themselves, at risk of being shot down by the enemy. And with men and cargo on board, the army was not allowed to mark the planes with the red cross and were considered legitimate military targets. They were given fighter plane coverage when possible, which wasn’t always the case.

Prudence had been part of the Medical Air Evacuation Transport Squadron bringing the wounded back to the hospital at the airbase for over a year now, and she loved every minute of it. She was twenty-five years old. She was considered senior and very skilled among the air evacuation nurses because she was fully trained and very competent. Many of the others weren’t experienced and had minimum training. Many of them were in fact civilians in uniform, but without official rank. Pru was a proper nurse in the RAF.