The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture

HOGAN, ROSEMARY (1912–1964).

A World War II nurse and one of the "Angels of Bataan and Corregidor," Col. Rosemary Hogan began life on March 13, 1912, the daughter of Francis M. and Mary A. Hogan. Born in rural Ahpeatone, Oklahoma, Rosemary Hogan attended school in neighboring Chattanooga, and she was class valedictorian and earned a nursing scholarship. After receiving training in Texas, she joined the U.S. Army Nurse Corps at Fort Sill in 1936.

Hogan arrived in the Philippines shortly before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. As nurse in charge, she led American and Filipino nurses to Bataan Peninsula to establish a thousand-bed hospital in Limay. In January 1942 they moved the hospital inland to an area called Little Baguio. While in the operating room during a bombing raid in May 1942, Hogan sustained shrapnel wounds, for which she received the Purple Heart. Hogan and other wounded were transported to Corregidor to recuperate, but the Japanese captured them after the evacuees' plane was forced to land. Held in Manila's Santo Tomas Internment Camp, she remained a prisoner of war until American liberation forces arrived in 1945.

After the war ended, Hogan served in the U.S. Air Force Nurse Corps and as chief nurse at Boling Air Force Hospital, the Technical Training Air Force Base in Mississippi, and Langley Air Force Base's Tactical Command. She married USAF Maj. Arnold Luciano and retired to San Antonio. One of the first women to become a full colonel, Hogan died on June 24, 1964, and is buried in the nurses' section of Arlington National Cemetery. In October 1978 Hogan Hall at Sheppard Air Force Base, Wichita Falls, Texas, was dedicated to her memory, and in November 1997 she was posthumously inducted into the Oklahoma Aviation and Space Hall of Fame.

Meghan Iman Attalla