Janice Feagin Britton of Spanish Fort, Alabama, died Feb. 20 at age 92 after a lifetime of service and adventure. Britton served in the U.S. Army Air Corps’ 801st Medical Air Evacuation Squadron from 1945 to 1948 and then in the U.S. Air Force from 1948 to 1952, achieving the rank of captain. At the end of World War II, she was stationed in the Pacific, where she witnessed the aftermath of Hiroshima’s destruction. Britton saw the start of the Korean War in 1950 and was among the first group of flight nurses to bring wounded soldiers back from the front lines.
She earned a master’s degree in nursing administration at Boston University and studied at Columbia University in New York City. Britton developed a two-year associate degree nursing program at Pensacola Junior College, the first in the state of Florida, and a two-year nursing program at Kellogg Community College in Battle Creek, Michigan. In 1966 she was commissioned by the Board of World Missions of the Presbyterian Church to serve as a medical missionary in Brazil from 1967 to 1970.
A few years after the death of her husband, Francis, she volunteered at age 78 for the U.S. Peace Corps, serving in Zambia from 1998 to 2000. In recent years she had been an active member of the Gulf Coast Chapter of the Korean War Veterans Association and American Legion Post 199. She is survived by two nieces, several great-nieces and great-nephews, and many cousins.