80 years later: The mysterious death of Delaware's lone WWII servicewoman lost overseas

There is plenty of mystery surrounding the death of Delaware's lone servicewoman to die overseas in World War II.

2nd Lt. Rachel Sheridan was a passenger on a Douglas C-47 Skytrain in northern Africa when a fire caused it to crash into the Mediterranean Sea in 1943, killing seven of the nine aboard, including the 25-year-old Sheridan.

Major questions remain somewhat unsettled all these years later: Why was she on the plane? And how did she die?

One thing is certain: Nov. 24 is the 80th anniversary of the death of the woman who had graduated from nursing school at Delaware State Hospital near New Castle only two years prior.

Another fact: Even though there was no draft for American women during the war, she decided to leave the security of living stateside and forwent settling down and starting a family like many of her classmates, determined to serve her country in its time of need.

And even though she lost her life doing so, her impact lives on today in a family filled with members who were inspired by her to go into nursing.

80 years later: The man uncovering details about her life & death

It was about 20 years ago when Newark researcher Lowell Silverman was first drawn to Sheridan's story because she was the only fallen servicewoman in World War II who had served in the same unit as his grandfather Robert Silverman ― the 32nd Station Hospital, which was located in Algeria at the time of Sheridan's death.

Silverman, a 39-year-old University of Delaware graduate, was a high school student when he first came across a website by U.S. Army Technician 4th Grade Willard Otto Havemeier, who also served at 32nd Station Hospital, which delved deeply into the history of the unit, including Sheridan's untimely demise.

"A real Irish beauty with a great smile," Havemeier wrote about the woman he met at dances on the base.

Several years ago, Silverman jumped back into the world of local WWII history and launched his meticulously researched website Delaware's World War II Fallen, filled with detailed profiles of Delawareans killed in the war.

He pulls from public records, ancestry websites, oral histories, firsthand interviews of family members, newspaper archives, the Delaware Public Archives and more to re-create their lives.

One of the first profiles he began working on was for Sheridan, due to his own family history with her unit and his previous knowledge of her story, which will now be retold here.

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It took Silverman a while to track down Sheridan's living descendants to interview them and share all the information he had uncovered.

"That's one of the most rewarding or satisfying aspects of the project," he tells Delaware Online/The News Journal.

Sheridan's niece Rachel Sheridan McHugh, a 71-year-old nurse currently living near Hazelton, Pennsylvania, told Delaware Online/The News Journal that she was wowed by Silverman's out-of-the-blue message and the information that followed.

"I was like, 'Wow. How did he find out all of that information?'" she says. "It was just amazing because he knew things I didn't."

The curious, tragic final day of 2nd Lt. Rachel Sheridan

It was the morning of Nov. 24, 1943 when disaster struck for the young nurse and six U.S. Army men who perished in the crash.

It was also the day before Thanksgiving and amid the four-day Cairo Conference, which found President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Republic of China leader Chiang Kai-shek meeting in Cairo, Egypt, to discuss their plans to defeat Japan.

The plane took off from Houari Boumediene Airport, then known as Maison Blanche Airport, near Algiers, Algeria on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in northern Africa.

The reason why she was on the plane is one of the mysteries of that day since Silverman found no evidence that 32nd Station Hospital nurses ever served as flight nurses. There was also no indication that anyone aboard the C-47 was a patient.

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But circumstantial evidence collected by Silverman points to Sheridan being both fond of flying and possibly being involved in a relationship with a pilot.

His research found that she had flown at least twice in the span of maybe two weeks at a time when air travel was still a novelty. Also, "it was probably not difficult for a nurse to talk air crew into letting them hitch a ride when there was space available," Silverman wrote.

The News Journal's December 1943 report on Sheridan's death closed with her parents saying her final letter to them mentioned "she had a ride in an airplane a few days before."

When Silverman tracked down Sheridan's great nephew Leo MucHugh, he found another bit of evidence pointing to a joyride as the reason for Sheridan's flight since most members of the 32nd Station Hospital traveled by ground while on business.

Leo McHugh, 37, who lives in Benton, Pennsylvania, about 30 miles east of Wilkes-Barre, told Silverman his grandmother had told him Sheridan was in a relationship with a major in another unit, who was a pilot.

The cause of death remains unclear

Identical accounts of the surviving servicemen, 1st Lieutenant Walter H. Baker and Sgt. Kenneth B. Conlin, can be found in now-declassified U.S. Army records:

"At approximately 15 miles out at sea, 15 minutes from take-off at Algiers about 10:00 a.m., the right engine started burning at 2,500 feet altitude. Bail out order was given, but the aircraft lost altitude too rapidly to use parachutes. The plane pancaked and all personnel cleared the ship and when doing so made attempts to put on 'Mae Wests' [life vests].

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A French merchant marine officer saw the plane go down and ordered two fishing boats to go out and at about 11:00 a.m. the boats picked up [Sheridan], [Conlin] and myself.

To the best of my knowledge and belief, the remaining six (6) individuals drowned. The nurse, 2nd Lt. Rachel H. Sheridan, died the 24 November 43 en route to this hospital."

However, Sheridan’s personnel file ― reconstructed by government officials after many of the U.S. Army’s World War II-era files were destroyed in a 1973 fire at the National Personnel Records Center ― reported that she "drowned as the result of an airplane crash."

That led Silverman to wonder: "Did Sheridan suffer mortal injuries in the crash or die of hypothermia?"

Rachel Sheridan McHugh says her grandmother (2nd Lieutenant Sheridan's mother) told her that the uniform her daughter was wearing at the time of her death was eventually sent back home.

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"She said it was covered with blood, but my husband said it was probably rust from being shipped in a metal box, but who knows?" recalls Rachel Sheridan McHugh, who was named after her war hero aunt. "But [my grandmother] said it was awful. She said, 'I wouldn't even let my mother see it. I took it and burned it in a barrel.'

"Everyone in the family was devastated over her death and they were right up until the day they passed."

While taking another look at the evidence in Sheridan's case last year, Silverman located a digitized hospital admission card under Sheridan’s service number and it also stated that she drowned.

While conclusive evidence of the cause of death is most likely lost to time, Silverman tends to believe that she drowned.

Silverman, who also works as an emergency medical technician, knows firsthand that sometimes reports that state a person en route to a hospital or at a hospital could be suspect. Sometimes the patient was dead at the scene and resuscitation efforts failed on the way.

"In some cases, it's a formality," he says.

And while there is no data for late November water temperatures in the Mediterranean Sea from the 1940s, modern records collected by Silverman suggest that "water temperatures in that part of the sea would be in the upper 60s at that time of the year, which for most people would be survivable for at least two hours," he wrote.

Sheridan is honored with her name inscribed into the Memorial Wall at Veteran’s Memorial Park near New Castle, only three miles from where she graduated from nursing school on North DuPont Highway.

Sheridan's duty-driven path from New Castle to Algeria

Sheridan was born into a military family in McAdoo, Pennsylvania, located about 50 miles south of Scranton, with her father Thomas having served in the U.S. Marine Corps.

At first, she attended Pottsville Hospital School of Nursing before moving to complete nursing school at Delaware State Hospital, graduating in 1941.

She was then recruited by the Army Nurse Corps through the Delaware Chapter of the American Red Cross and began her service to the nation in February 1942.

After reported stints at Camp Upton on Long Island and Camp Forrest in Tennessee, she landed at Camp Kilmer in New Jersey at 32nd Station Hospital on Dec. 29, 1942

By January 13, she was aboard USS Ancon, which was transporting troops and cargo to port near Oran, Algeria. Silverman notes she was one of 55 nurses from the hospital sent on that voyage, treated soldiers in two local schools in Algeria that the medical units took over and used as hospital wards.

It was only about 10 months later when she boarded the C-47 on her ill-fated final flight.

Her life and service lives on today

Named for her aunt and growing up hearing stories about her service, it probably shouldn't be a surprise that Rachel Sheridan McHugh went into nursing.

These days, she takes care of veterans for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and plans to retire next year at the age of 72.

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In fact, her sister Jo Ann became a nurse and most of her cousins became nurses, as well.

It runs deep in the family. Second Lieutenant Sheridan's sister Mary was also a graduate of nursing school at Delaware State Hospital and joined the U.S. Army Nurse Corps. And she had a daughter named Rachel, who also went on to become a nurse.

But the legacy of her aunt, who died nine years before her birth, had a lot to do with her path to the profession.

"I was so proud of her," Rachel Sheridan McHugh says of her namesake. "She was so young."

When Silverman contacted Leo McHugh, Silverman learned of 2nd Lieutenant Sheridan's possible relationship with a pilot. But at the same time, McHugh did not know how interested she had been in flying.

McHugh had done his own research into his great aunt after high school, intrigued by both her decision to enter the U.S. Army Nurse Corps and her the circumstances surrounding her death. He learned more details than just the stories his grandfather would tell him growing up.

"She was already a role model. I always wanted to go into healthcare. And then [Silverman] told me all about her love of aviation," he tells Delaware Online/The News Journal.

Why? McHugh works as a critical care flight paramedic, flying on board helicopters and taking care of those in urgent need of help: "It really meant a lot to hear that."

Even eight decades after her death, the life, service and sacrifice of 2nd Lieutenant Rachel Sheridan is still resonating with both family and strangers alike.

Have a story idea? Contact Ryan Cormier of Delaware Online/The News Journal at rcormier@delawareonline.com or (302) 324-2863. Follow him on Facebook (@ryancormier) and X (@ryancormier).

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Eight decades later, remembering Delaware's lone lost WWII servicewoman