© Mary T. Sarnecky
Anna Mae V. McCabe Hays was born on
16 February 1920 in Buffalo, New York to parents who both
were Salvation Army officers. Religion, music, and a
spirit of service were guiding lights in the McCabe
household. The nature of the elder McCabes' calling
required that the family of five move several times and
settle in a number of locations in western New York state
and eastern Pennsylvania over the years. After graduating
from high school, Hays attended the Allentown General
Hospital School of Nursing and graduated with a diploma
in nursing in 1941.
When approached by a representative of the 20th
General Hospital, the University of Pennsylvania unit, a
sense of duty and patriotic fervor inspired Hays to join
the Army Nurse Corps. She came on active duty early in
1942 and traveled by train with her unit to a staging
area, Camp Claiborne, Louisiana. There the unit's nurses
worked mornings in the station hospital, drilled and
studied military subjects in the afternoons, and
socialized in the evenings. In January 1943, Hays' unit
proceeded to Ledo, Assam, India, 1,000 miles above
Calcutta at the beginning of the famous Ledo Road which
cut through the jungles into Burma. She remained there
for 2 l/2 years and subsequently returned to the states
on leave. While she was home on leave, World War II
ended. After the war, Hays served as an operating room
nurse and later as a head nurse at Tilton General
Hospital at Fort Dix, New Jersey; as obstetrics
supervisor at Valley Forge General Hospital in
Phoenixville, Pennsylvania; and as head nurse of the
outpatient clinic at Fort Myer, Virginia. In the summer
of 1950, Hays traveled with the 4th Field Hospital to
Inchon, Korea, landing shortly after MacArthur's invasion
at Inchon. During both of her combat tours in World War
II and the Korean War, Hays spent part of her off duty
time assisting chaplains by playing a field pump organ
for weddings and church services, often on the front
lines. After receiving enough points to leave Korea
during her seven month combat tour, Hays transferred to
Tokyo Army Hospital and spent a year there as a
management nurse in the comptroller's office. For her
next assignment, she returned to Pennsylvania to be
obstetric-pediatric supervisor at the U.S. Army Hospital,
Indiantown Gap. Her subsequent assignment as a student in
the Nursing Service Administration Course at MFSS, Fort
Sam Houston Texas was followed by three years' duty at
Walter Reed General Hospital. During that time, Hays
served as a private duty nurse for President Dwight D.
Eisenhower for about 30 days when he suffered an ileitis
attack in 1956. Hays married in 1956 but became a widow
in 1962. In 1957, she matriculated at Teachers' College,
Columbia University and in 1958 was awarded a bachelor's
degree in nursing education. Her next assignment was as
Head Nurse of the Nuclear Medicine and Radioisotope
Clinic at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR).
A return trip to Korea in 1960 as chief nurse of the 11th
Evacuation Hospital in Pusan, another tour at Walter Reed
General Hospital, and a short assignment in the Office of
the Surgeon General as Colonel Harper's Special Assistant
preceded her selection as Assistant Chief of the Army
Nurse Corps from 1963 to 1966. In 1968, Hays earned her
master of science in nursing degree from The Catholic
University of America in Washington, D.C. From 1967 until
1971 she served as the thirteenth Chief of the Army Nurse
Corps.
On 11 June 1970, Colonel Anna Mae Hays was promoted to
the grade of general and became the first woman in the
United States Armed Forces to wear the insignia of a
brigadier general. The Army Chief of Staff, General
William C. Westmoreland, and the Secretary of the Army,
Stanley C. Resor, officiated at the ceremony. The Army
Surgeon General, Hal B. Jennings, pinned the stars on
Hays' uniform. The former Corps Chiefs of the Corps,
Colonels Ruby F. Bryant, Inez Haynes, and Mildred I.
Clark, attended the ceremony. Mrs. Mamie Eisenhower, a
number of the members of Congress, DACOWITS officials, an
assemblage of civilian and military nursing leaders, and
Hays' brother and sister also were present. The new
general's remarks following the promotion acknowledged
her indebtedness to a host of benefactors. She expressed
her view that the stars "reflect[ed] the dedicated,
selfless, and often heroic efforts of Army nurses
throughout the world since 1901 in time of peace and
war." She quoted Albert Einstein's words, "I
must remind myself a hundred times each day that what I
am I owe to the lives of other men, . . . and that I must
exert myself in order that I may give in the same manner
that I receive," as her philosophy of service to her
country.
A global wave of publicity in national and
international broadcast and print media, variously
positive, negative, and/or humorous, heralded the Army's
action and Hays' achievement. A political cartoonist
sketched two enlisted men sitting in a bar. One quipped
to the other, "Well, we've got everything,
Sarge--the atomic bomb, guided missiles, the M-16 rifle,
and now two lady generals."1 Hays
received over a thousand pieces of correspondence
acknowledging her promotion, some of which were quite
amusing. For instance, a missive from Germany "was
addressed to Mrs. Brigade General Anna Mae Hays, Chief of
the Feminine Army Sanitary Corps."2 On
one occasion, General William Westmoreland's wife, Kitsy,
remarked to Hays, "I wish you would get married
again." When Hays inquired why, Westmoreland
responded, "I want some man to learn what it's like
to be married to a general."3
On 31 August 1971, the Army Chief of Staff General
William C. Westmoreland, officiated at Hays' retirement
from the Army, awarded her with the Distinguished Service
Medal, and hosted a reception in her honor at the
Pentagon. She took up residence in her home in Arlington,
Virginia. Additionally for many years, Hays spent four to
five months annually in Marbella, Spain. In retirement,
she maintained some involvement in Army Nurse Corps
affairs but added other activities and interests in
professional circles, hometown issues, her condominium
association, and an array of retiree groups.4
Brigadier General Anna Mae McCabe Hays led the Army Nurse
Corps through one of its most stressful eras. She did so
with grace and wisdom.
Following a brief sudden illness, General Hays died on 7 January 2018 at Knollwood Army Retirement Community in Washington, DC. She was buried in Grandview Cemetery in her home town, Allentown, Pennsylvania.
Photo of General Hays
- Immediately after Hays' promotion,
Colonel Elizabeth Hoisington, the director of the
Women's Army Corps, was promoted to brigadier
general as well.
- Anna Mae Hays, Interview by Amelia
J. Carson, transcript, 106, Project 83-10, 1983,
Senior Officers Oral History Program, U.S. Army
Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks,
Pennsylvania; "General Hays Honored by
DAR," 16 April 1971, OTSG News Release No.
69 JD; "BG Dunlap Sworn In; BG Hays
Retires," News SGO/R&D 1 (1 September
1971): 1,7; Joy A. Day, "BG Hays
Retires," 31 August 1971, News From the US
Army Medical Department, No. 233; Anna Mae McCabe
Hays, "Biographical Summary," 17
December 1994; all in ANC Archives, U.S. Army
Center of Military History, Washington, D.C.
- William C. Westmoreland, A Soldier
Reports (New York: Doubleday & Company,
1976), 262-263.
- Anna Mae Hays, Interview by Amelia
J. Carson, transcript, 106, Project 83-10, 1983,
Senior Officers Oral History Program, U.S. Army
Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks,
Pennsylvania; "General Hays Honored by
DAR," 16 April 1971, OTSG News Release No.
69 JD; "BG Dunlap Sworn In; BG Hays
Retires," News SGO/R&D 1 (1 September
1971): 1,7; Joy A. Day, "BG Hays
Retires," 31 August 1971, News From the US
Army Medical Department, No. 233; Anna Mae McCabe
Hays, "Biographical Summary," 17
December 1994; all in ANC Archives, U.S. Army
Center of Military History, Washington, D.C.;
Anna Mae Hays, interview by Constance J. Moore,
28 January 1997, Tape 4, Side 2 and Tape 5, Side
1.