Ingalls-built U.S. Navy Aegis guided missile destroyer, Lenah Sutcliffe Higbee (DDG 123), is the second ship named for Lenah Sutcliffe Higbee (1874-1941), the first woman awarded the U.S. Navy Cross.
Higbee was born in New Brunswick, Canada, and completed initial nurse’s training at the New York Post-Graduate Hospital. In 1908 Higbee was left a widow by the death of her husband, retired U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Col. John H. Higbee.
The same year as her loss, U.S. Congress passed legislation May 13, 1908, allowing for the establishment of a Navy Nurse Corps, the equivalent of the Army Nurse Corps (est. 1901). The Navy required members of its Nurse Corps to be unmarried and between the age of 22 and 44.
As a 34-year-old widow, Higbee met these criteria and joined nineteen other women to make up this first group of female Navy Nurses. They were later known as the “Sacred Twenty,” being the first 20 women to officially serve in the U.S. Navy.
Completing post-graduate education at Fordham Hospital in New York helped her career take off. She was promoted to Chief Nurse at Norfolk Naval Hospital in 1909. In 1911, she was named Superintendent of the Navy Nurse Corps, the second woman to earn that title, succeeding the first, Esther Voorhees Hasson.
As superintendent, Higbee and other nurses travelled to theatres of war around the world, from Guam to the Philippines, administering health care and training local nurses. World War I saw more than 1,476 U.S. Navy nurses, all women, serve in military hospitals stateside and overseas. More than 400 nurses lost their lives in the line of duty. The risk was even immense at home, where the Spanish Flu Pandemic brought death to many.
In 1918, Higbee was recognized for her leadership through these difficult struggles by becoming the first living female recipient of the Navy Cross, the service’s second highest decoration. Three other women awarded at the same time had died of the Spanish Flu and were awarded posthumously.
Higbee retired from the Navy in 1922 and later died in 1941 at Winter Park, Florida. She is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. In addition to DDG 123, she is also the namesake of Higbee (DD 806), a Gearing-class destroyer commissioned in 1945 as the first U.S. Navy warship to bear the name of one of its female service members.
Read about Lenah Sutcliffe Higbee (DDG 123) ship construction milestones:
Sources:
Naval History and Heritage Command
https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/biographies-list/bios-h/higbee-lenah-s.html
Navy Book of Distinguished Service:
https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Navy_Book_of_Distinguished_Service.html?id=qsoLAAAAYAAJ
Global Security: Gearing Class Destroyers
https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ship/dd-710.htm
National Park Service: “Women in World War I”
https://www.nps.gov/articles/women-in-world-war-i.htm
Military History Fandom: “Women in World War I”
https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/Women_in_World_War_I#:~:text=More%20than%201%2C476%20U.S.%20Navy%20nurses%20served%20in,the%20line%20of%20duty%20during%20World%20War%20I.
Geni: “Women in Military Conflicts – Doctors, Nurses and others”
https://www.geni.com/projects/Women-in-Military-Conflicts-Doctors-Nurses-and-others/12792
U.S. Naval Institute
Lenah Sutcliffe Higbee: Navy Nurse Corps Pioneer | Naval History Magazine - April 2017 Volume 31, Number 2 (usni.org)
Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenah_Higbee
Resting Places:
https://books.google.com/books?id=FOHgDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA339#v=onepage&q&f=false