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Lt Wilma R. Vinsant's nickname was Dolly. She was born in San Benito, graduated from San Benito High School and went to Brownsville Junior College. Her future was cast when she went into training at John Senly Hospital in Galveston where she was certicated as a registered nurse.

Dolly first took to the air as a hostess with Braniff Airways and was in commercial flight more than a year.

She enlisted into the Army Nurce Corps on 1 September 1942 and qualified as an air evacuation nurse.

It was unimaginable that Wilma Vinsant ends up in the Army Nurse Corps. She is only 1 meter 50 tall and barely 45 kilos in weight. She is called Dolly (doll) from childhood. Her environment cannot imagine that she will complete the terribly demanding flight nurse training. Yet she does. Like her male colleagues, she jumps into the sea with a heavy pack to reach the shore without help. She marches, runs and trains. Much needed, because nurses must be stress-resistant. The chance of a premature landing in an inhospitable war zone is quite high. Flight nurses must be able to deal with patients who panic or make a fuss, for example when the aircraft is fired upon. The latter is not inconceivable, the transport aircraft are not allowed to carry the protective Red Cross sign, because they are also used for military purposes. And so the German troops cannot estimate whether they are dealing with a bomber or wounded transport.

She graduated from the Army Air Force School at Bowman Field, two days before her 26th birthday. She went where she fell in love with Major William L. Shea, an Air Force navigator, and got married.

This is the tragic story of her death:

Dolores Rike is disappointed. Her boyfriend, an American lieutenant, is throwing a party. You want to be there, put the war and all the misery away from you for a while. But yes, Dolores is scheduled for a flight to Germany where injured people have to be picked up. Wilma (Dolly) Vinsant, a friend, does not hesitate for a moment: 'Go on, I'll do that flight.' Wilma does not know that she is signing her own death warrant: And Dolores is not yet aware of the guilt she will carry with her for the rest of her life.

That Wilma Vinsant is allowed to take off at all for the fatal flight is already a miracle. Her flying quota is full. After a certain number of flights, nurses usually go home. The commander is therefore not very eager to give Wilma permission.

"Know that this is really your last flight," he adds. Actually, the trip to Germany is not much, maybe that's why she is allowed to fly. On the way there gasoline is loaded for the American troops, during the return trip about 40 kilometers north-west of Eisenach things go wrong, probably due to enemy fire the Douglas C-47A crashes around noon on 14 April 1945. The cause is never really clear.

The six crew members, including Wilma, are killed.She has just been married for three months to Walter L. Shea, then only 27. He builds an impressive career, fights in Korea and gets numerous promotions, eventually ending up in the Pentagon. Walter does not remarry.

Temporarily his Wilma is given a grave in Eisenach. At the end of June 1945, she is reburied in Margraten. There she rests to this day. Wilma receives several posthumous awards, including a Purple Heart. A hospital in her hometown of San Benito, Texas, is named after her: Dolly Vinsant Memorial Hospital. The hospital also awards an annual prize to its employees, the Dolly Vinsant Flight Nurse of the Year Award.

On 30 March 2000. Suddenly an old slender woman is standing in the visitor's building of the cemetery in Margraten. She asks Frenk Laheye, assistant administrator, where she can find Wilma's grave. Laheye thinks the question is special. Never before has anyone looked for Vinsant. She tells that Dolly was her colleague in the Army Nurse Corps and then cries heartbreakingly when she visits her grave. “Dolly Vinsant took my place and saved my life,” she later wrote in the family book.