Sharon Ann Lane
First Lieutenant

312TH EVAC HOSP, 67TH MED GRP, 44TH MED BDE

Army of The United States

07 July 1943 - 08 June 1969

Canton, OH
Panel 23W Line 112

Lt. Sharon Lane arrived in the Republic of Vietnam at 0800 hours on Saturday, 26 April 1969 to begin a 365-day tour of duty as an Army nurse.  Her initial assignment was the 312th Evacuation Hospital in Chu Lai, Quang Tin Province.  In addition to the 312th Evac, Chu Lai was also home to the Americal Division,  the 29th Infantry.  Lt. Lane was assigned to Ward 4B, which housed recovering Vietnamese (often VC or PAVN soldiers) where she worked a 12-hour rotation from 1900 hours to 0700 hours (7:00 PM – 7:00 AM).  At 0550 hours, Lt. Lane had just completed another round of the ward.  Her patients consisted primarily of Vietnamese women and children, and she was preparing her report for the in-coming day shift when at Soviet-made 122mm rocket, fired by a PAVN gun crew slammed into the walkway connecting Wards 4A and 4B, but it was Ward 4B that bore the brunt of the damage.  Lt. Lane lay unconscious and bleeding on the floor amid the wreckage and debris.  Although initial medical aid arrived within seconds of the rocket blast, Lt. Lane had already bled to death, from a shrapnel wound that lacerated her carotid artery.  Sharon Ann Lane, the only American servicewoman killed as a direct result of enemy fire, was 25 years old.  Lt. Lane returned to the United States, where she was interred at Sunset Hills Cemetery in Canton, Ohio, on 14 June 1969.  Among here decorations are the Purple Heart, Bronze Star, Vietnam Service, Vietnam Campaign, Vietnam Gallantry Cross, Republic of Vietnam Military Merit,  and National Defense medals.

Sharon Ann Lane was born in Zanesville, Ohio, the second of three children born to John and Kay Lane.  In 1950, the Lanes moved to Canton, Ohio.  Sharon Lane graduated from South Canton High School on 31 May, 1961, and swept up in the excitement of President Kennedy’s “New Frontier,” she enrolled in Canton’s Aultman Hospital School of Nursing, graduating in April 1965.  After working at Aultman Hospital for two years, Sharon decided to change and enrolled at Canton Business College, but this too proved to be less than she expected.  On April 18, 1968, Sharon decided to put her nursing skills to work  where she believed it was most needed, enlisting as an Army nurse.  She reported to Fort Sam Houston, Texas, where she was commissioned a Second Lieutenant.  She graduated on 14 June 1968, and reported to Fitzsimmons Army Hospital in Denver, Colorado, where she served until departing for Vietnam on 24 April 1969.  The recovery room where she worked at Fitzsimmons was renamed in her honor in 1970.  In 1973, a bronze statue of Lt. Sharon Lane was dedicated in front of the Aultman Hospital School of Nursing; inscribed around it base are the names of 110 Canton-area servicemen who gave their lives in Vietnam.  Founded in June 2001, the Sharon Ann Lane Foundation is a non-profit organization has built and maintains a medical clinic at the Tam Hiep commune in Chu Lai, the site of Lane’s wartime service.