You may not have heard of WWII veteran Florence Finch, but her actions during WWII has inspired the US Coast Guard to name a ship after her, which was recently launched. Florence was born in the Philippines to an American father and Filipino mother. She joined the US Army and was stationed in Manila. When the Japanese took over the Philippines, she managed to hide her American affiliations and smuggled fuel to resistance fighters as wells as food to POWs. She was caught, tortured, and imprisoned until the US took back the country. She received the Medal of Freedom for her efforts, and she became the first women to be awarded the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Ribbon from the coast Guard. Her survival of torture and starvation (she was only 80 pounds when she was freed) is an amazing story.
After receiving a number of military. She later joined the Coast Guard reserve in New York, married again (her first husband was killed in the war), and became a secretary at Cornell University. She did not talk much about her military experiences, so her family, friends, and neighbors was surprised when she was honored by the Coast Guard, which also named a building in Hawaii after her.
Her obituary in the New York Times (she died in 2017) and this article from the National Park Service have much more detail on her life.
