70 years later, Snohomish County woman killed in WWII is remembered

EVERETT — Margaret Billings was the only one.

At Everett’s Lowell Park, her name stands out on a granite war memorial. It is the only woman’s name on the monument, which honors nine U.S. military members from the Lowell community killed in service to their country.

A member of the Army Nurse Corps, 2nd Lt. Margaret May Billings was the only woman from Snohomish County killed on duty in World War II.

Rhododendrons are in bloom at the foot of the memorial, erected in 1992 by the Lowell Civic Association. On a peaceful spring day, it’s hard to imagine the hellish scene aboard the USS Comfort the night of April 28, 1945 — 70 years ago Tuesday.

The Battle of Okinawa was raging when a Japanese kamikaze plane smashed into the hospital ship’s starboard side, even though lights were shining on the Comfort’s big red crosses.

Earlier that day, the Comfort had left Okinawa with a load of wounded Americans. The ship was bound for a hospital on Guam when the suicide pilot’s plane, carrying a bomb, tore into three of its operating rooms. At least 28 people died in attack, including Billings and five other nurses. Forty-eight were wounded in the attack on the Comfort, a Navy ship with Army medical personnel.

Everett Daily Herald readers learned on May 5, 1945, that the 35-year-old nurse had been killed. “Insofar as records here reveal, Lt. Billings was Snohomish County’s first woman casualty of the war,” the article said.

A 1928 graduate of Everett High School, she was a Lowell native, the daughter of Lees and Luella Billings. She was trained at Providence Hospital’s School of Nursing. Before joining the Army Nurse Corps, she had worked at Firland Sanatorium in Seattle and for the Veterans Administration.

Beth Buckley, a relative of Billings who also grew up in Lowell, has a remembrance more personal than the war memorial or the nurse’s grave marker at Everett’s Evergreen Cemetery.

“I have the flag that was over her casket,” said Buckley, 66, who now lives in Snohomish. “I grew up with our grandpa hanging it out on our front porch in Lowell every holiday.”

Buckley, also a nurse, said Margaret Billings “was my grandfather’s cousin.” Herb Buckley, her grandfather, was a Lowell Paper Mill worker.

At the Snohomish Senior Center, where Beth Buckley serves on the board of directors, she unfurled the huge 48-star flag Thursday, and recalled how she came to have the heirloom.

The Army nurse’s mother — Buckley’s “Aunt Lu” — gave the flag to Buckley’s grandfather. “He gave it to my dad, and my dad gave it to me,” Buckley said. She said Margaret Billings grew up in a house still standing at Second Avenue and Ravenna Street in Lowell.

Billings was younger than Buckley’s grandfather, but older than her father Mert Buckley.

“I knew her sister Eloise quite well growing up,” Buckley said. Billings’ sister — her married name was Eloise Mackenstadt — lived in Bremerton when the nurse was killed.

Another Washington nurse, Florence Grewer of Longview, also died in the Comfort attack. In an article in 2004, The Daily News of Longview featured Grewer’s story.

Daily News writer Brenda Blevins McCorkle interviewed Pete Leonardich, of Salinas, California. Leonardich, who died in 2007, was on duty when the USS Comfort was hit, an Army medic in charge of the ship’s medical supplies. He said in 2004 that the vessel had just picked up a load of wounded Marines. “The water was calm, then we got a buzz job. … He (the kamikaze) hit the red cross, where nine operating tables were at. It left one big hole.”

Leonardich recalled that he and a friend sometimes went to watch surgeries — but not that night. “It wasn’t our time,” he said in 2004.

On Friday, his widow Agnes Leonardich said by phone from California that her late husband had shared his story in “Too Close for Comfort,” a book about the hospital ship by Dale P. Harper. “Pete met the author a couple of times,” she said. Agnes Leonardich also said her husband is pictured with other U.S. servicemen in a photo of the Japanese surrender aboard the USS Missouri.

After the kamikaze attack, the damaged Comfort made it to Guam under escort. It was repaired and returned to service before the end of the war, and decommissioned by the Navy in 1946. Today, the Navy has the USNS Comfort, a seagoing treatment facility launched in 1976.

Harper’s book and many other sources suggest that the Comfort, which should have been protected as a mercy ship, was attacked in retaliation for the April 1, 1945, sinking of the Awa Maru, a Japanese ocean liner.

The Awa Maru was being used as a Japanese passenger ship and relief vessel. It, too, was to have been allowed safe passage. More than 2,000 people died in the sinking by the USS Queenfish submarine. There are many theories about what else the Awa Maru might have been carrying — gold, gems, war materiel, even fossils of Peking Man, the specimens found in China in the 1920s that disappeared in the 1940s.

Hundreds of people survived the USS Comfort attack. With each passing year, fewer World War II veterans are left to tell what they lived through.

Buckley lost another relative in the war. Robert H. Buckley, her father’s cousin, served in Europe and is also listed on the Lowell memorial. “He is buried in Holland,” she said.

She cherishes the flag that honored her family’s war heroine.

“Everyone was very proud of her,” she said.

Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460; jmuhlstein@heraldnet.com.

Talk to us

> Give us your news tips.

> Send us a letter to the editor.

> More Herald contact information.

More in Local News

Traffic idles while waiting for the lights to change along 33rd Avenue West on Tuesday, April 2, 2024 in Lynnwood, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Lynnwood seeks solutions to Costco traffic boondoggle

Let’s take a look at the troublesome intersection of 33rd Avenue W and 30th Place W, as Lynnwood weighs options for better traffic flow.

A memorial with small gifts surrounded a utility pole with a photograph of Ariel Garcia at the corner of Alpine Drive and Vesper Drive ion Wednesday, April 10, 2024 in Everett, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Death of Everett boy, 4, spurs questions over lack of Amber Alert

Local police and court authorities were reluctant to address some key questions, when asked by a Daily Herald reporter this week.

The new Amazon fulfillment center under construction along 172nd Street NE in Arlington, just south of Arlington Municipal Airport. (Chuck Taylor / The Herald) 20210708
Frito-Lay leases massive building at Marysville business park

The company will move next door to Tesla and occupy a 300,0000-square-foot building at the Marysville business park.

A closed road at the Heather Lake Trail parking lot along the Mountain Loop Highway in Snohomish County, Washington on Wednesday, July 20, 2023. (Annie Barker / The Herald)
Mountain Loop Highway partially reopens Friday

Closed since December, part of the route to some of the region’s best hikes remains closed due to construction.

Emma Dilemma, a makeup artist and bikini barista for the last year and a half, serves a drink to a customer while dressed as Lily Munster Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2022, at XO Espresso on 41st Street in Everett, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
After long legal battle, Everett rewrites bikini barista dress code

Employees now have to follow the same lewd conduct laws as everyone else, after a judge ruled the old dress code unconstitutional.

The oldest known meteor shower, Lyrid, will be falling across the skies in mid- to late April 2024. (Photo courtesy of Pixabay)
Clouds to dampen Lyrid meteor shower views in Western Washington

Forecasters expect a storm will obstruct peak viewing Sunday. Locals’ best chance at viewing could be on the coast. Or east.

AquaSox's Travis Kuhn and Emerald's Ryan Jensen an hour after the game between the two teams on Sunday continue standing in salute to the National Anthem at Funko Field on Sunday, Aug. 25, 2019 in Everett, Wash. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
New AquaSox stadium downtown could cost up to $120M

That’s $40 million more than an earlier estimate. Alternatively, remodeling Funko Field could cost nearly $70 million.

Downtown Everett, looking east-southeast. (Chuck Taylor / The Herald) 20191022
5 key takeaways from hearing on Everett property tax increase

Next week, City Council members will narrow down the levy rates they may put to voters on the August ballot.

Everett police officers on the scene of a single-vehicle collision on Evergreen Way and Olivia Park Road Wednesday, July 5, 2023 in Everett, Washington. (Photo provided by Everett Police Department)
Everett man gets 3 years for driving high on fentanyl, killing passenger

In July, Hunter Gidney crashed into a traffic pole on Evergreen Way. A passenger, Drew Hallam, died at the scene.

FILE - Then-Rep. Dave Reichert, R-Wash., speaks on Nov. 6, 2018, at a Republican party election night gathering in Issaquah, Wash. Reichert filed campaign paperwork with the state Public Disclosure Commission on Friday, June 30, 2023, to run as a Republican candidate. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)
6 storylines to watch with Washington GOP convention this weekend

Purist or pragmatist? That may be the biggest question as Republicans decide who to endorse in the upcoming elections.

Keyshawn Whitehorse moves with the bull Tijuana Two-Step to stay on during PBR Everett at Angel of the Winds Arena on Wednesday, April 17, 2024 in Everett, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
PBR bull riders kick up dirt in Everett Stampede headliner

Angel of the Winds Arena played host to the first night of the PBR’s two-day competition in Everett, part of a new weeklong event.

Simreet Dhaliwal speaks after winning during the 2024 Snohomish County Emerging Leaders Awards Presentation on Wednesday, April 17, 2024, in Everett, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
Simreet Dhaliwal wins The Herald’s 2024 Emerging Leaders Award

Dhaliwal, an economic development and tourism specialist, was one of 12 finalists for the award celebrating young leaders in Snohomish County.

Support local journalism

If you value local news, make a gift now to support the trusted journalism you get in The Daily Herald. Donations processed in this system are not tax deductible.