Second Lt. Irma “Pete” Cameron Dryden—the only living nurse who provided care for the military unit—recently celebrated her 100th birthday, 11 Alive reported.

In 1943 she relocated to Alabama and enlisted in the military where she worked as a nurse and ended up marrying Charles Dryden who served as one of the airmen.

The Tuskegee Army Nurses Project—a platform designed to keep the legacies of former nurses who worked at the Tuskegee Army Air Field alive—detailed the obstacles the group of women faced.

The Department of the Army was dragging its feet on allowing women of any race into the Army Nurse Corps (ANC)–that is until the United States entered World War II and there was a shortage of nurses.

The segregated Army had limited black ANC nurses to around 500 more or less during World War II.