Capt. Lillian Kinkela Keil, a longtime member of Sacred Heart Parish in Covina, died June 30 of cancer at age 88. A flight nurse with the Army Air Corps (now the Air Force), Keil flew on 425 combat evacuation missions in World War II and the Korean War.

She helped load wounded soldiers onto airplanes, and took part in 11 major campaigns, including the Battle of the Bulge in Normandy during World War II and the Inchon invasion in Korea. By rough calculations, Keil tended to about 10,000 soldiers while they were being flown to military hospitals.

To a wounded soldier, Keil represented home, said her daughter, Adrianne Whitmore. Despite hazardous conditions — sometimes she had to sleep on a keg of gunpowder or among medical supplies the planes were delivering to battlefields — Keil would try to keep up with her hair and makeup. She reminded men of their sister or sweetheart, said Whitmore.

"She represented hope for them," Whitmore told The Tidings, newspaper of the Los Angeles Archdiocese. "She said she always tried to have a look on her face that everything was going to be OK."

Keil was awarded 19 medals and ribbons, including four Air Medals, two Presidential Unit Citations, a World War II Victory Medal, four battle stars in World War II and a Korean Service Medal with seven battle stars.

She was fearless in her faith, said her daughter.

"The plane engines would falter. Sometimes they would lose an engine. It became commonplace, but she always had confidence the pilots would get them there," said Whitmore. "Whatever would happen would happen, but in the meantime she would do what she needed to do. She was always like that."

"Sometimes God calls people to do very difficult things," said Father Brian Cavanagh, Sacred Heart Church pastor, during Keil’s funeral Mass. "All who live in freedom today owe a great debt to her."

In 1954, the movie "Flight Nurse," starring Joan Leslie and Forrest Tucker, was based in part on Keil’s experiences. Last year, she was the honorary grand marshal of the National World War II Memorial dedication parade in Washington.

Keil’s father left the family when she was a young girl, and she and her mother lived in a convent of the Sisters of St. Joseph in Eureka that her mother cleaned. Her two brothers lived elsewhere. Following high school she joined the nursing program at St. Mary’s Hospital in San Francisco.

She went to work as a flight attendant for United Airlines, which then required stewardesses to be registered nurses. When a passenger asked her why she was working for a commercial airline when she could help in the war effort, she decided to enlist.

Years later, while doing publicity for the Air Force in 1954, she met Walter Keil, a former naval intelligence officer who was working in advertising and public relations. They were married six weeks later, and her father (with whom she had by then reunited) walked her down the aisle.

Keil was honorably discharged from the military in 1955 after becoming pregnant with the first of two daughters. The family moved to Covina in 1958, and she continued serving as a nurse in emergency rooms and hospitals.

When Keil appeared on the television show "This is Your Life" in 1961, she generated a record amount of mail from veterans who remembered her caring for them.

"She was very sincere in her faith — simple, humble and very deeply Catholic," said parishioner and friend Aileen McGrade.

The last event Keil drove to was the confirmation Mass for one of her grandsons at St. Paul the Apostle Church in Chino Hills in April, said Whitmore. "It meant so much to her to be there," she said.