“Women don’t tell war stories like men do,” her daughter said.
Finch described her heroic feats - supplying fuel to Filipino rebels, sabotaging supplies, smuggling food to prisoners, and enduring torture after she was captured - with the utmost modesty. Almost nobody knew she was a Coast Guard veteran, or that in 1947 she had won the highest honor afforded to civilians.
She died at 101 years old, and was laid to rest with full military honors last week. She’d died in December, but didn’t want her funeral to ruin Christmas.
