Rita G. Palmer James was born at the Exeter Hospital on February 23, 1918, the daughter of Charles D. and Bernice (Glidden) Palmer of Hampton, was raised in Hampton, and graduated from Hampton Academy in 1936. She attended and was graduated from the Deaconess Hospital Nurses Training, Boston, in 1939. After working as a nurse in Boston, she joined the US Army Nurses Corp. and in 1940 and was assigned to Clark Field Hospital in the Philippines. Rita was one of the "Angels of Bataan and Corregidor” – the US Army and Navy Nurse Corps women who served in the Battle of the Philippines in 1941-42. When Bataan and Corregidor fell, 11 Navy nurses, 66 army nurses, and 1 nurse-anesthetist were captured and imprisoned in and around Manila. They continued to serve as nurses in various POW camps until they were finally liberated in February 1945. She died on February 14, 2002 at the age of 83 in Hopkins, Minnesota but his current burial place is unknown.