Nobu Madanbashi was born on November 21st, 1918 in Okinawa Prefecture, Shuri City, the capital of the Ryukyu Kingdom. A gentle spirit from a young age, she was influenced by the headmaster of her elementary school, and a desire to be of aid to others naturally bloomed within her. At age 13, she went on to Okinawa Primary Women's High School, famous for producing many of Okinawa’s educators. However, Japan was engaged in multiple conflicts with surrounding countries during this period, and before she knew it, Nobu had decided to walk the path of the nurse so that she could contribute to her country as a woman. After graduating, she joined the Okinawa branch of the Japanese Red Cross Society’s Relief Nurse Training School and began her life as a Red Cross nurse. Aiming to become a nurse during a period of military strife was a decision that required a great deal of courage, and it would have been difficult without the deep understanding and cooperation of her family.

After graduating from the Relief Nurse Training School, she worked for a time as a school nurse at her alma mater of Okinawa Primary Women's High School and at Okinawa Women’s Normal School. When the Second Sino-Japanese war broke out in 1937, she was recruited two years later as part of a relief squad at Kokura Military Hospital in northern Kyushu, beginning her days of practical training as an army nurse. Confronted by an endless stream of wounded soldiers pouring in day and night from Manchuria, northern China, and southern China, she swore to work even harder than the soldiers and served with pride as a Red Cross army nurse, tirelessly contributing her nursing skills and ultimately serving as manager of the ward for the seriously afflicted. During her approximately four years and eight months of service, she carried out her mission as an army nurse with stern discipline while facing down the realities of war, eventually returning to her homeland of Okinawa. Nobu was now 25 years old. In spring of 1943, she once again returned to her alma mater, Okinawa Primary Women's High School, and worked as a nurse, but Japan and America unfurled across the expanses of the Pacific. two years before her arrival in 1941, and the drumbeat of war grew ever closer to Okinawa. Nobu would go on to teach relief techniques directly to the ones who would become known as the “Himeyuri students."

On October 10, 1944, the American army suddenly assaulted Naha with fifth air raids. These were the Okinawan Air Raids. They burned down the Okinawa military hospital facility in Kainan, Naha City, and it was transferred to the Haebaru Elementary School building. In addition, approximately 30 tunnel shelters were dug out in the hills behind the schoolhouse (Kugani Forest), and the hospital functions were transferred to inside the tunnel shelters once the American army's naval bombardment started in late March, 1945. Around the same time, “Himeyuri Student” squads were formed in Okinawa Primary Women's High School and Okinawa Women’s Normal School, and on March 24th, these women were recruited by the Haebaru military hospital as army nursing assistants. As if to chase after her pupils, Nobu herself applied and proceeded to the battlefield as the head nurse of Okinawa Military Hospital’s Secondary Surgical Unit.

On April 1st, the American army finally began its incursion into the main island of Okinawa. As the battle on the ground grew ever fiercer by the day, the number of sick and wounded grew too numerous to keep inside the tunnel shelters, and Nobu and her students attended to rows of wounded extending to the entrances of the tunnels, risking their lives while tending to over 3,000 sick and wounded soldiers. The tunnel shelters were hospitals in name only and lacked adequate lighting and sterilizer, and the nurses had to contend with maggots, lice, and a suffocating stench as patients in critical condition were stacked on rows of two-tier sickbeds fashioned from sliding door panels. It truly was hell on earth. Nobu tirelessly darted back and forth among the seven tunnel shelters amidst these horrible conditions, and before long the wounded and sick soldiers would ask how long it would take for her to come tend to them, waiting anxiously as if for their mother. No one reported seeing her use the rest areas inside the tunnel shelters, either. Stories such as these were a testament to her vitality and commitment and inspired courage in everyone around her. The sight of the head nurse constantly on the front lines of the Battle of Okinawa tending warmly to wounded soldiers always provided encouragement to the female students, the nurses working under her, and the doctors, and the wounded soldiers themselves were in awe of how well her noble figure embodied the spirit of the Red Cross.

In late May, the military headquarters issued an order to retreat to Mabuni in the southern part of the main island, and the Okinawa Military Hospital’s Secondary Surgical Unit moved from the Haebaru shelters to the natural shelters in Itosu village (present-day Itoman City). The evacuation to the southern part of the main island was done under cover of night in order to evade the “hurricane of steel” created by the barrage of artillery, but even then, the evacuees were prepared for death as they retreated with the wounded soldiers in tow. On June 18th, when General Buckner, who was observing the battle situation in the southern part of the island, was killed by Japanese marksmen, the severity of attacks by American troops increased, and flamethrower fire along with artillery rained down upon the shelters at random. But on that same day, the army surgeon, deciding to give up on the battle, ordered that the military hospital be closed.

He instructed the soldiers to rendezvous with the main squad in Mabuni and the nurses and students to return to their parents, and he also ordered the Privates First Class to relay the disbandment order to the nearby shelters, but they ran back when they were shot at by American troops surrounding the shelters. When Nobu saw them hesitate, she told the army surgeon that she and Kanagi would volunteer to deliver the message. She and her nursing assistant crawled along the ground amidst the flares and machine gun fire and succeeded in their mission in brilliant fashion. When Nobu told Saeko Kanagi to carry out her mission if she died, Kanagi promised to deliver the message if that happened. In the situation they were facing, Kanagi wanted to save as many lives as possible. Looking back, she said she could feel Nobu's noble Red Cross spirit and her magnanimous virtue through her devoted actions as head nurse. On June 19th, the American troops began attacking the Secondary Surgical Unit shelter from outside, and gas canisters were thrown inside. Nobu and the others wet gauze using water from the river running through the tunnel and covered their mouths with it, and by responding calmly, they all managed to make it out alive. On June 21st, having carried out her relief duties in the shelter to the end, Nobu at last surrendered and was captured by the American troops as she was heading to Mabuni.

Everything in Okinawa was burned to the ground by the tragic war, and while there were many sick and injured people, there was a lack of doctors, nurses, and just about everything else. Nobu and the others, having been taken prisoner by the American troops, headed to the medical facility in the internment camp and assisted with nursing duties. This was the natural thing for a nurse to do. The year after the war ended (1946), Nobu was ordered to work at the orphanage in Kozo, and she raised and educated the war orphans there. She looked after the health of the orphans, who had no relatives, and treated them kindly as if she were their mother. In April that year, she was assigned to work at Okinawa Central Hospital, which had been built by the Okinawa Civilian Administration, and the rebuilding of Okinawa’s nursing profession began at last. The first thing Nobu resumed work on was nursing education in order to address the lack of doctors and nurses. By garnering the cooperation and understanding of the American troops and doctors, she was able to establish nursing schools in Okinawa Central Hospital as well as hospitals in Ginoza and Nago. Nursing schools at the time featured tough three-year programs, yet students who were of little means but talented enrolled, and both the students and instructors were passionate about their pursuits.

There was a lack of textbooks and teaching materials after the war, but Nobu and the other instructors taught diligently while recalling what they had learned during their own nursing studies. Additionally, there were real human bones whose origins were unknown along with portions of nursing books available, and everyone worked hard to transcribe them. Students who were taught in this period became the driving force behind the development of Okinawa’s nursing profession as future leaders in the field. One can feel the considerable energy, dedication, and strength it must have taken to make something out of nothing during the post-war period. After the war, there was an extreme dearth of skilled working professionals in all fields, including nursing. To address this, nursing certification examinations were held for students who were forced to halt their studies during the war and graduates of the Japanese Red Cross Society’s Relief Nurse Training School, allowing them to regain their status and qualifications. In 1948, nurse training that utilized the hospital on the American base started being provided. This direct training in high-level American nursing techniques provided by nursing instructors dispatched by the military government efficiently raised Okinawa’s nursing standards and increased the effectiveness of hospitals. The following year, when Nobu was appointed director (headmaster) of the nursing school at Okinawa Central Hospital, she grew busy instructing students in addition to performing her hospital duties as overseer of the nurses.

In 1950, Nobu had a fateful encounter. “Nursing knows no borders. I will raise Okinawa’s nursing to international standards,” declared Juanita Watterworth of the American Public Health Institute when she arrived in Okinawa on her mission. Juanita stayed in Okinawa for ten years until 1960, embarking on a bold, revolutionary mission to establish a modern nursing system with Nobu, head nurse at Ryukyu Government Central Hospital. The pair’s first project was improving hospital nursing practices. Afterwards, they quickly worked to enhance nursing education, establish a nursing institute, and more, with Juanita offering suggestions and counsel as she focused on the future of Okinawa’s nursing system. With the training of future nursing instructors in mind, she visited a number of high schools throughout Okinawa with Nobu and worked tirelessly to recruit talented students. In addition, assuming that the nursing school would move to University of the Ryukyus in the future, they convinced the university to create a system that allows college credits to be earned at nursing schools established by the Public Health Bureau. This revolutionary system continued for approximately 20 years from April 1951 until March of 1971 and allowed college-level nursing education to be provided, which is believed to have dramatically increased the standards of Okinawa’s nursing education.

Juanita and Nobu also had students engage in training and study in America to arm them with advanced nursing knowledge and global awareness. Moreover, the two traveled all over the main island as well as to remote islands in order to combat the spread of infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria, and filaria, and they worked to eliminate these diseases and improve local medical information. The American army provided specialized equipment, officers’ quarters, and other assistance to Nobu and Juanita when they ventured to remote islands without fear of contracting infectious diseases, and it is believed that they continued to provide support for these activities. In 1951, with Juanita’s encouragement, Nobu founded and became the first chairman of the Okinawa Archipelago Nursing Association, which eventually developed into the Okinawa Nursing Association. At the Ryukyu Government Health Bureau, where she served as chief nursing clerk of the Medical Policy Division for 14 years starting in 1951, Nobu worked steadily to establish administrative guidance for nursing, restore the nursing licenses lost during the war, provide training both in Okinawa and abroad, and pursue other initiatives to establish the foundation of the nursing profession in Okinawa.

In May of the same year, she was chosen as the recipient of the “Florence Nightingale Medal,” considered the world’s highest honor among nurses. She received this award in celebration of approximately 46 years of achievements in nursing, including service during the war. Upon accepting the award, Nobu spoke from the heart, saying, “I accept this award on behalf of all the Himeyuri students and nurses who lost their lives during the war, and for all the nurses throughout Okinawa.” The honor of receiving the “Florence Nightingale Medal” served as a symbol of pride and encouragement not only for Nobu, but also those who worked under her and those in the nursing profession.

Believing that one should not let oneself become another’s conversation topic, Nobu was reluctant to speak about herself, including her experience during the war, yet she had a dignified and elegant presence that complemented her gentle and reserved manner. For this, she was beloved among colleagues and doctors as “mother nurse.” She was keenly attuned to the flow of the times and mastered the path of the nurse with a deep passion and unwavering spirit, leading a life that made her the veritable incarnation of the spirit of self-sacrifice and philanthropic service that the Red Cross extols. For this, she is a figure comparable to that of Florence Nightingale, that “Angel of the Crimea” who left us with the words “Angels do not exist to garnish their surroundings with beautiful flowers, but to aid those who suffer.” Stepping back from the front lines at the age of 67, Nobu continued engaging in volunteer activities, educating youth at nursing associations, and more, leading a peaceful existence in her later years until her life, so full of twists and turns, came to an end at the age of 86.