PROFILE/BY MARIA BLACKBURN

The Angels of Bataan Amid the horror of war in the Pacifi c, a group of POW nurses bravely carried on

> Even as bombs began falling on Corregidor,” and awarded Manila in December 1941, the Bronze Stars for their women who served as part of the U.S. service. Yet for decades their Army Navy and Nurse Corps in the story went largely untold. Philippines continued caring for their “Th ey were the largest group sick and dying patients. of women POWs in the history of In the years that followed, these [the United States]. But there was so World War II nurses endured the most much going on—the events at Pearl trying of conditions. At times they had Harbor, the war in Europe—that their story has been swallowed up,” said no hospital buildings and no hospital performance of the Army nurses,” Elizabeth Norman, author of We Band beds, only vine-stuff ed mattresses laid Bumgarner wrote in his 2004 memoir, of Angels: Th e Untold Story of American out on jungle fl oors. Th ere were bombs Parade of the Dead. “In retrospect Nurses Trapped on Bataan by the and air raids and gunfi re. Th ey suff ered I believe that they were the greatest Japanese (Pocket Books, 1999), in a from malaria, beriberi, dengue fever, morale boost in that unhappy little New Hampshire Sunday News malnutrition, starvation and a host of area of jungle called Bataan. I was interview in 1999. other conditions that sapped their continually amazed that anyone living And yet the infl uence the women energy and strength. And even aft er and working in such primitive condi- had on their colleagues and patients they were captured by the Japanese and tions could remain as calm, pleasant, was nothing less than extraordinary, forced to live in internment camps, effi cient and impeccably neat as those according to U.S. Army surgeon John R. these nurses continued taking care of remarkable nurses.” Bumgarner, who served in Bataan with the thousands of sick and injured. Perhaps the greatest irony of their them. “One of the most remarkable Upon their liberation in February story is that many of these nurses were things coming out of our experiences 1945, the 78 nurses returned home, initially drawn to the Philippines by the in Bataan was the presence and heralded as the “Angels of Bataan and promise of living and working in an exotic island paradise. Surrounded by palm groves and white gardenias, with weekends spent sunning at the beach club and dancing under the stars, the Americans stationed in the Philippines had a great life. All that changed when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and began their attack on the Philippines. Th e Army

Freed after three years of imprisonment as POWs, a group of U.S. Army nurses climb into trucks on Feb. 12, 1945, as they leave Manila to head home to the United States. They sport new uniforms, given to them to replace their worn-out clothing.

www.dixonva lve.co m fa ll/w i nte r 2013 4 BOSS 5 Army nurses in Santo Tomas Internment Camp in 1943. From left to right: Bertha Dworsky, Sallie P. Durrett, Earlene Black, Jean Kennedy, Louise Anchieks and Millei Dalton.

The angels of Bataan and Corregidor arrive at Hickam Field in Hawaii on February 20, 1945. blood transfusions, shock, death … Worked all night, hopped over banisters and Navy nurses had never trained for bombed on December 8, U.S. Army and slid under the hospital during raids. combat, and yet they were now in the nurse Ruth Marie Straub volunteered to It was remarkable to see the medical middle of a war zone. help care for the casualties brought to staff at work.” The nurses jumped into action, Stotsenberg Hospital. She wrote in her The nurses were evacuated from caring for the wounded amid chaos. diary, “The hospital was bedlam— Manila and moved to field hospital sites After Clark Field in the Philippines was amputations, dressings, intravenouses, on the jungle peninsula of Bataan and VEP Series Hydraulic Quick Disconnect Couplings For anywhere there's a need for a tough, reliable hydraulic connection! Applications: ‡ +LJK,PSXOVH+\GUDXOLF$SSOLFDWLRQV ‡ 2LO)LHOG(TXLSPHQW ‡ &RQVWUXFWLRQ(TXLSPHQW ‡ ([FDYDWRU$WWDFKPHQWV ‡ &UDQH6\VWHPV

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VEP_Boss_2013.indd 1 7/22/2013 12:22:40 PM 6 BOSS 4 fa ll/w i nte r 2013 and sent on a horrifi c 63-mile to lack of food and poor sanitation. march up the east coast of “We were scared and tired, but Bataan—the Bataan Death we kept working,” Mildred Dalton March that left some 10,000 Manning, a U.S. Army nurse and dead at the hands of the prisoner of war, told the Atlanta Journal Japanese soldiers. Constitution in 2001. “We were under While a handful of nurses terrifi c strain, but we just did our were evacuated aft er the job even when we were weak from surrender, most were held as not eating.” On February 20, 1945, these U.S. Army prisoners of war at two Liberated on February 3, 1945, the nurses were awarded Bronze Stars, along internment centers: Santo Tomas and women returned home and were with promotions, by Brig. Gen. Guy B. Denit, Los Baños. Th e camps held civilians— honored with medals and presidential chief surgeon. thousands of Americans, British and citations, and lauded by the press as people from other countries—who had “one of the beautiful legends of the Malinta Tunnel on Corregidor Island, been living and working in the Philip- Pacifi c War.” caring for hundreds of patients each day pines when Pearl Harbor was bombed. Manning, the last known surviving in diffi cult conditions over the next Th e nurses were held captive for “Angel of Bataan,” died in March 2013 several months. Th e situation worsened almost three years—years in which they at 98. She was more practical than when the U.S. troops on Bataan wore their uniforms and stayed busy. As romantic when she considered how she surrendered to the Japanese on Japan’s prospects in the war worsened, survived amid such adversity. April 9, 1942. Some 72,000 soldiers conditions in the camp deteriorated, “I had a job to do,” she told the (both U.S. and Filipino) were captured with many people becoming sick owing Trenton Times. “I was a nurse.”

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