At the outset of World War II, US Army and US Navy nurses were stationed at Sternberg General Hospital in Manila, and other military hospitals around Manila. During the Battle of the Philippines (1941–1942), 88 US Army nurses escaped, in the last week of December 1941, to Corregidor and Bataan.[6]
Two army nurses, Lt. Floramund A. Fellmeth and Lt. Florence MacDonald, accompanied severely wounded patients from Sternberg aboard the improvised hospital ship Mactan that departed Manila shortly after midnight of the New Year of 1942 for Australia.[7]
The navy nurses, under the command of Lt. Laura M. Cobb, stayed behind in Manila during the initial invasion to support the patients there. One of them, Ann A. Bernatitus, escaped from Manila to Bataan just before Manila fell.[8][9] The remaining 11 navy nurses were captured upon the fall of Manila and interned by the Japanese at Santo Tomas.[10][11]
In late December 1941, many of the nurses were assigned to a pair of battlefield hospitals on Bataan named Hospital #1 and Hospital #2.[14][15] These hospitals included the first open-air wards in US history since the Civil War.[16] Tropical diseases, including malaria and dysentery, were widespread among both hospital patients and staff.[17][18]
Nurse in Bataan Hospital Ward
Just prior to the fall of Bataan on 9 April 1942, the nurses serving there were ordered to the island fortress of Corregidor by General Wainwright (commander of the forces in the Philippines after MacArthur was ordered to Australia).[19][20][21]
During the Battle of Corregidor, the nurses were stationed in the hospital and wards in the maze of tunnels connected to the Malinta Tunnel.[22][23]
Malinta Tunnel hospital ward
A few escape
On 29 April, a small group of army nurses were evacuated, with other passengers, aboard a navy PBY Catalina.[24][25] However, they were stranded on Mindanao and became prisoners. They were transferred to Manila and interned at the University of Santo Tomas. On 3 May, the sole navy nurse, Ann Bernatitus, a few more army nurses, and a small group of civilians were evacuated aboard the submarine Spearfish.[26][27]
Fall of Corregidor
When Corregidor fell to Japanese forces under the command of General Masaharu Homma on 6 May, the remaining nurses were captured and on 2 July transferred to the Santo Tomas Internment Camp.[28][29]
At Santo Tomas
Army nurses in Santo Tomas, 1943. Left to right: Bertha Dworsky, Sallie Durrett, Earlene Black, Jean Kennedy, Louise Anchieks, and Millei Dalton.
The campus of the University of Santo Tomas was converted to the Santo Tomas Internment Camp by the Japanese during their occupation of the Philippines.[30][31][32] The camp is described in detail in The War by Ken Burns. In addition to its civilian population, Santo Tomas became the initial internment camp for both the army and navy nurses, with the army nurses remaining there until their liberation.[33][34]
Capt. Maude C. Davison, 57 years old and with 20 years of service experience, took command of the nurses, maintained a regular schedule of nursing duty, and insisted that all nurses wear their khaki blouses and skirts while on duty.[35][36] She worked with Josephine Nesbit.[37]
At Los Baños
In May 1943, the navy nurses, still under the command of Lt. Cobb, were transferred to a new internment camp at Los Baños, where they established a new infirmary and continued working as a nursing unit.[38][39] At Los Baños they came to be known as "the sacred eleven".[40][41]
On the home front
While the capture of the nurses was widely publicized in the US, little specific information was known of their fate until they were liberated.
US government poster
Lt. Juanita Redmond, one of the few nurses to escape, published a memoir of her experiences on Bataan in 1943 that concluded with a dramatic reminder that her colleagues were still prisoners.[42] The nurses' story was dramatized in several wartime movies,[43] including:
When So Proudly We Hail was shown in the theaters, a recruitment booth staffed with Red Cross volunteers was set up in the lobby.[44]
Final year of internment
In January 1944, control of the Santo Tomas Internment Camp changed from Japanese civil authorities to the Imperial Japanese Army, with whom it remained until the camp was liberated.[45][46] Access to outside food sources was curtailed, the diet of the internees was reduced to 960 calories per person per day by November 1944, and further reduced to 700 calories per person per day by January 1945.[47]
A Department of Veterans Affairs study released in April, 2002 found that the nurses lost, on average, 30% of their body weight during internment, and subsequently experienced a degree of service-connected disability "virtually the same as the male ex-POW's of the Pacific Theater."[48] Maude C. Davison's body weight dropped from 156to 80lbs (71to 36kg).[49]
Emboldened by the success of the Raid at Cabanatuan, General Douglas MacArthur ordered Major General Vernon D. Mudge to make an aggressive raid[50][51] on Santo Tomas in the Battle of Manila. The internees at Santo Tomas, including the nurses, were liberated on 3 February 1945, by a "flying column" of the 1st Cavalry.[52][53]
Army nurses climb into trucks leaving Santo Tomas, 12 February 1945
Army nurses leaving Santo Tomas
Navy nurses rescued from Los Baños, 23 February 1945
Navy nurses rescued from Los Baños
The navy nurses were subsequently liberated in the Raid at Los Baños.
Upon returning to the US, the US Army awarded their nurses, among other decorations, the Bronze Star for valor and a Presidential Unit Citation for extraordinary heroism in action.[54] The navy nurses were likewise awarded Bronze Stars upon their return.[55]
Army nurses awarded Bronze Stars by Gen. Denit on Leyte Island.
Nurses leaving for the US after receiving Bronze Stars, 20 February 1945
Lt. Rosemary Hogan gets new bars from Maj. Juanita Redmond.
Maj. Maude Davison and Lt. Eunice Young at the Presidio
On 9 April 1980, a bronze plaque was dedicated at the Mount Samat shrine by men who survived Bataan and Corregidor.[56] It reads:
To the Angels
In honor of the valiant American military women who gave so much of themselves in the early days of World War II. They provided care and comfort to the gallant defenders of Bataan and Corregidor. They lived on a starvation diet, shared the bombing, strafing, sniping, sickness and disease while working endless hours of heartbreaking duty. These nurses always had a smile, a tender touch and a kind word for their patients. They truly earned the name
Maj. Maude C. Davison, credited by many for keeping the army nurses alive by her insistence on the nurses maintaining their identity as nurses throughout their internment, was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Medal on 20 August 2001.[59][60][61] A similar effort has not yet been undertaken for Chief Nurse Laura M. Cobb.[62]
The first large group of American women in combat.[64]
The largest group of American women taken captive and imprisoned by an enemy.[64]
During World War II, the captured nurses were portrayed to motivate industrial production.[65]
During World War II, the captured nurses were portrayed to motivate recruitment of additional military nurses.[66] By the end of the war, 59,283 army nurses volunteered to serve, more than half volunteered for and served in combat zones, and sixteen were killed by enemy action.[67]
By the 1980s, the "Angels of Bataan and Corregidor" were characterized as: "The role model of Army Nursing."[68]
According to research by Dr. Elizabeth Norman, the nurses first referred to themselves as the "Battling Belles of Bataan" in 1942; the phrase "Angels of Bataan" appeared later, in 1945. Norman, Elizabeth (2013). We Band of Angels, pp. 53, 296 note 8.
Monahan, Evelyn M. & Neidel-Greenlee, Rosemary (2004). And If I Perish: Frontline U.S. Army Nurses in World War II, p. 19 (First Anchor Books Ed.) ISBN1-4000-3129-X
Condon-Rall, Mary Ellen; Cowdrey, Albert E. (1998). The Technical Services—The Medical Department: Medical Service In The War Against Japan. United States Army In World War II. Washington, DC: Center Of Military History, United States Army. p.26. LCCN97022644.
W. Skelton, American Ex Prisoners of War, pp. 26–28 (Independent Study Course Released April 2002)(Sponsored by Department of Veterans Affairs Employee Education System)Archived 2008-12-17 at the Wayback Machine
50th Anniversary Commemorative Album of the Flying Column 1945-1995: The Liberation of Santo Tomas Internment Camp February 3, 1945, by Rose Contey-Aiello (1995)(ISBN0964515008, ISBN978-0-9645150-0-0)
Both Cobb and Davison were recommended for such awards immediately after the war, but at the time they were denied in favor of the Bronze Star. Norman, Elizabeth (2013). We Band of Angels, p. 239.
See, for example, the US government poster showing captured nurses behind barbed wire, guarded by a Japanese soldier, labelled "Nurses from Corregidor", and the slogan "Work to Set em Free".
(In April 1983, some of the surviving nurses were received by President Ronald Reagan in the Oval Office and presented with plaques acknowledging their "courage above and beyond the call of duty" and their status as "the role model of Army Nursing". Monahan, Evelyn M. & Neidel-Greenlee, Rosemary (2003). All This Hell, pp. x, 180. The nurses were further acknowledged by President Reagan in his July 2, 1983, "Radio Address to the Nation on the Observance of Independence Day".
We Band of Angels: The Untold Story of American Nurses Trapped on Bataan by the Japanese by Elizabeth M. Norman (1999) Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster Inc. ISBN9780671787189
Monahan, Evelyn M.; Neidel-Greenlee, Rosemary (2003). All This Hell: U.S. Nurses Imprisoned by the Japanese. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN978-0-8131-9061-7.
No Time for Fear: Voices of American Military Nurses in World War II by Diane Burke Fessler, (August 1996), Michigan State University Press, ISBN978-0-87013-440-1
"The Angels of Bataan" by E. Norman and S. Eifried, Image: The Journal of Nursing Scholarship. (1993 Summer). 25(2):121–6. Erratum in: Image: The Journal of Nursing Scholarship (1993 Fall). 25(3):171. PMID8340120
Captured: The Japanese Internment of American Civilians in the Philippines, 1941-1945 (review) by Lynn Z. Bloom, Biography - Volume 23, Number 3, Summer 2000, pp. 549–552 doi:10.1353/bio.2000.0019
"A Tribute to Our Nurses"(PDF). The Quan. 58 (2). American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor: 1, 6–7, 9–11, 13–15. September 2003. Archived from the original(PDF) on March 3, 2016.
Condon-Rall, Mary Ellen; Cowdrey, Albert E. (1998). The Technical Services—The Medical Department: Medical Service In The War Against Japan. United States Army In World War II. Washington, DC: Center Of Military History, United States Army. pp.23–43. LCCN97022644.
