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When US Army and Navy nurses were first stationed in the Philippines early in the WW2, it seemed like a tropical paradise. The weather was beautiful, the duties were light, and there was plenty of free time to enjoy golf, fine dining, and dates and parties with the soldiers.
Everything changed on Dec 8, 1941, when word came about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. As the nurses talked nervously, Josephine Nesbit (1894/1993) a nurse who was serving her second tour with the Army Nurse Corps and was second-in-command for the nurses in the Philippines, spoke up. "Girls, you’ve got to sleep today," she declared. "You can’t weep and wail over this, because you have to work tonight."
And as she predicted, that evening, Japanese planes began bombing Manila. For the first time, the nurses saw brutal combat injuries flood into their wards. As it became obvious that Manila would fall, the nurses were evacuated to Corregidor and Bataan, where they set up two jungle hospitals. Diseases like malaria and dysentery became commonplace, but the nurses stayed at their posts, treating the sick and the injured as best they could.
Bataan fell in April of 1942, and it was obvious that Corregidor would not hold much longer. Knowing that there was not enough time to evacuate all of her nurses, Capt Maude C. Davison (1885/1956), the chief nurse of the Philippine department, joined Colonel Wibb Cooper (1886/1983), the ranking medical officer, in creating a list of twenty nurses who would receive priority for evacuation.
When the Allies surrendered the Philippines to the Japanese army, Davison led the remaining 66 nurses to the Santo Tomas Internment Camp in Manila, one of the notoriously harsh prison camps run by the Japanese military. There, they joined 11 Navy nurses who, under the command of Lt. Laura M. Cobb (1892/1981), had stayed in Manila while it fell to support the patients who could not be moved. In the camp, the nurses agreed that they would continue to provide medical care to their fellow prisoners.
By Jan 1945, with Japanese losses mounting, the situation in the camp was dire. The nurses had resorted to eating weeds, roots, flowers, and slugs; patients in their care regularly died of malnutrition.
Finally the women were liberated in Feb 1945, and though they were weak with hunger, they still headed to treat American soldiers. There were 77 American women who became POWs and there were 77 who walked out in 1945, this is unprecedented, particularly for women who had no formal survival training.
The women were celebrated upon their arrival home but never received a medal for their bravery. Davison, who had to take medical retirement in 1946, was recommended for the Distinguished Service Medal; however, the War Decorations Board refused to grant it, saying that Davison's heroism had not been an independent action, but was at the direction of the male medical officer. The nurses were also denied many of the benefits granted to men returning from the war, since they were not considered combat forces.
Anyway many continued working as Army and Navy nurses.
Some nurses after the liberation of Santo Tomas in 1945
After years of campaigning, only Davison was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Medal on Aug, 2001. None of the Angels of Bataan are believed to survive today.
From:
amightygirl
dailymail
mansell
and others sites.
