My Experiences as a Nurse
As a nurse I treated the wounded in clinics, but just a week after Pearl Harbor occured, myself and other nurses were sent to Bataan. By January 1942 we had four hospitals set up, amid bombing raids, and over the course of 4 months we had treated more than 6,000 brave soldiers. We got very little sleep because we were always working but we all pushed through the sleep deprivation.
The deterioration of the U.S. position caused us nurses to move to Corregidor and set up a hospital inside a tunnel. After the surrender on April 9th we were captured and returned to Manila to the prison camp on the Santo Tomas University campus. Over 60 nurses were captured for three years, and during our imprisonment we continued to work as nurses. We later moved to a camp in Los Banos, and luckily we all survived. None of us were physically mistreated or tortured other than maybe a slap to the face when we failed to bow to a Japanese guard.
The nurses of Bataan, also called the Angels of Bataan, were the first American women ever to be prisoners of war. During our first two years we were fed vegtables, soup and dried fish, but the last year we were reduced to a cup of rice twice a day and anything else we could find, like dogs, cats and rats. After the war we were sent to Hawaii for two weeks, then to San Francisco for physicals and debriefing. It was March 1945 before we returned to our homes but we were all extremely grateful to be alive and back with our friends and family.
The deterioration of the U.S. position caused us nurses to move to Corregidor and set up a hospital inside a tunnel. After the surrender on April 9th we were captured and returned to Manila to the prison camp on the Santo Tomas University campus. Over 60 nurses were captured for three years, and during our imprisonment we continued to work as nurses. We later moved to a camp in Los Banos, and luckily we all survived. None of us were physically mistreated or tortured other than maybe a slap to the face when we failed to bow to a Japanese guard.
The nurses of Bataan, also called the Angels of Bataan, were the first American women ever to be prisoners of war. During our first two years we were fed vegtables, soup and dried fish, but the last year we were reduced to a cup of rice twice a day and anything else we could find, like dogs, cats and rats. After the war we were sent to Hawaii for two weeks, then to San Francisco for physicals and debriefing. It was March 1945 before we returned to our homes but we were all extremely grateful to be alive and back with our friends and family.
"...You were just so glad to be here and eating good food. There was no adjustment at all."