|
|
|
|
We Band of Angels: The Untold Story of American Nurses Trapped on Bataan by the Japanese
|
MSRP: 0
Your Price: Click Buy It for low price
Shipping:
Manufacturer: San Val
Prices subject to change. Please verify price during checkout.
|
|
|
|
|
Additional We Band of Angels: The Untold Story of American Nurses Trapped on Bataan by the Japanese Information
|
|
"This is a gripping book. Elizabeth Norman presents a war story in which the main characters never kill one of the enemy, or even shoot at him, but are nevertheless heroes. . . . First on Bataan, then moved to Corregidor, they were under almost constant shell fire, were always hungry, close to starvation, had horrendous diseases to deal with despite a shortage or even a complete lack of proper medicines, getting little or no sleep, nothing in the way of recreation--yet they were a true band of angels, inspiring all the men whom they were there to help. In a squalid prison camp, they remained giants, despite their small size. . . . They were the bravest of the brave, who endured unspeakable pain and torture. Americans today should thank God we had such women." --Stephen E. Ambrose We Band of Angels is the story of women searching for adventure, caught up in the drama and danger of war.
On the same day the Japanese Imperial Navy launched its surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, it also struck American bases in the Far East, chief among them the Philippines. That raid led to the first major land battle for America in World War II and, in the end, to the largest defeat and surrender of American forces. Caught up in all of this were ninety-nine Army and Navy nurses--the first unit of American women ever sent into the middle of a battle.
The "Angels of Bataan and Corregidor"--as the newspapers called them--became the only group of American women captured and imprisoned by an enemy. And the story of their trials on a bloody battlefield, their desperate flight to avoid capture and their ultimate surrender, imprisonment, liberation and homecoming is a story of endurance, professionalism and raw pluck.
Along the way, they helped build and staff hospitals in the middle of a malaria-infested jungle on the peninsula of Bataan. Then, short of supplies and medicine, they worked around the clock in the operating rooms and open-air wards, dealing with gaping wounds and gangrenous limbs, ministering to the wounded, the sick, the dying.
A few fell in love, only to lose their men to the enemy. Finally, on the tiny island of Corregidor in Manila Bay, the Japanese took them prisoner. For three long years in an internment camp--years marked by loneliness and starvation--they kept to their mission and stuck together. In the end, it was this loyalty, this sense of purpose, womanhood and honor, that both challenged and saved them.
Through interviews with survivors and through unpublished letters, diaries and journals, Elizabeth M. Norman vividly re-creates that time, telling the story in richly drawn portraits and in a dramatic narrative delivered in the voices of the women who were there.
|
|
|
What Customers Say About We Band of Angels: The Untold Story of American Nurses Trapped on Bataan by the Japanese:
|
|
While this story is not about the March itself, the location is the same, and the individual acts of courage are representative of the best of American valor and spirit. I have a relative who was in the Bataan Death March and survived. And what a great reminder of how ordinary people can rise to real heroism. What a great read. I could never imagine "what it was like" on that infamous piece of ground, until I read this book. The descriptions of the physical realities, the range of personalities, the details of the tasks faced by the nurses, all this opened a window for me.
A very inspiring story.We Band of Angels: The Untold Story of American Nurses Trapped on Bataan by the Japanese However, I do feel pride in their bravery and courage. I have been a nurse for 30 years and had no idea of this important occurrence in nursing history. I was shocked to learn what appeared to be the abandonment of this group of nurses by our military during WWII.
This was a different view point than from the mens. this book was very enlighting. A good read all the way from start to finish. The book opened up new avenues of discussion with my mother who is in her 80s and remembers when the nurses came home. i didn't realize that nurses were still on Bataan or corregidor when they fell into Japanese hands. the nurses all displayed a great amount of courage.
"Roughly a quarter of the 3,800 internees were children under the age of eighteen. In the morning, Ehtyle Mae Mercado [an American from Utah, wife of a Filipino] stumbled into the officer's tent, bruised and weeping. She'd been raped, she said, at least five times, all through the night. Let's let the book speak for itself:"Around 8:00 p.m. "It was not unusual to see children scrounging through garbage cans by the Japanese army mess hall for scraps of food." In the darkness he propped himself up and saw an American medic quickly approach the tent, only to be sharply turned away by a [Japanese] sentry wielding a rifle and bayonet. on April 10 [1942], one day after the surrender, an American officer at Hospital #2, recuperating from a bullet wound in his lung, heard a woman screaming in the tent next to him. The cries continued for a while, then stopped.
"We Band of Angels" is a triumph of research into a too-little known segment of our history, and in its ability to evoke a new appreciation of the human spirit it is nothing less than a modest masterpiece. And in the telling, I got a lot more than just an answer to my question; I gained an insight into what made these remarkable women tick, and why it was that they were able to survive when so many others succumbed. Like many other people, I've always wanted to know what happened to our American nurses who were captured on Bataan and Corregidor. Elizabeth Norman not only answers this question, but through her interviews with the nurses who survived three years of captivity by the Japanese, has described the experience in great detail.
|
|
 |
|
|
|
