Elizabeth M. Norman (47 page)

But I stray. I started out to tell a story and promised to let the details of that story speak for themselves. So, one last time, let me go back.

•   •   •

I
N 1980 SIXTEEN
of the nurses, members of the large veterans group The American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor, returned to the Philippines on a special tour. The men and women retraced their wartime steps, visiting the battlefields, the prison camps, the old bases. One morning the group was driven to the top of Mount Samat on Bataan to dedicate several memorials. One of these monuments, a stone with a brass plaque, had been erected by the men of the Death March to honor the nurses.
²
Its inscription, in part, can easily stand as history’s final word:

In honor of the valiant American military women who gave so much of themselves in the early days of World War II.… They lived on a starvation diet, shared the bombing, strafing, sniping, sickness and disease while working endless hours of heartbreaking duty.… They truly earned the name “The Angels of Bataan and Corregidor.”

Acknowledgments

I
AM GRATEFUL TO
many people who graciously shared their expertise, insights and experiences.

Most of all, I am indebted to the twenty Angels who told me their stories: army nurses Earlyn Black Harding, Sally Blaine Millett, Ruby Bradley, Hattie Brantley, Helen Cassiani Nestor, Dorothea Daley Engel, Bertha Dworsky Henderson, Helen Gardner Rozmus, Eleanor Garen, Peggy Greenwalt Walcher, Eunice Hatchitt Tyler, Verna Henson Hively, Jeanne Kennedy Schmidt, Dorothy Scholl Armold, Madeline Ullom, Lucy Wilson Jopling; navy nurses Dorothy Still Danner, Peg Nash and Mary Rose Harrington Nelson; and civilian nurse Denny Williams, who returned to the Army Nurse Corps after the war.

I also thank relatives of the Angels who cooperated with my requests for interviews and gave me permission to use published and unpublished material: Mina Aasen’s niece, Gladys Bruhn; Maude Davison’s stepson, Robert Jackson; Eleanor Garen’s niece and nephew, Doris Sante and Dennis Kennedy; Dorothy Scholl Armold’s children, Carolyn Torrence and Harold Armold. And especially Mr. Edward Nestor, a World War II veteran of the European theater, who offered his opinions and recollections about his life with “Cassie.”

The candor and generosity of two people who knew the Angels well, Samuel B. Moody, a Bataan Death March survivor, and Terry “Little Cassie” Myers Johnson, provided different and important perspectives on the group.

Archivist Susan Sacharski and nurse Sharon Eifried spent hours interviewing
several Angels and locating archival material. They were of enormous assistance during the years I was shaping this project.

I also came to rely on a network of active-duty and retired military nurses: World War II veterans Dr. Jeanne Quint Benoliel and Signe Cooper; Army Nurse Corps historians Major Nona Bice-Stevens, Major C. J. Moore, Colonel Mary Sarnecky, Lieutenant Colonel Iris West, Brigadier General Connie Slewitzke USA (retired), and Rear Admiral Fran Shea Buckley USN (retired) helped me understand the American military culture and locate crucial information about the Angels, some of which had been lost for almost fifty years.

Historians across the country not only gave me full access to material in their collections but also shared their particular expertise. Among these are: Alan Aimone, United States Military Academy Special Collections Division, West Point, New York; Paul Grey, National Personnel Records Center, St. Louis, Missouri; Harry Noyes III, U.S. Army Health Services Command, Fort Sam Houston, Texas; curators Thomas McMasters and Ronald Burkett, U.S. Army Medical Department Museum at Fort Sam Houston, Texas; Paula Ussery, Admiral Nimitz Museum, Fredericks-burg, Texas; and Brigadier General Wilma Vaught USAF (retired) and her staff at the Women in Military Service to America headquarters in Virginia.

I also wish to thank those at the following archives: the National Archives in Suitland, Maryland; Philippine Archive Collection in Washington; the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery of the United States Navy; and the Center for Military History in Washington, D.C. These collections contained four valuable resources—the Army Nurse Corps archives at the Center for Military History held Josie Nesbit’s personnel rosters and her 1945 unpublished report listing names, dates and descriptions of Manila, Bataan, Corregidor, Santo Tomas Internment Camp (STIC); the Army Nurse Corps Oral History interviews, conducted from 1983 to 1984 with thirty-one of the army and navy POWs, provided details from those nurses who had died or were too frail to meet with me; the National Archives in Suitland, Maryland, had boxes of classified testimony that the nurses had given to judge advocate officers in 1945 for use in war crimes trials (these interviews offered details of specific prisoner-of-war incidents after surrender); the Philippine Archive Collection at the National Archives in Washington, D.C, held Bataan hospital rosters, diaries, unit records and memorabilia, which furnished the senior medical commanders perspectives on the war.

I received photographs through the goodwill of individuals from the
American Red Cross, Washington, D.C.; the U.S. Naval Hospital, Oakland, California; the Minot
Daily News
, Minot, North Dakota; and the Scott and White School of Nursing Archives in Temple, Texas.

Other scholars and experts assisted me in filling in crucial gaps in the Angels’ story. Mr. Richard Arnold from the Rutgers University Foundation helped me locate Terry “Little Cassie” Myers Johnson; Elizabeth Ann Watkins and other librarians from Dana Library on the Newark campus of Rutgers University uncovered many books and articles; Dr. Davis Joel Steinberg, president of Long Island University, shared his expertise of Filipino activities during the war; architect Andrew Attinson, AIA, helped in the description of the buildings at Santo Tomas University; former Veterans Administration officials Dorothy Starbuck, Charles Lucas and Edward Rose candidly recalled the events of the 1983 POW reunion; and Alice Booher, Southeast Business and Professional Women (SE/BPW), kindly invited me to the 1992 POW celebration in Washington, D.C., which gave me an opportunity to observe the Angels as a group.

My mother, Dorothy Riley Dempsey, was a source of information and cultural references from the war years. After a half century, her memory remains sharp, especially about the music of that era. My dear, late father, John J. Dempsey, spoke often about his time in combat as a young lieutenant in a tank destroyer unit of the 2nd Armored Division in Europe. He taught me a great deal about the long-term impact of war on veterans.

I thank Esther Newberg for her tenacity and forbearance, and Bob Loomis for his craftsmanship and steady guidance.

A
POET, TEACHER
and friend, Jean Armstrong lent her skill, helping me to pare down and reorganize the manuscript. I deeply appreciate her generosity, patience, skill and good humor.

I collaborated on this book with my husband, the writer Michael Norman. He spent six months every day helping to reshape the manuscript and polish the prose. We have been married for more than twenty-five years. After so long working and living together, it is hard to know where my sentences end and his begin.

A
WORD ON
the title: I was against using the word “Angels” there. Men—not women—apply that appellation to nurses and most of us find
it denigrating, insulting and just plain silly. Men use it to remind women to sacrifice, to work long hours for low pay and not complain. It is meant to idealize women, to push them to be perfect, because that is the kind of woman, the kind of nurse, men want.

I’m no angel, and neither were the gritty women of Bataan. They were human beings, as brave and as fearful as their male comrades, but after much thought, and a little prompting from literary friends, I came to see the word “angel” as the only metaphor that married the conflicting ideas of bravery and compassion, heroism and care.

The nurses of Bataan and Corregidor were in every sense “at war,” side by side with men. The difference was that they carried a battle dressing instead of a gun. They fought, and fought fiercely, to preserve life as everyone around them was bent on taking it. In that light “Angels” seemed just right.

Finally, for the record, the title is meant to echo two lines from Shakespeare’s
Henry V:
“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. / For he who sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.”

M
ONTCLAIR
, N
EW
J
ERSEY
1998

Appendix I: C
HRONOLOGY OF
M
ILITARY
N
URSES IN THE
P
HILIPPINE
I
SLANDS, 1940
-
1945