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All This Hell: U.S. Nurses Imprisoned by the Japanese
All This Hell US Nurses Imprisoned by the Japanese Author:Evelyn M. Monahan, Rosemary Neidel-Greenlee Before December 1941 drew to a close, five navy nurses on Guam became the first American military women of WWII to be taken prisoner by the Japanese. More than seventy army nurses survived five months of combat conditions in the jungles of Bataan and Corregidor before being captured, only to endure more than three years in prison camps. In all, ... more »nearly one hundred nurses became POWs. Many of these army nurses were considered too vital to the war effort to be evacuated from the Philippines. Though receiving only half the salary of male officers of the same rank, they helped establish outdoor hospitals and treated thousands of casualties despite rapidly decreasing supplies and rations. After their capture, they continued to care for the sick and wounded throughout their internment in the prison camps. When freedom came, the U.S. military ordered the nurses to sign agreements with the government not to discuss their horrific experiences. Evelyn Monahan and Rosemary Neidel-Greenlee have conducted interviews with survivors and scoured archives for letters, diaries, and journals to uncover the heroism and sacrifices of these brave women. Their dedication to accuracy, combined with their personal expertise in medical care and military culture and discipline, has resulted in a honest, fair history of the dedicated military nurses who were captured in the Pacific theater during WWII.« less