Elizabeth M. Norman (53 page)

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Authors: We Band of Angels: The Untold Story of American Nurses Trapped on Bataan

Tags: #World War II, #Social Science, #General, #Military, #Women's Studies, #History

BOOK: Elizabeth M. Norman
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4.
Reminiscences of Admiral Stuart S. (Sunshine) Murray, U.S. Navy (ret.), Volume 1
(no date), pp. 293–95. The ten army nurses who were passengers on the PBY plane that successfully landed in Australia were: Catherine Acorn, Dorothea Daley, Susan Downing Gallagher, Eunice Hatchitt, Willa Hook, Ressa Jenkins, Harriet Lee, Mary Lohr, Florence MacDonald and Juanita Redmond.

5.
Redmond, pp. 160–61.

6.
Ibid
.

7.
“Army nurses from the Philippines now in Australia,” p. 820.

8.
“News for nurses,” p. 449.

9.
Eunice Hatchitt Tyler, 1990 author interview.

10.
Redmond, pp. 165–66.

11.
Eunice Hatchitt Tyler, 1990 author interview.

12.
Sue Gallagher to Mrs. Whitwell, dated June 19, 1942. Leona Gastinger to Mrs. Whitwell, dated November 9, 1942. Garen files.

13.
Juanita Redmond to Mrs. Gates (no date). Ruth Straub to Mrs. Gates, dated August 15, 1942. The State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin. Un-cataloged scrapbooks of “Marcia Gates, Army Nurse Corps.”

14.
Allied Naval Forces Based Western Australia. USS Spearfish Special Mission. Serial SA-115. 3 June 1942
. The eleven army nurses who left on the submarine were:
Leona Gastinger, Nancy Gillahan, Grace Hallman, Hortense McKay, Mary Moultrie, Mollie Peterson, Mabel Stevens, Ruth Straub, Helen Summers, Beth Veley and Lucy Wilson. The navy nurse was Ann Bernatitus.

15.
Lucy Wilson Jopling, 1990 author interview.

16.
Wilson Jopling, p. 50.

17.
Parker, p. 719.

18.
Both “poems” from Wilson Jopling, pp. 54–55.

19.
Flikke, J., p. 192.

20.
Eunice Hatchitt Tyler, 1991 author interview.

21.
Captain Ann Bernatitus, Nurse Corps, United States Navy, Retired
, p. 2.

22.
White, W. L.

23.
Redmond, J.

24.
Valentine, E. R., p. 53.

25.
Cry Havoc
, MGM film, November 1943. Director, Richard Thorpe. Screenplay, Paul Osborne. Adapted from a play by Allan Kenward called
Proof Through the Night
.

26.
Since You Went Away
, United Artists film, July 1944. Director, John Cromwell. Screenplay, David O. Selznick.

27.
They Were Expendable
, MGM film, December 1945. Director, John Ford. Screenplay, Lieutenant Commander Frank Wead. Adapted from W. L. White’s 1942 book with the same title.

28.
So Proudly We Hail
, Paramount film, June 1943. Director, Mark Sandrich. Screenplay, Allan Scott.

29.
For a more detailed discussion about the making of this file see Baker, M. J., pp. 111–25.

30.
Eunice Hatchitt Tyler, 1990 author interview.

31.
In a September 1990 interview in her home, Mrs. Eunice Hatchitt Tyler told the author that after many years of letters, telephone calls and gatherings, the women finally accepted the fact that the misrepresentations in the movie were not of her making and were certainly beyond her control.

Chapter Ten: In Enemy Hands

1.
Wainwright, p. 119.

2.
Alice Hahn Powers, 1983 ANC interview.

3.
On December 8, 1941, shortly after the Pearl Harbor attack, the Japanese assaulted the tiny Pacific island of Guam. At the end of the three-day battle, the captured American forces included five navy nurses. Chief Nurse Marion Olds and her staff, Doris Yetter, Leona Jackson, Lorraine Christiansen and Virginia Fogerty, spent one month as prisoners on Guam. In early January these POWs sailed for Shikoku, Japan, and prison camp. The women transferred to a detention house in Kobe. They returned home as part of a prisoner exchange in August 1942.

4.
Hattie Brantley, 1983 ANC interview.

5.
Inez McDonald Moore, 1983 ANC interview.

6.
Mitchum, J., p. 32.

7.
Bertha Dworsky Henderson, 1983 ANC interview.

8.
Garen, E., the South Bend
Tribune
. Eleanor gave Susan Sacharski this article with no date or pagination.

9.
Wainwright, pp. 122–23. Initially, General Wainwright wanted to surrender only the Luzon force and allow the troops under General Sharp in the southern Visayan and Mindanao islands to continue to fight. General Homma insisted the general surrender all forces. If he did not, General Homma promised he would continue to assault Corregidor. General Wainwright knew a massacre could occur. He signed the unconditional surrender of all Philippine forces at midnight.

10.
This cloth is located in Inez McDonald Moore’s files at the Fort Sam Houston Medical Museum archives, San Antonio, Texas.

11.
Helen Cassiani Nestor, 1990 author interview.

12.
Josie Nesbit Davis, 1983 ANC interview.

13.
Jeanne Kennedy Schmidt, 1992 correspondence with author.

14.
Madeline Ullom, 1983 ANC interview. The one existing photograph from this session does not include Ullom. She may have been present in other photographs, now missing or destroyed.

15.
Experiences of Major S. M. Mellnick from the Fall of Corregidor, May 6, 1942 to escape from a Japanese Prison Camp. Report No. 189
. (no date), pp. 1–2.

16.
Ibid
.

17.
Sallie Durrett Farmer, 1983 ANC interview.

18.
Eleanor Garen, 1991 interview with Susan Sacharski.

19.
Ann Mealor Giles, 1983 ANC interview.

20.
Helen Cassiani Nestor, 1990 author interview.

21.
The “slapped” nurse was Marcia Gates. In her war crimes testimony, August 15, 1945, she stated, “I was talking to an officer and one of the Japanese officers in charge of the tunnel on Corregidor slapped me in the face.” Mrs. Wingate, a civilian woman on Corregidor, was hit with the flat side of a soldier’s bayonet. Army nurses Adolpha Meyer and Anna Williams witnessed this incident and provided war crimes prosecutors with details. National Archives, Suitland, Maryland. SCAP Collection, 1945, RG 153, transcripts.

22.
Mary B. Menzie, Affadavit, April 1945, War Crimes Testimony, SCAP Collection, RG 153. Information on this incident also found in: Report 189, Case summary of attempted criminal assault on 1st Lieut. Mary B. Menzie, SCAP Collection, RG 153, Box 1125; and United States War Crimes Commission report February 12, 1946, SCAP Collection, RG 153, Case 40–155. Mrs. Menzie received a Purple Heart after the war for the injury to her wrist. Army nurse Beulah Putnam was the woman with her when the incident occurred. She provided war crimes testimony about the attempted assault. Maude Davison was skeptical about the occurrence. She said her “wrist looked as if it had been scratched, not cut.” National Archives, Suitland, Maryland, SCAP Collection, RG 153.

23.
Ann Mealor Giles, 1983 ANC interview.

24.
Cassie’s 1944 essay about the monkey provided the details used in this section. Rita Palmer and Eleanor Garen also mentioned the animal in various interviews.

25.
Cooper, pp. 13–14.

26.
Anna Williams Clark, 1983 ANC interview.

27.
Madeline Ullom, 1983 ANC interview.

28.
Ibid
.

29.
According to Nesbit, the Filipino nurses who had been with the army nurses were put on a truck and taken to Bilibid Prison with the men. The Filipino nurses remained in Bilibid from July 3, 1942, until July 22. The Japanese released the women after forcing them to sign loyalty papers. Two Filipinos, Maureen Davis and Betty Brian, were sent to the prison that held the American nurses because they were wives of American soldiers. Colonel Wibb Cooper spent one week at Bilibid Prison before being sent to the Tarlac POW camp to join General Wainwright and other high-ranking American officers. After a month in Tarlac, Cooper, Wainwright and others were sent to a POW camp in Formosa. Colonel Cooper felt that the Japanese wanted to separate the senior officers from the lower ranks. Colonel Cooper survived the war. In his 1945 report, he wrote, “Never in the history of war has medical personnel been called upon to perform their duties under such arduous circumstances and over such a long period.… It is with pardonable pride that I recall the supreme effort put forth by all the Medical Department personnel … in the years to come this group … can look back with great comfort and pride to the part they played during this grim period while upholding the finest traditions of the Medical Department, United States Army” (p. 149).

30.
Madeline Ullom, 1983 ANC interview.

Chapter Eleven: Santo Tomas

1.
Description of Santo Tomas Internment Camp from Hartendorp, A. V., pp. 33–35; McCall, J., plate XV; Stevens, F. H., pp. 12–78 (1946).

2.
In November 1997, architect Andrew Attinson shared his thoughts and analysis of the Santo Tomas Main Building with the author.

3.
Hartendorp, pp. 42–43.

4.
The Ten Commandments of STIC (Stevens, pp. 169–70):

I. Thou shalt have no other interest greater than the welfare of the Camp.

II. Thou shall not adopt for thyself, or condone in others, any merely selfish rule of conduct, or indulge in any practice that injures the morale of the Camp. Thou shall not violate the procedures agreed upon by the authorities or by the majority, for pun ishment can surely be visited upon all—innocent and guilty alike—because of the misdeeds of a few.

III. Thou shall not betray the ideals and principles which thou wast taught, so that in the future thou wilt not be condemned for neglecting [thy] heritage.

IV. Remember the work of the Camp, to do thy share. Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work assignments, and also, as on thy rest day, refresh thy mind and heart with worship. For thy work will be satisfying and effective only when it is done in the right spirit.

V. Honor thy forefathers by recalling vividly their struggle for better things, that thou mayest contribute now and in the days to come to the realization of their ideals.

VI. Thou shall not hinder the best development of the youth of the Camp.

VII. Thou shall not break down family relationships.

VIII. Thou shall not steal.

IX. Thou shall not injure thy neighbor’s reputation by malicious gossip.

X. Thou shall not covet thy neighbor’s shanty or his room space. Thou shall not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his fiancée, nor his influential position, nor anything that is thy neighbor’s.

5.
Williams, pp. 123–24.

6.
Peggy Greenwalt Walcher, May 1992 telephone interview with author. Peggy gave the 12th Regimental flag to the Quartermaster Museum in Fort Lee, Virginia.

7.
Hattie Brantley, 1983 ANC interview.

8.
Nesbit, p. 38. Ida Haentsche Hube was a contract nurse with the American army in 1898 during yellow fever and typhoid epidemics. In 1906, she signed with the newly formed U.S. Army Nurse Corps and served honorably until 1910. Mrs. Hube became the target of a G-2 investigation after the war. Government agents tried to determine why the Japanese had allowed her to remain free and living in the Manila Hotel, which became a Japanese officers’ residence and club. They explored rumors that Mrs. Hube had helped German nursing sisters and Japanese nurses in Manila during the war and that she had spoken admiringly of Hitler’s beliefs. In 1946, she attempted unsuccessfully to return to Switzerland, and an ANC public relations officer wrote, “Meanwhile she, [Mrs. Hube] hopes for the help of various nursing celebrities who have known her in the past.” Mrs. Hube died in Manila in 1946 or 1947. Source: Louise Anschicks scrapbooks, Fort Sam Houston Medical Museum archives, San Antonio, Texas. “The mysterious nurse of Manila,”
RN Magazine
.

9.
Nesbit, p. 42.

10.
Ibid
.

11.
Josie Nesbit Davis, January 15, 1983, letter to Miss Dorothy Starbuck, Veterans Administration, p. 4. Used with permission of Miss Starbuck.

12.
Mr. R. Fitzsimmons, a Spanish-American War veteran and Manila shipping executive, offered the women interest-free loans. Five army nurses got together and borrowed several hundred dollars. The elderly gentleman asked them to promise to pay him back after the war, or to pay his estate if he did not survive. Earl Carroll, an executive with General Electric and a member of the Executive Committee, was another source of loans. Garen files.

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