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21st out of 199 books
—
147 voters
We Band of Angels: The Untold Story of American Nurses Trapped on Bataan by the Japanese
Hailed by The New York Times Book Review as a "grippingly told" story of "power and relevance," here is the true, untold account of the first American women to prove their mettle under combat conditions. Later, during three years of brutal captivity at the hands of the Japanese, they also demonstrated their ability to survive. Filled with the thoughts and impressions of th...more
Paperback, 352 pages
Published
May 1st 2000
by Atria Books
(first published 1999)
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For so many reasons, finding “We Band of Angels” on our book club book list was a real gem for me. My father and I had an often repeated ritual which would take place anytime my mother would ask me to find my dad to tell him dinner was almost ready, or that he needed to start getting ready for some outing. He would be in the basement rummaging through his drawer of Navy photographs from his almost 8 years in the Pacific (1938-1945). He’d often show me an oversized photograph of a military parade...more
They were mostly daughters of farmers and blue collar workers. Not having much better options, the USA having just gone through the Great Depression, they decided to join the US military as nurses.
Assigned to the Philippines, they were having the time of their lives with very little work to do and lots of handsome military men (Americans, of course) who invite them to dinners, dancing and parties. The country was a tropical paradise then, especially to them, its then colonial masters.
Apparently,...more
Assigned to the Philippines, they were having the time of their lives with very little work to do and lots of handsome military men (Americans, of course) who invite them to dinners, dancing and parties. The country was a tropical paradise then, especially to them, its then colonial masters.
Apparently,...more
This book was recommended to me by a fellow nurse. It is about the first "military" nurses who were in the Philippines at the time that the Japanese invaded during WWII. The nurses were among those taken to internment camps on the main island, along with whoever was not Filipino and happened to not be military and unfortunate enough to be around when the bombing started.
This book is a documentary so kind of a slow read, but I liked it a lot. Not only do I have a connection with the nurses (kind...more
This book is a documentary so kind of a slow read, but I liked it a lot. Not only do I have a connection with the nurses (kind...more
Everyone knows about the men in the military in the Phillipines. The death march, and the starvation, the living conditions that were put upon them by the Japanese takeover in the Phillipines. But, what about the unsung heroes, the nurses's, who were called the Angel's of Battan.
These nurse's came to the Phillipines for a new adventure. What you see in the movies during the 40's. The lovely tropics, of warm breezes. That was all true until December 7, 1941. That all change with the bombing of P...more
These nurse's came to the Phillipines for a new adventure. What you see in the movies during the 40's. The lovely tropics, of warm breezes. That was all true until December 7, 1941. That all change with the bombing of P...more
This is a gripping true account of the terrifying experience of military nurses caught in the Philippines at the start of World War II. Starting with the almost idyllic life as a nurse in the prewar luxury of the islands, the book traces the experiences of the women as the Japanese advance. Elizabeth Norman uses interviews with the women as well as their letters and diaries written at the time to paint a realistic picture of war and captivity. It's hard to imagine the terror they must have felt...more
"So we will not call them heroes or angels, but what they were, what they are - women, made remarkable by history and ennobled by suffering and love." (from the book)
It is by circumstance or fate that these Army & Navy nurses find themselves prisoners of war in the Philippines, held by the Japanese, during WWII. The author interviewed many of the survivors whose first hand accounts are harrowing. How does a person survive such horrors? Sadly, some don't.
Once the nurses return from captivit...more
It is by circumstance or fate that these Army & Navy nurses find themselves prisoners of war in the Philippines, held by the Japanese, during WWII. The author interviewed many of the survivors whose first hand accounts are harrowing. How does a person survive such horrors? Sadly, some don't.
Once the nurses return from captivit...more
One of the best non-fiction books I've ever read. It is heartwarming and at the same time heartbreaking. Told in a style that puts the reader directly into the lives of these valiant nurses - it takes you on a journey through the horrors of World War Two in the Pacific - as if you were there. The author draws you into the Malinta Tunnel underground hospital on Corregidor and describes the almost superhuman endurance of the military nurses working there to save their patients - and she does it wi...more
Elizabeth M. Norman writes a book about the army and navy nurses that were caught by the Japanese in WW II on the Philippines. She writes with a prose that is not glamorous, and is very straightforward. But the stories that come out of this unaffected prose carry such emotion and courage, that it fits well, and in fact, lets the nurses, with outtakes from diaries and interviews, tell the story themselves.
We Band of Angels is truly a story of courage and dedication from these nurses, the first to...more
We Band of Angels is truly a story of courage and dedication from these nurses, the first to...more
A gripping account of the ninety-nine female Army and Navy nurses working in the Philippines when the Japanese invaded the islands during World War II. Elizabeth Norman's book provides the right amount of background and context. It's meticulously researched, and whenever possible she lets the women who were trapped on Bataan tell the story. Norman's unflinching reporting conveys what it's like to be a women at war, but also what it's like to be a healer without tools and medicine and how prisone...more
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Women wanted to become army and navy nurses in the Philippines because they thought it would be an exciting and adventurous job. After a brief time of idle Japan declares war on the US and throws everything into capturing the Philippines. With the knowledge of the way Japanese soldiers terrorized citizens during the Rape of Nanking I can only imagine the dread these nurses must have felt to know they would be next. They survived months of war, overwork and starvation only to be captured and endu...more
Powerful reminder of all that is hateful about war, particularly this little known story of American nurses incarcerated on Bataan by the Japanese during WW II. They spent three years tending to the sick, and each other, existing on gruel for the most part. Their heroism is unquestioned but their treatment when they returned highlights discrimination toward women that can still exist. In the words of one survivor, if we didn't tell the papers what the wants to ear they simply ignores us. The wer...more
This was well worth reading. Although I couldn't keep all the women's stories straight, it was an informative and a gripping WWII story. The nurses' experiences on Bataan and Corregidor were really singular, at first providing nursing care to hundreds of wounded soldiers on the jungle floor under enemy fire, then being in Japanese prison camps for three years. The author continued the stories of many of the women after they were freed to complete the narrative. None appeared to have been unscath...more
Hailed by The New York Times Book Review as a "grippingly told" story of "power and relevance," here is the true, untold account of the first American women to prove their mettle under combat conditions. Later, during three years of brutal captivity at the hands of the Japanese, they also demonstrated their ability to survive. Filled with the thoughts and impressions of the women who lived it, "every page of this history is fascinating" (The Washington Post). We Band of Angels
In the fall of 1941...more
In the fall of 1941...more
The untold story of the nurses and how they were the first female military ever sent into war. These women where the ones who helped nurse our men as the were imprisoned by the enemy. They continued to work along side of docotors caring for the ill. Then as they them selves sick with with maleria, dysentry. they lost weight and also had beriberi. Yet then continued care for those that were sick and dying. After liberation they wer used by the government as propaganda only to be deined medals the...more
I read this in attempt to exercise my mind in the historical sense, as I have been living in France and haven't
"studied" history books in a while. I thought it would be a good break from French lessons and light fiction that I have been reading, so I picked it up again.
The book chronicles the lives of the American nurses caught in the midst of war in the Philippines. They were ordinary people, who were just looking for a little adventure and romance in paradise. In the end they got a lot more...more
"studied" history books in a while. I thought it would be a good break from French lessons and light fiction that I have been reading, so I picked it up again.
The book chronicles the lives of the American nurses caught in the midst of war in the Philippines. They were ordinary people, who were just looking for a little adventure and romance in paradise. In the end they got a lot more...more
I can rate this book while still reading because this will be the second time I've read it. If you're a nurse or have served in the military this is a must read. When the Japanese invaded the Philippines during WWII ninety-nine American army and navy nurses without any combat training found themselves suddenly behind enemy lines. They spent months working under appalling conditions in hidden field hospitals in the jungles of Bataan, moving frequently to stay ahead of Japanese. Eventually an evac...more
I really enjoyed reading We band of Angels. Often the fear in reading true stories about less than pleasant events is that the book will focus on the negative. Dr. Norman did an excellent job of discussing the difficulties these women (and men) faced during the fall of Manilla, Bataan, and Corregidor and their subsequent internment, without dwelling too much on the horrible things that befell them. I think the attitude in her writing came from the women she interviewed for the story. These remar...more
I picked up this book once when I was about 15 or so, because I had delusions of grandeur about writing an epic WWII novel, nay, trilogy. Hehe. I never did write it, but I filled up a whole journal with notes and ideas and random scenes I felt like writing, some of which I still see some gold glitter in buried in the dross. This book certainly did have a thousand story ideas in it. In fact, certain parts seemed precisely like something from a movie, down to a part where a soldier handed one of t...more
We Band of Angels
A subject dear to my heart, We Band of Angels, provides us with a new understanding of what women can do if allowed to do so. With no training in field operations and no hospital, these women did the impossible. A jungle for a hospital, dirt floors and the stars, (if they could see them through the jungle canopy,) were their roof. This story is only a part of the tragedy that General MacArthur inflected on his command due to his pompous stupidity. The tens of thousands of starvi...more
A subject dear to my heart, We Band of Angels, provides us with a new understanding of what women can do if allowed to do so. With no training in field operations and no hospital, these women did the impossible. A jungle for a hospital, dirt floors and the stars, (if they could see them through the jungle canopy,) were their roof. This story is only a part of the tragedy that General MacArthur inflected on his command due to his pompous stupidity. The tens of thousands of starvi...more
Love reading history, the part that scares me is that history has a way of repeating itself. For them it was a life time worth of struggle, which they faced each day with courage, some never recovered. We need these angels today, we need to be prepared to serve our fellowman/woman. True it was another time but looking at the forces at work in today's world, the only thing that has really changed is location location location.
Need to get my house in order and do it now.
Need to get my house in order and do it now.
Book started out quite strong bringing this topic of women/nurses in the military during WWII into awareness. However, I thought the book began dragging as the author used quotes from letters/interviews more often to tell the story, rather than using those quotes to build sharper portraits of the women, the experience, and the history involved.
By strongest criticism is that the last third of the book seems more like it was an outline draft, slapped on without much fleshing out.
I'm glad I spent...more
By strongest criticism is that the last third of the book seems more like it was an outline draft, slapped on without much fleshing out.
I'm glad I spent...more
DDC 940.54 Subjects: Nurses; World War II; Prisoners of War - Philippines. When the Japanese took the Philippines during WWII, 77 American women, navy and army nurses, were caught on Bataan and later imprisoned by the Japanese. These women entered the service to build careers and travel the world, and none of them ever imagined they would see battle, let alone be held as POWs. A fitting tribute to these remarkable women’s courage and dedication.
Absolutely fascinating book on the experiences of many Army and Navy nurses who served in the Pacific (Philippines) immediately before and during World War II, including their lives in POW camps. Because the book was based on the memories of about 20 of the nurses (who were in their 70s and 80s when the book was researched) I'm not sure how historically accurate it is, but the story is compelling nonetheless.
May 08, 2009
Deena Scintilla
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Susan, Diana
Shelves:
non-fiction
I learned so much about Baatan and the American nurses who cared for the soldiers in the jungles while being held prisoners themselves. So much is omitted in HIStory about the roles women have played in major events. Admiration (I could never have persevered as they did) and anger (why didn't they get the recognition/accolades they deserved) stayed with me for a long time after I finished.
I cannot comprehend why these women are not part of our history books. The only thing I can think of is that our nation didn't know where to put them in. They were the first in their field. Never before had women been in combat and served under such extraordinary circumstances. They were ladies put into extreme circumstances and they were ladies throughout the trials. They have a new admirer in me.
Excellent non-fiction account of a group of Army and Navy nurses who served in the Philippines during WWII, the nurses ended up on the front lines during the battle of Bataan and were held as prisoners of war for over three years. Inspiring story told with dignity, explores individual and group reactions to the challenges of war and imprisonment.
I found myself wondering, as I did when first reading this, if I'd have been able to measure up to these women. Amazing. I don't think I have as much strength, ingenuity and courage.
PS- though the writing was tough at time, I am giving it a nine for the courage of the women and the amount it made me think.
PS- though the writing was tough at time, I am giving it a nine for the courage of the women and the amount it made me think.
Very good book. I had heard of the Bataan Death March but didn't realize that the Army & Navy nurses were also captured and imprisoned. The book is well written and drew on the personal experiences of those who survivied. It really puts into perspective that unsung heroism of those dedicated nurses.
A fascinating story of American nurses stationed in the Philippines during WW2 who were taken prisoners of war by the Japanese. Well researched, but I felt the author could have focused or condensed the information a little better. I am very glad to know their inspiring story or what it left of it.
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Aug 11, 2012 03:10pm