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We Band of Angels: The Untold Story of American Nurses Trapped on Bataan by the Japanese

Elizabeth M. Norman

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Feb 04, 2018 Karen rated it really liked it

Fascinating, upsetting, interesting, revealing history of the female nurses station in the Philippines during World War II and became prisoners of war, by and large. This was an eye-opening read because I had never really heard of or paid attention to the story of these nurses before, so I learned a lot. And there was a lot of suffering that made me sick. The stories of the sound of amputated limbs as they fell into buckets, of men and women subsisting on less than 900 calories a day, mostly of Fascinating, upsetting, interesting, revealing history of the female nurses station in the Philippines during World War II and became prisoners of war, by and large. This was an eye-opening read because I had never really heard of or paid attention to the story of these nurses before, so I learned a lot. And there was a lot of suffering that made me sick. The stories of the sound of amputated limbs as they fell into buckets, of men and women subsisting on less than 900 calories a day, mostly of mealy half-sawdust mush, it was just a horrifying story. Having said that, I thought that the book did a relatively good job of not completely vilifying the Japanese. There was a significant discussion of how the Japanese did atrocious things, yes, but I don't think we can possibly say that American behavior during wartime (or otherwise) is free from atrocities or perversions or injustices. It was clear that the Japanese were the reason for the imprisonment of the nurses and that the women hated their captors, but there was also a fair amount of primary source material of the women commenting on how similar the wounded Japanese were to their "boys back home" and how the cruel maw of war chewed up everyone. There were plenty of atrocities described in this book and I don't think it's fair to ignore that these women in particular were vulnerable in a way men were not, specifically the violence of rape, which was a persistent and very real threat and occurrence. There was also a good amount of engagement with the sexism of the time, how the women received less prestigious medals because they were women, how their stories were twisted in order to uphold American ideals of women at the time, etc.

All in all, it was an interesting, informative book than shone a light on a part of history I don't know as much about as others. But at the same time, I think it's a book that needs to be read with a complex understanding of many issues and that it maybe deserves a secondary reading list, of books to complement it. I did enjoy it, though, and do recommend it. ...more

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Oct 01, 2011 Diana marked it as to-read

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