We Band of Angels Quotes

“IN OBVIOUS WAYS the work of war is easy, “kill or be killed.” Survival, however, is another matter, much more difficult, for it requires an endurance, a cunning and a strength of will that fighting does not.”
― Elizabeth M. Norman, We Band of Angels: The Untold Story of American Nurses Trapped on Bataan by the Japanese

“Teaching and office work held little appeal—the former meant taking care of someone else’s children, the latter someone else’s man—so they entered the only other profession open to them, nursing. After”
― Elizabeth M. Norman, We Band of Angels: The Untold Story of American Nurses Trapped on Bataan by the Japanese

“On Thursday, March 26, as the assault continued and as his troops wasted away, General MacArthur, safely in Australia, received the Congressional Medal of Honor from the U.S. minister there. General Wainwright, learning of the news, radioed his congratulations from Corregidor, even as the bombs were falling on top of him. He also reported on the desperate state of his supplies.”
― Elizabeth M. Norman, We Band of Angels: The Untold Story of American Nurses Trapped on Bataan by the Japanese

“No one has suggested that the sixty-eight … were unique among members of the Army Nurse Corps. It was the tragic experience, bringing out high qualities of heroism and unselfishness, that was exceptional. The recognition they have received is more than a recognition of them as individuals. It is a tribute to the spirit of their Corps, to feminine tenderness joined with skill and courage.”
― Elizabeth M. Norman, We Band of Angels: The Untold Story of American Nurses Trapped on Bataan by the Japanese

“And on February 19, I, Dorothea Mae Daley, took Emanuel Engel Jr., to be my wedded husband . . . There was no ring, no license, no bouquet, no veil, no Mass . . . Sounds of bombs were in the distance, and my feet, encased in huge army boots, felt awkward as I stood in an army hospital . . . But there was a solemnity and a sacredness about the ceremony, performed in the midst of so much tragedy, that made us both feel that ours was no ordinary marriage.”
― Elizabeth M. Norman, We Band of Angels: The Untold Story of American Nurses Trapped on Bataan by the Japanese

“One of the most remarkable things coming out of our experience in Bataan was the presence and performance of the army nurses. In retrospect I believe that they were the greatest morale boost present in that unhappy little area of jungle called Bataan. I was continually amazed that anyone living and working under such primitive conditions could remain as calm, pleasant, efficient and impeccably neat and clean as those remarkable nurses.”
― Elizabeth M. Norman, We Band of Angels: The Untold Story of American Nurses Trapped on Bataan by the Japanese

“On Bataan, for example, the nurses had cared for enemy wounded and had learned a valuable lesson of war: suffering knows no uniform.”
― Elizabeth M. Norman, We Band of Angels: The Untold Story of American Nurses Trapped on Bataan by the Japanese

“So it was the work that would save them, their sense of themselves as professionals, the knowledge that they were part of something larger and more enduring than any one of them alone, and that something was the group.”
― Elizabeth M. Norman, We Band of Angels: The Untold Story of American Nurses Trapped on Bataan by the Japanese

“To tell the truth would have been to reveal the shameless circumstances that led to the loss of Bataan and Corregidor in the first place, to expose the inadequate supplies, the sloppy military planning and the rank political decisions that led to the Bataan Death March and the capture of 72,000 allied combat troops and seventy-seven American military women.”
― Elizabeth M. Norman, We Band of Angels: The Untold Story of American Nurses Trapped on Bataan by the Japanese

“The country, after all, was at war, a world war against a fascistic military cabal and a megalomaniac bent on slaughtering anyone in his way.”
― Elizabeth M. Norman, We Band of Angels: The Untold Story of American Nurses Trapped on Bataan by the Japanese

“Real courage required that they think first of their patients, not of themselves.”
― Elizabeth M. Norman, We Band of Angels: The Untold Story of American Nurses Trapped on Bataan by the Japanese

“men had an easier time controlling their terror and dread; at least they could shoot back. The women, however, were left to manage the damage and loss, the awful inventory that battle always leaves.”
― Elizabeth M. Norman, We Band of Angels: The Untold Story of American Nurses Trapped on Bataan by the Japanese

“Nothing, nothing at all, is more devastating to a nurse than to be pulled away from the patients in her charge, the lives entrusted to her.”
― Elizabeth M. Norman, We Band of Angels: The Untold Story of American Nurses Trapped on Bataan by the Japanese

“had to volunteer. Thought I couldn’t wait to get there. Arrived at Stotsenberg at nightfall. The hospital was bedlam—amputations, dressings, intravenouses, blood transfusions, shock, death … Worked all night, hopped over banisters and slid under the hospital during raids. It was remarkable to see the medical staff at work. One doctor, a flight surgeon, had a head injury, but during the night he got up and went to the operating room to help with the other patients.”
― Elizabeth M. Norman, We Band of Angels: The Untold Story of American Nurses Trapped on Bataan by the Japanese

“Afterward the nurses were invited to tea with the first lady, and when she was introduced to them and shook their hands, she called them “Lieutenant” instead of “Miss,” something none of the women ever forgot.20 She told them how happy she was that they were well, then wished them good luck and Godspeed.”
― Elizabeth M. Norman, We Band of Angels: The Untold Story of American Nurses Trapped on Bataan by the Japanese

“General Wainwright was delighted to see them. Years later in a memoir, he recalled the happy moment. They were a scruffy lot, he remembered, covered in road dust and grime, weak with fever and chills and still wide-eyed from their getaway across the bay. You may talk all you want of the pioneer women who went across the plains of early America and helped found our great nation.… But never forget the American girls who fought on Bataan and later on Corregidor.… Theirs had been a life of conveniences and even luxury. But their hearts were the same hearts as those of the women of early America. Their names must always be hallowed when we speak of American heroes. The memory of their coming ashore on Corregidor that early morning of April 9, dirty, disheveled, some of them wounded from the hospital bombings—and every last one of them with her chin up in the air—is a memory that can never be erased.33”
― Elizabeth M. Norman, We Band of Angels: The Untold Story of American Nurses Trapped on Bataan by the Japanese