Janelle C. (jscrappy) reviewed We Band of Angels : The Untold Story of American Nurses Trapped on Bataan by the Japanese on + 59 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 4
This is a straightforward account of the army and navy nurses who were trapped on Bataan and Corregidor when the Japanese invaded in World War II. Some were able to be evacuated, and some spent the remainder of the war in Santo Tomas internment camp in Manila. These nurses were the first American military women to see combat. The book is written by a nurse, and that lends some added depth to the descriptions of a nurse's relationships with her patients, and the accounts of tropical diseases and malnutrition that affected the soldiers and the prisoners of the Japanese. An easy and satisfying read for anyone interested in the war or in pioneering women.
sherbearski -
Helpful Score: 2
I had a hard time putting down this book once I started reading it. I really felt like I understood what it must have been like to have been there through the nurses own words and experiences from their daily journals. It was very interesting to hear what life was like while in the Santo Tomas Internment Camp and hear what became of them after the war. I high recommend this book if you like wartime historical history!!
Heather P. (modtone) reviewed We Band of Angels : The Untold Story of American Nurses Trapped on Bataan by the Japanese on
Helpful Score: 2
An excellent book that I quickly got sucked into. The author manages to focus on the nurses themselves, providing various personal details, without losing the view of their overall place in the war. She manages to weave broad overall events with individual events, as well as providing information regarding many of the nurses after the war. It also contains some very good photos and diary entries from some of the nurses.
Thomas F. (hardtack) -
Helpful Score: 2
Not only is this an interesting account of the Army and Navy nurses who served under combat conditions in the Philippines in 1941-42, but depicts their experiences as POWs until 1945.
It also covers the nurses who were ordered out at the end just under the Japanese noses. And how they reacted when they were hailed as heroines in the U.S. and their story was distorted. Then it follows all of them through their lives after the war.
I also learned numerous facts about the defenses of the Philippines I hadn't know, and I've read numerous books on this early action of World War II.
It also covers the nurses who were ordered out at the end just under the Japanese noses. And how they reacted when they were hailed as heroines in the U.S. and their story was distorted. Then it follows all of them through their lives after the war.
I also learned numerous facts about the defenses of the Philippines I hadn't know, and I've read numerous books on this early action of World War II.
Lynda C. (Readnmachine) reviewed We Band of Angels : The Untold Story of American Nurses Trapped on Bataan by the Japanese on + 1477 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
This moving nonfiction story of American Army and Navy nurses trapped in the Philippines during WWII, is astonishing in its raw power. But Norman loses points for burying much important material in the endnotes, and the reader is hard put to differentiate between the women.
