I, too, read Elizabeth Norman's book, We Band of Angels, The Untold Story of American Nurses Trapped on Bataan by the Japanese, over the Memorial Day weekend. She did a masterful job in her research and writing to retell this unique story about this group of America's military nurses and their dedication to duty. This story is unique in American military history, in that in no other instance in our history has this number of military women, been taken captive, held as POWs for almost three years, and all survive. However, it is not unique in its demonstration of military nurses' dedication to honor and duty.
The facts in the book speaks loudly to many of today's societal debates, but to Norman's credit, she chose not to get into what many of us euphemistically term "pissing battles of bias". She tells the story of this historical event and its impact on the women who experienced it. She let the story stand on its own merits for anyone who reads it.
Am I biased in undertaking this review of her book? To an extent, yes. I am a retired Army Nurse Corps officer, who worked with, or served under some of the women about whom Norman has written, and who we both tremendously admire. I have also had opportunity to know perhaps more about the blueprint of her story than most of the public-at-large. She has done a masterful job. Had she not, I would not have given her the time of day. Norman's research and interviews led her to more details about this historical event than many of us were aware and has interwoven them into the story in a manner that cleared up some of its mysteries. She told us enough about the lives and motivations of many of these women prior to their entering the military, and their lives following this experience, to let us determine for ourselves the extent to which this experience was a seminal and defining life experience for them, individually as well as collectively.
Elizabeth Norman is more than a historian, bringing an objective eye to the reporting of facts or experience. She is an expert nurse and researcher, who knows that historical research is not merely the story of people and events, nor does it lend itself to clinical trials or experimental studies, but rather to the analysis of phenomenon with a view toward objectively explaining events, where explanation is possible and faithful to the occurence. Personally, I do not believe anyone other than a dedicated, committed, expert nurse, who also was a historian, could have written this book with the same degree of accuracy, detail and justice deserved by those nurses who lived it.
To nurses, and particularly military nurses, this book reminds and rekindles within us that pride the remaining surviving Army and Navy nurses of the Philippines, Bataan, Corregidor, Santo Tomas, and Los Banos must feel in this retelling of "their" story. But this book is not just for nurses, it is for all who have fought for this country, and to those who waited hopefully for their family members' safe return. Many of America's warriors are alive and well because of miliary nurses like those of whom this story is about. Those casualties who made it back to our hospitals but still did not survive their injury, not only had an expert nurse at their bedside, but a surrogate mother or sister who did not have to be concerned that their caring or their own grief would subvert their expertise. Neither could their feelings be realistically viewed as a sign of weakness. Their strength and their courage was demonstrated by their desire and willingness to be there and the long hours of work they endured. My only wish is that before all of those many nurses who served in World War II are gone, or the memories become too faded, some of the other defining stories of World War II's military nurses, such as those who served and died on the Anzio beachhead, can be pieced together in a narrative as riveting and as faithful to the experience as Norman's in We Band of Angels.
Ira P. Gunn, MLN, CRNA, FAAN, LTC, US Army, Retired
