G.I. Nightingales: The Army Nurse Corps in World War II (review)

Barbara Brooks Tomblin. G.I. Nightingales: The Army Nurse Corps in World War II. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1996. ix + 254 pp. Ill. $29.95.

This account of nurses on active service in both the European and Pacific Theaters during World War II, based on military records, diaries, and personal interviews with surviving nurses, provides a comprehensive and inspiring picture of the competence, dedication, and unparalleled bravery under fire of the 60,000 Army nurses and 14,000 Navy nurses who brought caring, comfort, and compassion to thousands of wounded servicemen.

Prior to Pearl Harbor, nurses were stationed in the Panama Canal Zone, Hawaii, and the Philippines, largely unaware of the growing threat from Japan to the United States' territories in the Pacific. However, as unexpected as the attack on Pearl Harbor was, within twenty minutes, medical and civilian personnel had first-aid stations in full operation, ready for casualties. From that day on, medical and nursing personnel worked "seven days a week, and for the most part twelve-hour days" (p. 19).

The Japanese bombed military hospitals, destroying food, equipment, and needed medical supplies, and killing physicians, nurses, and wounded patients. On 29 March 1942 Bataan fell to the Japanese, following a final Japanese offensive. "There was no shelter available, no time to run. We hit the dirt and waited, but not for long. The world exploded" (p. 27). About 2,300 nurses and civilians were transferred to Corregidor, but 79,000 remained on Bataan, including many nurses, who were forced to march to Japanese prison camps. They remained in the camps for two years, until freed when General Douglas MacArthur recaptured the Philippines in 1944.

Shortly before Corregidor fell on 6 May 1942, an American submarine, the USS Spearfish, entered Manila Bay to rescue military and civilian nurses. Chief Nurse Annie Mealer refused to go, choosing to stay with the hundreds of wounded American servicemen; later, General Jonathan Wainwright, who was at the scene, wrote: "I consider--and still consider--this a truly great act of heroism" (p. 31). The nurses on Corregidor, many weak from hunger and disease, were taken by boat to Santo Tomas Prison in Leyte, the Philippines, where they joined 4,000 other nurses and civilian prisoners. Captured nurses continued to care for other sick or dying prisoners, often giving up some of their own rations to those in greater need.

Besides stations in the Pacific, Army and Navy nurses served around the world--in New Caledonia, Italy, France, Alaska, Africa, China, Burma, and India. Amidst the chaos of battle, nurses brought order, cleanliness, and calm, just as Florence Nightingale had done during the Crimean War. Ernie Pyle, an American war correspondent, left Anzio on a hospital ship and reported: "Nobody was ever dirty or cold. Cabin windows had no shutters. The wounded got beautiful treatment. They lay on mattresses and had clean white sheets--the first time since going overseas for most of them" (p. 111).

The care given by the nurses raised the soldiers' and sailors' spirits as nothing else did; little by little, the newly admitted patients would begin to talk, then joke and laugh when they were bathed and fed, their wounds dressed, and they could feel safe again. The nurses' extraordinary wartime achievements earned for them the status held by all other military personnel when, in 1947, Congress legislated a permanent Army Nurse Corps and Regular Army commissioned-officer status for Army and Navy nurses.

The book includes chapter notes, primary and secondary sources of information, a list of all Army personnel who contributed interviews and oral histories, a bibliography, and an index. I recommend it highly for all academic levels, but it is particularly useful for military historians.

Ada Romaine-Davis
Johns Hopkins University

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