Rate this book

We Band Of Angels: The Untold Story Of The American Women Trapped On Bataan (2013)

by Elizabeth Norman(Favorite Author)

4.24 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

0812984846 (ISBN13: 9780812984842)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Random House Trade Paperbacks

review 1: Before reading this book, I knew virtually nothing about the American forces in the Philippines during WWII. It was very educational and inspiring for me to read the account of these brave women, and I'm grateful to the author for spending so much time preserving their experiences in print. I had trouble at times following the many individual stories of the nurses and wished for more detail about some of them. Their group identity, however, was what held them together.
review 2: The title is a take on Shakespeare's famous St. Crispen's Day speech from Henry V in which Henry claims that those who fight in battle are joined like no other and shall forever be remembered:"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be... more my brother;"But those who survive in battle must be brought back to health in order to live and be remembered. Their pain needs easing. They needed stringent care. And for this they depended on a "band of angels" like those in nurse's uniforms. Many books have been written about the battles of Bataan and Corregidor, but few have focused on the brave and steadfast nurses who took care of thousands of wounded men in the battles on the Phillipines and suffered terrible hardship in the jungles of Bataan, the rock of Corregidor and the prisoner of war camp, Santo Tomas. This exemplary work fills in that missing history, plummeting the reader into an engaging story of the nurses fortitude and strength during this terrible period of WWII.Rarely does a book bring tears to my eyes, but after following the incredible trials of the Navy and Army nurses, when the American tanks break down the iron gates of Santos Tomas and one knows they are finally going home, you would have to be stone not to be moved. Many years have gone by and now the United States and Japan are allies. So this question is one I keep asking: why can't we all just skip the wars and become allies the world over? Why does history keep repeating itself with war after war, even after so many have seen the horror of it? Humans are fallible, sometimes hateful beings, but at the opposite end of the spectrum stand the angels of Bataan and Corregidor. This is their story, one which should be more widely known. less

Download links for: We Band of Angels: The Untold Story of the American Women Trapped on Bataan

Advertising