The Angels of Bataan were the members of the United States Army Nurse Corps and the United States Navy Nurse Corps who were stationed in the Philippines at the outset of the Pacific War and served during the Battle of the Philippines (1941–1942). When Bataan and Corregidor fell, 11 navy nurses, 66 army nurses, and 1 nurse-anesthetist were captured and imprisoned in and around Manila. They continued to serve as a nursing unit while prisoners of war. After years of hardship, they were finally liberated in February 1945.
Liberated nurses, February 12, 1945
Image: Army nurses rescued from Santo Tomas 1945g
Sternberg General Hospital, Manila, 1940.
Malinta Tunnel hospital ward
United States Navy Nurse Corps
The United States Navy Nurse Corps was officially established by Congress in 1908; however, unofficially, women had been working as nurses aboard Navy ships and in Navy hospitals for nearly 100 years. The Corps was all-female until 1965.
Group photograph of the first twenty Navy nurses, appointed in 1908
USS Red Rover by F. Muller
Lenah H. Sutcliffe Higbee
Nurse Hazel Herringshaw and two Marine Corps patients, 1918