THERE WAS NEVER A “CAVALRY”

“Collateral damage” was a catch phrase in the halls of the 77^th Congress of the United States of America. The Washington “fat cats”—the Senators and Congressional Representatives from 1941 to 1943—included a hundred and twenty-one men and ten women. Prior to entering the war, the United States Congress and the populace were bitterly divided over issues such as the New Deal and whether to intervene in the conflict erupting in Europe. These divisions persisted during the war. But the US was quickly involved in multiple theaters of war soon after President Roosevelt declared war on Japan following the horrific and unforeseen bombing of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, by the Japanese.

“We must prioritize our resources,” went the debate. “Our military is stretched thin, and we must address the most crucial threats.” “Hitler in Germany and Mussolini in Italy are our fiercest opponents in this war, and we must direct the bulk of our war chest into those theaters.” “We must focus on defeating the Axis powers in Europe.”

“There is no time to run a rescue operation in the Philippines! They are too far away, and they are not as central to American defense positions as European interests. Besides, we have no military base in the Bataan Peninsula, so it is futile to think the troops there can be saved in a reasonable manor. They must be written off as ‘collateral damage!’”

“Collateral damage.”`

The American and Filipino ground troops never considered that they might be considered “collateral damage” as they held off the Japanese on the northern edge of the Bataan Peninsula in the four months following Christmas Eve 1941. The situation was dire from the beginning, and it was nothing short of a miracle that the Japanese were initially unable to break through that fragile line. But there was so much at state, and the American and Filipino forces never considered failure as an option. The number of patients in Jungle Hospitals #1 and #2 had burgeoned to 5000, with new “wards” being created weekly. Each time more soldiers fell and were brought to the outdoor emergency “rooms,” a bulldozer would arrive and push back the jungle overgrowth to make room for more patients. The hospitals were running out of medical supplies and medicines. Without enough mosquito nets for all patients, let alone staff, malaria, dengue fever, and yellow fever were winning the battle. Infections were rampant.

To make matters worth, General Douglas MacArthur, the high commander over all Philippine military operations, took his wife and young son and left the island nation for Australia in March of 1942. MacArthur believed he could better serve his own troops by mounting a counteroffensive from the safe shores of Australia, but this was hardly the case. His absence was met with anger, bitterness and in many cases unforgiveness from those he believed he was serving the best way he could. He promised to return but did not do so until the damage was done, and the war was over. Jungle Hospitals #1 and #2 were almost completely out of operating supplies, and the patients and staff were trying desperately to keep going just one more day. Some of the nurses had been evacuated, and most of the remaining ones were now on Corregidor Island in the bowels of that rocky fortress, still operating a hospital. They were hungry and emaciated, but still doing what they always did, just going to work under the worst of conditions. The nurses took a hospital bed sheet and wrote their names on it in the hope that their loves ones would know they had been there, in they event they were captured and never heard from again.

But Washington didn’t seem to care much about any of the troops and medical staff and patients on Bataan and Corregidor. “Collateral damage.” There was no “cavalry” set to ride in and “save” the nurses or anyone else there. Washington didn’t seem to care much about a pretty, brown-haired nurse named Sally Blaine from Bible Grove, Missouri, who was picked up by Japanese troops on the island of Mindanao after the fateful sea plane that was to carry her to safety tore out its fuel tank on a rock as it tried to take off .

Sally too was “collateral damage.”

***

After Bataan fell to the Japanese, General Edward King surrendered to the Japanese on April 9, 1942. But the horror continued. The Japanese made the captured American and Filipino soldiers march sixty-six miles back to Manila. Many men were severely wounded and gravely ill. Those with amputations were helped by more able-bodied American and Filipino troops, medical staff, and other patients. Those who stumbled or fell were shot by the Japanese and left at the side of the road. This grueling journey became known as the Bataan Death March.

On October 20, 1944, General Douglas MacArthur waded ashore on the Philippine island of Lyte. Almost all of the troops still alive were in Prisoner of War camps all over the Philippines. In June, 1945, MacArthur finally claimed his victory over the Japanese. Only one-third of the men MacArthur left behind survived to see his return.

CHIGGERS

Sally and the other nurses often had dreams of the places back in the States that they had called home before coming to the Philippines. Sally would spend some nights having pleasant visions of the beautiful green hillsides around the family’s farm home. In her dreams, acres of once brown soil bore peas sprouts and beans and corn, all growing bigger and greener and eventually ripening in the hot summer sun. The heat and humidity were intense in the Missouri summers, and there wasn’t much relief during all the summer chores that had to be done day after day, and most evenings. One night, Sally’s dream turned to what she would call a nightmare. Her mind drifted off into something that woke her up in a cold sweat, which had nothing to do with the malaria that was now Sally’s constant companion. One night, Sally dreamed she was being bitten by chiggers.

Although those tiny insects were practically invisible to the naked eye, Sally dreamed that the chigger larvae attached themselves to her clothing when she walked near some tall grass. Soon the larvae wound up on her arms and legs and bore right into her skin. A liquid chemical was then released onto its host (poor Sally), and the substance was beginning to kill her skin cells. The dead cells then made a sort of “straw” with which the larvae could “drink” live skin tissue. An almost unbearable itching followed that could last up to two weeks. Yes, every child (and adult) in northern Missouri had suffered “fever dreams” from chigger bites, and Sally’s generation knew all about these microscopic “summer vampires.” Sally woke up from a nasty nightmare that had begun as a nocturnal trip home from the jungles of the Bataan Peninsula! She shivered at the dream about these nasty little creatures.

***

Later that morning during the shift change, Sally mentioned her dream to another nurse from the Midwest.

“Oh, Sally!” the other nurse exclaimed. “What an awful nightmare! It makes my skin crawl just to think about chiggers!

A little while later, a sergeant was brought in from the front line, all banged up like he’d been in a fight—which he had. Since toilets were scarce on the battlefield, the sergeant had headed into an overgrown area where he was attempting to relieve himself when a Japanese infantryman jumped him and knocked him to the ground. The sergeant quickly rolled over to face the other man, kicking his rifle out of his arms. The two struggled before some American soldiers came. They rescued the sergeant, but not before the enemy had bloodied his nose and punched him several times, bruising him badly. The nurses were cleaning him up when the sergeant expressed his frustration.

“These Japanese, they just keep coming! We can wipe out whole platoons of them, but we turn around and there are more where those came from!” he lamented. “Can you nurses tell me what in the world us Americans and Filipinos could use that would knock them back for a while to give us a breather?”

The two midwestern nurses looked at each other, and simultaneously shouted, “Chiggers!” And they burst out laughing, leaving the poor sergeant, who was from dry and dusty southern Nevada, completely perplexed. Finally, the nurses’ laughter subsided, and they did their best to explain to the sergeant about how the chiggers might set the enemy on fire for several days.

ANGELO’S WOUND GETS INFECTED

“Soldier, what can we do for you today?” the forty-something doctor asked Angelo.

“Sir, I have a sore on my leg here. I was injured the day Clark Field was bombed three weeks ago, and it doesn’t seem to be healing…”

“Let’s have you lie back…Oh, I see,” said the doctor, squatting to see the injury more closely. “You had some sutures taken the day you were injured?” Angelo nodded. “Well, son, it looks as if it’s gotten infected. We’re going to need to open it up and clean it out. Otherwise, the infection will just get worse, especially in this jungle environment. Prime conditions for a wound like that to fester.” The doctor moved around the pallet and began to wash his hands in a basin of water with a bottle of antiseptic soap nearby. “Nurse!”

A young nurse came into the area where the doctor and Angelo were. “Oh, hi, Angelo! What you got going on this time?” She smiled and approached him as he sat up on the edge of the pallet.

“You know this young man?”

“Oh, sure, Doctor. Everybody knows Angelo! He’s about the nicest Filipino soldier in the whole darned Army!”

‘Thank you, Mary,” Angelo answered. “But it’s you who is nice. You and all the ‘angel nurses; here in the Jungle Hospitals. Doctor, these girls deserve a raise! They are so good to the patients, and none of ‘em ever have a bad day. Every time I seen any one of them, they have a smile of their faces, and they are wonderful to everybody they see.”

“Well, that’s good to know, soldier…Nurse, please prepare some numbing medication if we have any…”

“We have just about enough here to partially numb that area, Doctor. Would you like me to draw that up?”

“That’s all we have? When did the supply get so low?”

“I can tell you that, Doctor. I work in hospital procurement. We have been rationing lots of medicines, including numbing ones, for a few days now. Inventory’s not so good hospital-wide.”

“Well, young man, I don’t know how that wound got so bad working around the hospital here. We try to keep it as dry and clean as we can under these conditions…”

“I also work in mechanics, sir. I maybe got my wound dirtier there. What we have for our repair garage is a mud pit, plus all the oil and gasoline we use in the vehicles gets all spread around.”

“Son, we’re going to get you as numbed up as best we can, but I’m afraid you’re going to have to bite on this chunk of wood and say a few swear words if you need to.”

“Oh, you won’t hear Angelo swearing,” the nurse said. “I don’t think any of us have ever heard a bad word come out of his mouth!”

With that, the doctor injected what medicine he had available and poked around with the needle to test the wound. Angelo winced and took the wood piece the doctor offered him. He bit down and braced himself as the doctor began carefully opening the infected wound. The nurse passed the bromide to the doctor for him to use in cleaning out the wound. Then, as quickly as he could, before the numbing medicine wore off, the doctor carefully but loosely packed the wound with gauze but left it unsutured so it could drain and hopefully heal. The wound was then covered with a bandage to keep it clean. No antibiotics were available to the doctors in the Bataan Jungle.

“Soldier,” the doctor said when the procedure was completed, “you did really well. I expected you’d be hollering at us for all the pain we inflicted!”

Angelo was a few shades paler than he had been, but he smiled at the doctor and thanked him.

“But,” the doctor said, “I’m placing you on light duty and NO mechanics work for at least two weeks.” Angelo started to protest, but the doctor held his hand up. “I’ll be speaking to your commanding officer, and we’ll see if we can keep you busy enough here in Jungle Hospital Two. You can work with all the ‘nice’ nurses you like so much. And that way we can keep a close eye on that wound. You do your best to keep it clean, now. That’ll be all.”

The doctor left, and Angelo told the nurse he didn’t want any special treatment, and he wished he could work in the mechanics area like before.

“You heard the doctor, Angelo! You need to have us keep an eye on that incision. And you need to keep it clean! C’mon, I’ll take you to the charge nurse and she’ll find something for you to do!”

CHRISTMAS IN CAPTIVITY

The nurses didn’t want to remember those fleeting days of the previous year, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the Japanese invasion of the island of Luzon. They had thought they would be attending all the Christmas parties put on by the Clark Field Officers Club, the recently formed United Service Organization, or USO, and other private parties around the Manila area. Instead, they were fleeing Stotsenberg Hospital after Clark Field next door to the hospital was bombed in broad daylight. Before Christmas Day was over, Sally was one of twenty-five Army Nurses and one Navy Nurse setting up the outdoor Jungle Hospital #1 near the tiny town of Limay on the Bataan Peninsula. As December 1941 faded from view, there was no time even to say, “Merry Christmas” to each other. The patients needed them every hour of their twelve-hour shifts.

For the most part, Christmas “stateside” looked and felt quite different in 1942. Hollywood took advantage of the military conflicts to produce movies like Casablanca, starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. During war time, those at home went to the movies as an escape from worries about loved ones away at war. The Europe and the South Pacific conflicts were being fought by many American men, with a lesser number of women in mostly “nonessential” jobs. The women mostly stayed home, taking care of the children. and tending to homemaking duties. But when the need for more factory workers increased, women also went to work, often in the same jobs their husbands vacated to fight the war. The women largely received less money than their male counterparts, and they had to work extra hard to prove themselves while working in “a man’s job.” The government opened childcare centers for the children of working mothers.

The US had begun having “black out drills” months before the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the northern section of the Philippine Islands. After the US entered the war, the drills were more commonplace, especially in the towns and cities along the western coast of the US. Area residents practiced turning their lights off to make them less visible to enemy places overhead.

Christmas dinner might have been slightly leaner in 1942, even for those who raised turkeys or chickens. Many items were rationed, such as sugar, coffee, processed foods, (canned, frozen, etc.), meats and canned fish, cheese, canned milk, and fats. The government put out recipes for “victory cakes,” which used very little (if any) sugar. Also popular during the war were gelatin desserts.

If these items were not readily available on the grocers’ shelves, one would assume they were being used to feed US troops around world…except for those in German and Japanese prisoner of war camps throughout Europe and the South Pacific.

By the time their first Christmas in captivity in December 1942 rolled around at Santo Thomas Internment Camp, the nurses and the other medical staff had been dreaming of being home with their family and friends. Maybe a special sweetheart would come to mind, or maybe they would imagine what sort of gifts they would receive if they were only home to be with those they held dear. But the prisoners of the Japanese in Manila, at least, had been planning for months to have the best possible Christmas celebration they could throw together.

The missionary prisoners held several open-air religious services to celebrate the birth of Christ. All were invited to attend. Prison leadership, both men and women, from all walks of life and various skills gathered to organize their own Santa’s workshop, with the goal of having at least one gift for each child in the camp. They made toys out of wood scraps and painted them bright colors. They repaired old toys donated to the camp by Filipino friends. Prisoners carved, crafted, and created every gift they could think of: cars, scooters, and rag dolls, complete with doll wardrobes. Shortly before Christmas, internees learned that a group of children had just arrived from the Iloilo Internment Camp. There were no gifts for the new arrivals, so the internees worked feverishly to construct 100 more presents. On Christmas Eve, Santa Claus arrived at the iron gates of the Santo Tomas compound, with a huge sack slung over his shoulder. The Japanese guards even got into the Christmas spirit and opened the gate for Santa. They didn’t even ask if he had a pass to enter!

The captives at Santo Tomas were allowed to purchase extra food with their own money, which was a blessing for those who had money at their disposal. Otherwise, they could eat in the prisoner dining room where the fare was consistent if not tasty: overcooked rice, gruel (a thin soup made with water and good intentions, but not much nutrition and even less flavor). As Christmas approached, the prison cafeteria became almost deserted when the prisoners opted to buy food or show up at someone’s shanty who happened to be cooking up something that smelled like heaven itself. Groups of friends who didn’t have money to buy food for a Christmas feast would combine what they had and always share. A chocolate bar might be cut into ten or twelve pieces so everyone could have a little taste. A couple of eggs could be boiled, chopped up with vegetables they had grown themselves, and made into an egg salad for sandwiches. They sometimes gave handmade gifts to one another. The 1942 census of Santo Tomas Internment Camp was 3500 people, and Christmas of that year would never be forgotten.  

A CATHOLIC COLLEGE FOR THE PRISONER

Hello! It’s your author/friend, Meg Blaine Corrigan. I’ve had several months of working on the new book, MERCY MORE THAN LIFE: Sally Blaine Millett, WWII Army Nurse. Some early followers know that I blogged for eighteen weeks, sending out select portions of several chapters. I’m going to begin blogging again, and we’ll see if that motivates me to complete the manuscript! I am way behind my personal goal of finishing the book before Christmas 2023, but hopefully, life won’t throw anything else at me to get me off track! So our heroine, Sally, went from getting her Registered Nursing degree in San Diego to beginning an assignment in an American Army base hospital in the Philippines in August of 1941 to watching almost all of the planes destroyed in a bombing in December 8, 1941 (some called it “The Other Pearl Harbor”). On Christmas Eve, some two thousand patients, doctors, nurses, and other hospital workers were evacuated to the jungles of the Bataan Peninsula, where two open-air hospitals were “opened” and it was business as usual for four months until the Japanese broke through the infantry lines on the north end of the peninsula. The nurses had been evacuated on planes bound for Australia. The sea plane Sally was on bottomed out on rocks off the coast of one of the islands of the Philippines, and the nurses and the pilot were forced to hide on land until the Japanese found them too and took them to a POW camp in Manila. That’s where we pick up Sally’s story…

The University of Santo Tomas

The University of Santo Tomas was the largest Catholic institution of higher learning in the Pacific Rim. A walled compound with grounds totaling 48 acres in size, Santo Tomas was like a five-star hotel compared to some of the other Japanese POW camps in the Philippines.

After Manila fell to the Japanese, the enemy routed out the Jesuit community living inside the University’s vast compound. The invaders took the best of the accommodations for themselves, and then set about assembling a good number of the private citizens in the city who were suspected of being spies and transporting them to the security of Santo Tomas. Mostly American and British “ex-pats”—short for “expatriates”—these were people from other countries who had been residing in the Philippines for some length of time. Some made a conscious choice to live abroad; some had come as missionaries; some may not have been welcomed back in their home countries. Others came to the Philippines as tourists and just stayed put. Most had some monetary means to sustain this “bohemian” lifestyle. Those who found themselves at Santo Tomas on the business end of the Japanese soldiers’ rifles were quick to adapt to their new life. They wasted no time staking out a territory for themselves and their friends and families. They either claimed a space inside the massive buildings that made up the University, or if they were late arrivers, they built makeshift “shanties” in the courtyard, which was completely surrounded by the University buildings and a six-foot brick wall. If this collection of prisoners of war behaved themselves, the Japanese largely left them alone, except for a mandatory roll call every night at 7:30.

Before the first few months had passed with prisoners being held at Santo Tomas, the Americans and the British had the place so organized, the Japanese didn’t think about sending any of the

prisoners to another POW camp. The nurses, along with a few missionary and private practice physicians that had been rounded up, made a pact with the Japanese that they would open and maintain a hospital for both prisoners and Japanese guards if the Japanese left them alone (except for the nightly roll call). The physicians had some surgical instruments, and other supplies were found in the infirmary at Santo Tomas. And so the nurses did what they had always done: they cared for patients with malaria, dengue fever, yellow fever, battle wounds, and other debilitating conditions. Even the nurses who were sick, like Sally who was never free from the symptoms of malaria, were given lighter tasks and allowed to get plenty of rest.

A CATHOLIC COLLEGE FOR THE PRISONERS

The University of Santo Tomas was the largest Catholic institution of higher learning in the Pacific Rim. A walled compound with grounds totaling 48 acres in size, Santo Tomas was like a five-star hotel compared to some of the other Japanese POW camps in the Philippines.

After Manila fell to the Japanese, the enemy routed out the Jesuit community living inside the University’s vast compound. The invaders took the best of the accommodations for themselves, and then set about assembling a good number of the private citizens in the city who were suspected of being spies and transporting them to the security of Santo Tomas. Mostly American and British “ex-pats”—short for “expatriates”—these were people from other countries who had been residing in the Philippines for some length of time. Some made a conscious choice to live abroad; some had come as missionaries; some may not have been welcomed back in their home countries. Others came to the Philippines as tourists and just stayed put. Most had some monetary means to sustain this “bohemian” lifestyle. Those who found themselves at Santo Tomas on the business end of the Japanese soldiers’ rifles were quick to adapt to their new life. They wasted no time staking out a territory for themselves and their friends and families. They either claimed a space inside the massive buildings that made up the University, or if they were late arrivers, they built makeshift “shanties” in the courtyard, which was completely surrounded by the University buildings and a six-foot brick wall. If this collection of prisoners of war behaved themselves, the Japanese largely left them alone, except for a mandatory roll call every night at 7:30.

Before the first few months had passed with prisoners being held at Santo Tomas, the Americans and the British had the place so organized, the Japanese didn’t think about sending any of the

prisoners to another POW camp. The nurses, along with a few missionary and private practice physicians that had been rounded up, made a pact with the Japanese that they would open and maintain a hospital for both prisoners and Japanese guards if the Japanese left them alone (except for the nightly roll call). The physicians had some surgical instruments, and other supplies were found in the infirmary at Santo Tomas. And so the nurses did what they had always done: they cared for patients with malaria, dengue fever, yellow fever, battle wounds, and other debilitating conditions. Even the nurses who were sick, like Sally who was never free from the symptoms of malaria, were given lighter tasks and allowed to get plenty of rest.

A CATHOLIC COLLLEGE FOR THE PRISONERS

Santo Tomas University

The University of Santo Tomas was the largest Catholic institution of higher learning in the Pacific Rim. A walled compound with grounds totaling 48 acres in size, Santo Tomas was like a five-star hotel compared to some of the other Japanese POW camps in the Philippines.

After Manila fell to the Japanese, the enemy routed out the Jesuit community living inside the University’s vast compound. The invaders took the best of the accommodations for themselves, and then set about assembling a good number of the private citizens in the city who were suspected of being spies and transporting them to the security of Santo Tomas. Mostly American and British “ex-pats”—short for “expatriates”—these were people from other countries who had been residing in the Philippines for some length of time. Some made a conscious choice to live abroad; some had come as missionaries; some may not have been welcomed back in their home countries. Others came to the Philippines as tourists and just stayed put. Most had some monetary means to sustain this “bohemian” lifestyle. Those who found themselves at Santo Tomas on the business end of the Japanese soldiers’ rifles were quick to adapt to their new life. They wasted no time staking out a territory for themselves and their friends and families. They either claimed a space inside the massive buildings that made up the University, or if they were late arrivers, they built makeshift “shanties” in the courtyard, which was completely surrounded by the University buildings and a six-foot brick wall. If this collection of prisoners of war behaved themselves, the Japanese largely left them alone, except for a mandatory roll call every night at 7:30.

Before the first few months had passed with prisoners being held at Santo Tomas, the Americans and the British had the place so organized, the Japanese didn’t think about sending any of the

prisoners to another POW camp. The nurses, along with a few missionary and private practice physicians that had been rounded up, made a pact with the Japanese that they would open and maintain a hospital for both prisoners and Japanese guards if the Japanese left them alone (except for the nightly roll call). The physicians had some surgical instruments, and other supplies were found in the infirmary at Santo Tomas. And so the nurses did what they had always done: they cared for patients with malaria, dengue fever, yellow fever, battle wounds, and other debilitating conditions. Even the nurses who were sick, like Sally who was never free from the symptoms of malaria, were given lighter tasks and allowed to get plenty of rest.

OH! YOU VERY SICK!!

Dear Readers: I know, I have not been posting blogs for several weeks, partly because I had the Upper Respiratory Thingie From Hell for almost two months. And also because I didn’t want to give the whole book away! I have been writing in earnest now that I am feeling like myself again. And when I wrote this chapter, I just had to share it with you!

Everywhere they went, the nurses always considered themselves to be on duty—either formally or informally—anytime they were awake, and even if they themselves were not feeling well. Their consideration for others, Americans and Filipinos and their Japanese captors worked both ways as Sally was about to find out.

A big ship arrived in Davao on the group’s fourth day there. The ship was to take them to Manila. The twenty-nurse group was assigned to D Deck, but the ship wasn’t full, so their cabins were very high out of the water. Sally and many others were sick with malaria, dengue fever, and other gastrointestinal upsets, which were spread by the mosquitos in the Bataan Jungle. The ill nurses were concerned that the high deck would be swaying in open water, causing them to feel like vomiting. For reasons that were not clear, the nurses’ cabins could only be reached from the dock at Davao by climbing a rope ladder. Sally started up that ladder, with a temperature of 103, knowing if she looked down or up, she would get dizzy and throw up, or worse, fall off the ladder. They had to climb while holding a blanket that they had been given to carry what few possessions they still had. The blankets were tied shut, and by this point the nurses were lucky to have soap, a washcloth, and maybe a change of clothes rolled up in that blanket. Sally carried that blanket in front of her as she climbed, and she was careful to keep her gaze looking straight ahead towards the ship so she would not lose the contents of her stomach.

Each of the nurses made it up the ladder and into their assigned cabins. Meals were served in a dining area cordoned off for the prisoners. Fortunately, there were interior stairs—not rope ladders—to reach the dining room. The first day on the water, Sally was lying in a deck chair with a high fever. Another nurse, Evelyn, took it upon herself to care for Sally, bringing her water so she could stay hydrated. Sally wasn’t interested in food at this point, but Evelyn brought her small plates and encouraged her to eat to keep her strength up. The care Evelyn provided Sally was greatly appreciated, but the unspoken part of this arrangement was: what was awaiting these young women when they arrived at the prisoner of war camp?

One day, Sally and Evelyn were sitting out on the deck, and a Japanese medic stopped to talk to them. This was highly unusual, because the Japanese soldiers just didn’t interact with the prisoners, and the two women were a little bit afraid of the medic. He took one look at Sally, and said, “Oh! You very sick!” He spoke with a heavy accent, but he knew English. He had a thermometer and took Sally’s temperature. He showed it to Sally, and it was still about 104 degrees. The medic gently touched Sally’s forehead and quickly drew back his hand.

“Oh! You HOT!”

Then he looked at Evelyn and said, “I got ice. You got ice cap?”

 Evelyn did have an ice cap, which she showed him. The medic led the way, and they disappeared from view. He took her to the ship’s kitchen and spoke to the head cook in Japanese. Then he switched to English so Evelyn would understand what was being said.

“I tell him,” said the medic, “give her all the ice she needs for her sick friend and any others who have fever.”

Evelyn was given ice to put on Sally’s forehead, which helped keep her fever down. The medic appeared again a short time later and gave Sally two little black pills and a glass of water. Then he tenderly lifted Sally’s head off the deck chair pillow so she could swallow the tiny pills. Sally didn’t know what he was giving her, but she took them anyway. She thought about how humane this Japanese man, their captor, was to her and she believed she could trust him.

There was an American woman on the ship who had lived in the Philippines all her life. She had a baby girl about six months old who couldn’t crawl yet. The woman asked Sally if she could leave the baby on a blanket by Sally while the mother went to get her meals. Sally said that would be alright, although she doubted she could even sit up if the baby needed attention.

The first day, the little girl began to cry a few minutes after the mother left. Sally was helpless to quiet the child, but after a few minutes, the medic appeared. He bent over and patted the baby’s back until she stopped crying. The medic backed away and watched the baby with tenderness in his eyes. When the baby began to cry again, the medic patted her back until she stopped. He tried this method several times, but each time, the little girl didn’t stay quiet long. The medic finally picked the child up and cradled her in his arms. He held her head in his left hand and supported her gently with his right hand. As he walked back and forth holding this complete stranger’s baby, he began kissing her on her forehead. He walked and kissed her—so many times, Sally lost count—and finally the child fell into a deep, much needed sleep. The medic put her back on the blanket, folding it around the baby. When he was sure she was sound asleep, the medic reached in his pocket and pulled out his wallet. He opened it and pulled out a small photograph of a baby.

“This my baby,” he said. He pointed at the little girl asleep on the blanket. “My baby boy!” he said beaming. “This his picture eight years ago. I have not seen my baby since he that size.”

Sally saw such tenderness in this man’s eyes, she almost cried.

These were some of many humane acts that the nurses would see from the Japanese during their captivity. Kindnesses were rare, and life in the prisoner of war camp would prove to be very difficult. But light shone in the darkness when individuals—Japanese, American, Filipino—showed compassion for each other when the opportunity arose.

DOWN ANOTHER RABBIT HOLE…

Hello, Dear Readers,

I suspect some of you realized I did not send out a blog post at the first of this week. My reason was simple: I got lost in a rabbit hole and I had to dig myself out. My plan was to do a simple Google search, asking the question: “What was the reason that no efforts were made to rescue the American patients, doctors, nurses, and Filipino staff who were stranded on the Bataan Peninsula and Corregidor Island?” I planned to write my blog about that subject. Starting last weekend, I searched, literally, for days, onto one site and then to another, and another, until…I just gave up. Each site revealed nothing about this thorny question. I tried many way to find out, beginning with the question above, and pursuing each website that looked even slightly promising, only to come up with a blank page and a weary mind. I even tried a different starting point: “What happened after General MacArthur and his wife and son left Corregidor Island?” or “Did General Jonathan “Skinny” Wainwright stay on Corregidor until the Japanese captured them?” Still nothing of the “why” no help came before their capture.

I was reminded of a quote from Albert Einstein: “If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn’t be called research.” And another quote I heard first from Ann Lamont: “If you steal from one source, that’s ‘plagiarism;’ if you steal from many sources, that’s called ‘research.’” This week, I wasn’t stealing from anyone. I just plain reached a dead end.

If I didn’t know better, I might think the answer to my questions were and still are a military top secret, or part of a national security risk. What I have heard, probably from Aunt Sally herself, is that the United States Congress and President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his successor, President Harry S. Truman, chose to channel a good portion of its war efforts into the European Theater, where Hitler and Mussolini were doing there best to lay all the countries flat. And we all know the outcome and the profound loss of soldiers’ lives in the last battles in Europe. May 8, 1945 was called VE Day, or Victory in Europe Day. I did find a quote from President Truman on VE Day, when he cautioned that the Allies “must work to finish the War” by defeating the Japanese in the Pacific. Kudos to Truman for remembering the Pacific Campaigns. Sally and the others at Santo Tomas were freed in February, 1945. But the Japanese did not surrender until August, 1945, when President Truman ordered the atomic bombs to target two Japanese Cities, Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

So here is where my faithful readers can help me out: Whether you are a WWII scholar, or you are among the “trivia challenged,” most of you know how to search the Web through Google or other search engines. If you have a few spare minutes, would you please do a search of your own and send me links to anything you can find? The subject, again, is “What was the reason that no efforts were made to rescue the American patients, doctors, nurses, and Filipino staff who were stranded on the Bataan Peninsula and Corregidor Island?” You may send anything you find to MegCorrigan@comcast.net

Thank you so much! I will continue to let you in on some of Sally’s Philippine Adventures, and I’ll reserve enough “stuff” that you will all want to pre-order the book, sooner than you think!

Grace and Peace,

Meg Corrigan

MERCY MORE THAN LIFE TRIVIA QUIZ

Okay, book lovers, history buffs, and super sleuths! Let’s see how much you remember about Sally’s story! You’ve been reading about her for fifteen weeks now, and I’m pulling the plug on the regular blogs so that some people will want to buy the book when it comes out! So today, we’ll play a little trivia quiz and see how you do! The answers are at the end of the quiz. And no prizes. Just bragging rights if you get them all right.

Question #1: Sally was born and raised in what state?

1. California
2. Ohio
3. Missouri
4. New Mexico

Question #2: What was Sally’s name before she got her nickname?

1. Hazel
2. Daisy
3. Lillie
4. Ethel

Question #3:  Where did Sally do her nurses’ training?

1.  San Diego General Hospital
2. Baton Rouse School of Nursing
3. Memphis, Missouri Nurses’ Training Program
4. United States Army Nursing Corps

Question #4: What date did the Japanese invade the Philippines? (Hint: same time as another attack)

1. January 13, 1947
2. December 8, 1941
3. June 30, 1943
4. September 14, 1942

Question #5: After the Japanese invasion of the northern part of Luzon, Philippines, Sally and the nurses and doctors began moving patients from one hospital to another. Why did they do this?

1. To make the patients more comfortable.
2. Because the Big Wigs decided there were too many hospitals in the Philippines.
3. Because the Japanese were bombing all the hospitals from north to south.
4. Because there wasn’t enough staff to operate all the hospitals

Question #6: Why did the US and Philippine Armies make the decision to move the patients out to the Bataan Jungle?

1. Because of the many resorts there, which could house many patients
2. Because the Top Brass realized there would be no imminent rescue from the Japanese by US troops
3. The patients wanted to go to Bataan
4. The nurses and doctors wanted to go to Bataan

Let’s see how you all did on the quiz! Sorry, no prizes, just bragging rights if you get them all correct.

Question #1: Sally was born and raised in what state?

               c. Missouri

Question #2: What was Sally’s name before she got her nickname?

               d. Ethel

Question #3:  Where did Sally do her nurses’ training?

1.  San Diego General Hospital

Question #4: What date did the Japanese invade the Philippines?

               b. December 8, 1941 (same day as the Pearl Harbor attack, but 18 hours later)

Question #5: After the Japanese invasion of the northern part of Luzon, Philippines, Sally and the nurses and doctors began moving patients from one hospital to another. Why did they do this?

b. Because the Japanese were bombing all the hospitals from north to south.

Question #6: Why did the US and Philippine Armies make the decision to move the patients out to the Bataan Jungle?

b. Because the Top Brass realized there would be no imminent rescue from the Japanese by US troops

Meg Blaine Corrigan is the author of four books: Then I Am Strong: Moving From My Mother’s Daughter to God’s Child, a memoir about growing up in an alcoholic home; Saints With Slingshots: Daily Devotions For The Slightly Tarnished But Perpetually Forgiven Christian, Books One and Two; and Perils of a Polynesian Percussionist, a novel depicting Meg’s time playing drums in a Hawaiian Road Show. Her latest project is to tell the story of her Aunt Ethel “Sally” Blaine Millett, who was an American Army nurse in the Philippines when WWII began. “Sally” joined about a hundred other nurses and 50-some doctors in transporting about two thousand patients from Statsenburg Hospital north of Manila (with more arriving every day) to the jungle on the Bataan Peninsula. They hid the patients from the Japanese for about four months until they were all captured and placed in POW camps for over three years before being liberated by American forces. This blog contains excerpts from the book in real time as Meg is writing and posting a blog once weekly. The book’s title is MERCY MORE THAN LIFE: Sally Blaine Millett, WWII Army Nurse. The anticipated date of publication is spring 2023.Meg’s website is www.MegCorrigan.com . She lives in a tiny apartment in Little Canada, Minnesota with her species-confused tropical plants and her rescue Carousel Horse, Mr. Ed.