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.

A MOTHER’S LOVE

It was a typical summer’s day, as if anything was “typical.” Since the fall of Bataan and Corregidor, Sally’s mother, Altie Blaine, usually suffered silently, trying to be stoic in her approach to life.  Two of her sons had served in WWII. One had driven to the house in Bible Grove from Kansas City, and the other lived nearby, so it was easier to drive up to see her. She and Sally’s father William had sold the farm and moved into a tiny clapboard house in the little village of Bible Grove. Then, William had died suddenly, probably of a heart attack. Altie’s youngest charge found him lying inside the shed. There was no ambulance, so Altie called on neighbors and friends to help get William in somebody’s truck and head for the nearest hospital. But Altie already knew that he was gone. She could tell, holding his head in her lap, that there was no movement of him, no rhythmic breathing, nothing to expect hope in this situation. She and her youngest child would be alone in the house. Altie had lost one son in WWI, when he contracted a fever at boot camp. Now, word was the Americans and Filipino soldiers might come to this camp to search everything. Altie tired not to think about her daughter, squalling around in a filthy POW camp…sometimes just preparing a meal for each of them……brought peace and calm. By then the Blaines had soldiered on, literally, and gone about their business, perhaps sending up a prayer or two for Sally’s safety, simultaneously with dark thoughts that things would never change, that the world would be at war for a long time.

The mail came, this day in late summer, so Altie wiped her hands and went to greet the carrier at the front door. The look he had on his face was won of loss and deep sorrow He handed Sally the letter; he knew it was bad news but he was still hopeful about a prison swam or something to rescue both men and women.

With shaking hands, Altie opened the letter with great care, but she dreaded reading it. Suddenly, a neighbor stood beside her. “Do you want me to read it, Altie?” the woman said.

Altie shook her head up and down.

The neighbor read the contents, which turned out to be a telegram. It read, “Mrs. Blaine, your daughter Ethel “Sally” Blaine is confirmed to be alive and incarcerated at Santo Thomas University. You may write her there. Your most current address has also been obtained by the Japanese.”

Altie could not hold back her tears. The neighbor surrounded her in a big hug, which surprised Altie. But she hugged her back. Altie cried on the neighbor’s shoulder while the woman continued to fill that void a bit when she prayed for Altie and for Sally.

HOPE FOR ESCAPE

Sally and the other nurses weren’t on Corregidor Island long. On April 29^th, two seaplanes arrived to evacuate the remaining nurses and some wives of men stationed in the Philippines. The aircraft were PBYs, or patrol bomber (with the Y being the code assigned to the manufacturer). These were US Navy medium to heavy twin amphibious aircraft used for maritime patrol, water bombing, and search and rescue. In the 1930’s, the Navy invested heavily in developing these long-range flying boats, which did not require runways, instead having the entire ocean to pick up speed to take flight.

An older colonel on the Rock told Sally it was Emperor Hirohito’s birthday, so it was a good day to make a break for it and evacuate the last of the nurses. The colonel said it was pretty certain that the Japanese would not be fighting that day, and sure enough, about noon all the enemy planes disappeared out of the sky. The women were anxious to get the evacuation over with, but the planes had to go through a safety check first. Each plane had a crew of seven, including the pilot and co-pilot, a navigator, a radio operator, a radar operator, and from one to four gunners. All equipment needed to be checked out. Add in a half dozen or more nurses in each plane, trying to get to safety, flying in 100 plus degree heat pouring in the glass windows, and this was not a luxury ride.

“There were twenty of us,” Sally later told friends. “We got on two different airplanes, PBY’s, and that was where I ran into Col. Wood again. He oversaw the women on our plane, and I felt I could trust him.”

The plane Sally left at midnight enroute to Mindanao, an island about 500 miles from Corregidor. The plane needed to take on fuel at several points to make the four-thousand-mile trip to Australia. They place landed at about 4:45 in the morning, and the nurses had a leisurely day to see the shops and outdoor markets in the small town near the dock. The owners of the hotel there told the nurses they could all come to the hotel and get some rest before taking off again at dark. Sally was excited to sleep in a real bed with real sheets, even if it was for a few hours!

“I realized it was the first time I had been out in the daylight without being under gun fire since we fled from Manila!” Sally exclaimed. Was that just four months ago? How could so many crazy things have happened in that short amount of time?

After that night, the PBY crew and the women assembled at the landing dock. They all got aboard, and the first plane took off in a huge spray of water. When they were a safe distance out, the plane Sally was on started to taxi across the water away from the dock, but there were large rocks in the water. The bottom of the plane made a horrible screeching sound as it bumped over some huge boulders. The fuselage now had a gaping hole in the bottom of it. Another nurse had a tennis racket. She got down on her knees and tried unsuccessfully to stem the flow of water. She quit trying when the water came up to her neck. The nurses all stood up in the plane, and the ankle-deep water in the cabin was rising fast. The pilot limped the plane back to the landing dock.

Immediately, everyone deplaned and scattered out across the little town. They agreed to travel with only one other nurse, lest they all be captured at once. Sally and another nurse went back to the hotel, where the owners had been so nice to them. But the owners were reluctant to shelter the women now. Finally, after much hand gesturing because of the language barrier between English and Tagalog, it was agreed the proprietors would put the nurses up for the remainder of that night, if they left early in the morning. But Sally was so frightened, she didn’t sleep at all, even in a real bed with real sheets.

Sally and the other nurse never saw anyone who was on that plane again. And they fully understood they might not be able to hide for long. There was now a target on their backs. The Japanese would surely find them.

STRATEGIC EVACUATION ARMY STYLE (part three)

The man who said the boat left for Corregidor “a long time ago” followed Sally back to where the other nurses were standing. He knew the senior nurse in their group. They came from the United States on the same troop ship the year before.

“I’ve got a smaller boat that will hold five including me,” he said.

So the five nurses talked about it and decided which one would stay behind. The bags and the people all got on the small boat and began making their way across the channel. The waves were splashing into the little boat, but not enough to dump them all into the water. Sally remembered for years afterwards how beautiful that little island looked that morning.

“Everything was silvery gold, the island itself and the water and the sky,” She said. Corregidor was nicknamed “the Rock,” because of its rocky terrain. That morning, the Rock was clothed in a gilded robe. It was impossible to tell where the water ended, and the sky began. The Rock appeared to be floating somewhere in between. The nurses knew that they were being evacuated to Corregidor because it was very likely the Japanese infantry would invade the open-air hospitals in the southern area of the peninsula of Bataan soon. Their commanding officer, General MacArthur, was long gone. The cavalry wasn’t coming to rescue anybody. They were on their own. But that morning, Sally would always remember the natural beauty all around them, and it was hard to believe at that moment that they were in any danger.

It was a short trip to the peer on the island, and the group got there safe and sound. The nurses were surprised when they got off the boat. Corregidor–The Rock–was a bustling Army installation. There were administrative buildings, a base exchange and commissary, a movie theater, a barber shop, and many more buildings to serve the needs and to entertain US and Filipino troops stationed there. The island was home to dozens of tropical plants and trees, a refreshing backdrop for the austere structures used by the troops.

But Sally and the other nurses were not here to work in the large hospital “topside.” They were on Corregidor so they could escape the enemy’s advances and be safe if—when the Japanese would claim victory. The nurses’ place of employment for the Army was inside the sprawling Malinta tunnel. After their arrival at the pier on Corregidor, the nurses found transportation to the mouth of the great tunnel system.

Inside the Dark Malinta Tunnel

Another group of nurses arrived after Sally’s group, and they reported a similar experience in getting the man with the small boat to take them over the channel. In fact, small groups of nurses arrived all day long, talking incessantly when they reached what would serve as their barracks. Some reported being strafed by bullets from Japanese planes flying low over the little boat.  Luckily no one was hurt, but that was the closest the nurses had come to being part of the very real war raging all around them.

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.

STRATEGIC EVACUATION ARMY STYLE, PART TWO

“Wait! I’ve lost my barracks bag!” Sally cried. “It fell off the fender into the ditch. It’s all my belongings, all that’s left anyway. Can’t you turn around? Or slow down so I can run back and get it”

Many cars in the 1940’s had a depression between the front fender and hood. The group could not get everyone’s baggage in the sedan, or in the trunk. Someone had placed Sally’s bag in that space by the fender, but the road was so bumpy, the bag worked its way out and bounced off, rolling into a ditch on the.” side of the road.

“Please, please, stop. That’s my clothes, let me get my clothes!”

Sally realized quickly that chivalry was dead in the Army. The driver didn’t offer to help Sally get her clothes, but he did stop the car. Sally wormed  her way out of the car and ran as fast as she could to grab the bag and get back before the driver decided to continue. The driver got out too, and went to a little stream to get some water for the car’s radiator. Sally had plenty of time to get back to the car, this time holding the big duffel in her lap for the rest of the trip. The driver stopped three more times, each time at a small stream so he could pour more water in the radiator. But he never asked Sally if she got her bag, and Sally was angry and discouraged at the way he ignored her completely.

The tired, dirty, nervous, disappointed little group of nurses were not in the mood to cheer when their driver finally pulled up to the pier at Mareveles. It took two different drivers in two different vehicles from 8:00 p.m. the previous night until 7:00 a.m. the next morning to go less than 10 miles. When they got to the pier, there were no boats, no activity, no passengers waiting. A couple of Filipino workers were taking a moment to enjoy the end of the chaos.  Sally yelled at one of them.

“Hey, you! Do you know anything about a boat for the nurses to go to Corrigedor?”

“Oh, yes,” said the man. “It came and went a long time ago.”

Sally’s heart sunk. First, they had not been able to board the place to fly to Australia. Then they had to walk to The motor pool, and the first driver ran out of gas. The second driver wouldn’t stop when Sally’s bag fell off the fender, and no one they had dealt with seemed to know what was going on! They could see the island of Corregidor not far away from where they were standing, but what were they supposed to do to get there? Swim?

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.

PENTHOUSE TO BUNKER

To all my faithful blog followers: The blog is late AGAIN, probably due to “operator error.” I’m posting it again, to be published immediately. I’ll try to do better next week! Thank you all! Meg.

Jean Marie Faircloth had always been accustomed to “creature comforts” beyond most people’s imaginations. She understood from early on that both sides of her family hailed from aristocratic Southern roots, had access to great wealth and all its trappings, and could boast of generations of military service, back to the Confederate Army and before. Jean loved all things military. It seemed that her meeting and falling in love with a man eighteen years her senior, General Douglas MacArthur, was a match made in heaven. She was just the kind of woman MacArthur would have chosen, if such an opportunity had presented itself.

Although she was a petite woman, she was fearless and confident enough in herself to be traveling alone to Shanghai in 1937.  On the ship was another notable passenger, General MacArthur, bound for the Philippines. The General had retired from a distinguished career in the United States Army in 1937, to become a Philippine Army field marshal advising the Philippine government in preparing them for their upcoming 1946 independence from the United States. Making a conscious decision, Jean skipped her trip to Shanghai and got off at Manila, where MacArthur also disembarked. She and the General maintained an exclusive relationship until their marriage two years later in New York, during MacArthur’s trip home to build support for the defense of the Philippines that never came.

Macarthur’s new wife hit the ground running with her vast knowledge of and love for the military. Jean was an asset to her husband’s position in the Philippines. She was a tireless ambassador of goodwill for the Allies in the South Pacific. And she loved every minute of her role. Quiet and composed, serving as a backdrop and constant support for her husband, Jean Evenings were spent at home in the penthouse built for the General at the posh Manila Hotel. Predictable, regimented, the couple lived their days in service to the people of the Philippines and the United States. When their only child was born, Arthur MacArthur IV, named after his paternal grandfather, the parents doted on him and raised him in a loving—and of course—structured environment.

When the Japanese invaded the Philippines, things changed rapidly. Within a matter of weeks, General MacArthur ordered his troops, including all staff from several hospitals, to move to the densely covered jungle where they would be hidden from the Japanese. The plan was to wait for more American troops to arrive to help vanquish the Japanese army and to destroy their aircraft. No one knew the troops would never arrive. Jean set about closing out the penthouse and preparing for the unknown.

How could this be, now, that this family, emergent from money and privilege, found themselves moving to an underground bunker on the Philippine Island of Corregidor, or “The Rock,” as it was called? How could they decide what to reasonably take along—or more importantly, leave behind—of their seemingly limitless possessions? China and silver? What use would they be? Fine glassware and linens? The Japanese bombing broke tougher glass products than theirs, and the Malinta Tunnel’s ceiling shed fine particles of concrete dust each time the enemy fired mortars at the ground above. And what of little four-year-old Arthur’s toys (mostly military trucks and ships and flying machines)? How can he play with them on a cold concrete floor in whichever portion of “the third lateral tunnel from the east entrance” that would be set up for the MacArthur family to live in? (The troops fondly call four-year-old Arthur “The Sergeant.”)

But Jean Macarthur squared her shoulders, took a deep breath, and resolved not to complain one bit about their new accommodations. Her husband was the high command of this crazy mission. He was determined to keep the American and Filipino hospital staff and patients, as well as the soldiers fighting on the front line, as safe as possible until American troops came. The sooner the better, she thought. But she was determined to do her part, no matter the cost, to support her husband and keep her son occupied.

***

The dark black night descended on Hospital #2 in the Bataan jungle. The canopy of foliage had a few open spots—they all knew where those open spaces were and hoped the Japanese knew nothing about them. The stars shone so brightly through those holes some nights that their beauty made Sally want to cry. Her fear had long since been replaced by a profound sadness and a longing for the meager possessions she left behind in Manila. Sally was now a charge nurse, responsible for the day-to-day treatment and care of over a thousand patients at a time. A few months into the outdoor adventure that was Bataan, Sally contracted malaria Refusing to receive any special treatment, she lay on her cot in the middle of the open-air med-surg ward and gave orders.

Sometimes she and the other nurses would talk about how they got here, to this unimaginable situation of creating a “hospital”—if one could call it that—in the middle of this senseless war. But all any of them could do was put one foot in front of the other and do the job they were assigned.

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.

RAINFOREST HOLIDAY

The Bataan Peninsula is largely covered by dense vegetation. There is a steep mountain range cutting through the area, with Mount Natib, about 4200 feet high in the north, and Mount Bataan, 4700 feet high in the south. Seven-inch tall tarsiers are one of the world’s smallest primates, and their adorable huge eyes study their surroundings, looking for danger. They are harmless but annoying when they become curious, especially when nearby humans are, say, performing a delicate operation on a fellow human. Long-glanded coral snakes are plentiful in the Bataan jungles as well. These are venomous snakes, as are cobras, vipers, and sea snakes, all native to the area, each fully capable of completely ruining a single nurse’s day in a heartbeat. Also, about twenty species of bats make their homes in the peninsula. Probably the most memorable is the giant golden-crowned flying fox, also known as the golden-capped fruit bat. It is one of the largest bat species in the world, weighing about three pounds, and having a “forearm length” of over eight inches. Not a welcome visitor during nighttime patient checks.

Why, one might ask, would the United States Army and Navy want to take patients out into this horrid jungle with potentially deadly species of snakes and many other animals all around them? The answer was clear: the Japanese wouldn’t be looking for them there, and hopefully, the Americans could hold off until more troops were sent in to rescue them.

Christmas Day was the first day several nurses were sent out to Bataan to begin setting up a hospital in a tiny town called Limay. At the same time as this new outdoor hospital was becoming a reality, the Army was trying to get beds sent to what would be called simply, “Jungle Hospital.” This facility was soon renamed Hospital Number Two. Hospital Number One had been set up at a place called Little Baguio, which had been a Philippine Army engineers’ headquarters. Hospital Number One had a building and double-decker patient beds were built inside. The doctors and nurses assigned to Hospital Number One tended to their patients inside this building.

Sally was assigned to Hospital Number Two. They had no buildings. They had no double-decker beds. They had bivouac mattresses lying on the ground. There were no bedside tables, no chairs, no furniture at all to speak of. The only protection against the elements was a makeshift covering over the medical records.

“This is the bleakest affair I ever saw in my life,” Sally said the day she arrived.

Water was drawn from a creek, by the nurses, for use for their patients. The only baths given to the patients were with cold water from that creek. Water was heated for cooking, but not for bathing. The nurses and officers bathed in the same creek where they got water for their patients, and the water was just as cold. They learned early on to wash hair and bodies expediently, get out of the creek and dry off, and dress as quickly as possible.

Within a short period of time, there were eighteen wards in Hospital Number Two, strung out along a small river called the Reall. Whenever the wards all filled up, a bulldozer would come in and cut a pathway through the jungle. Just the bottom foliage was cut; the canopy was left alone so the Japanese could not see where the Americans were hiding. In those days, there were no heat-sensing technologies, no GPS, nothing but the very beginnings of radar technologies. If the Japanese or the Americans saw enemy aircraft, they would shoot at it. The dense foliage in the Bataan region allowed the Americans and Filipinos to “hide in plain sight.”

“I felt completely protected,” Sally said later. “The canopy completely obliterated our view of the airplanes flying over and their view of us.  I loved it! I guess what you can’t see can’t hurt you!”

NEXT WEEK: RAINFOREST HOLIDAY (continued)

A CUP OF CHRISTMAS FEAR

No one was surprised to see that Angelo had managed to get assigned to drive the bus transporting the nurses to the bigger hospital in Manila. He was a man with many surprising talents, including assignments to work with the nurses. He greeted them with his usual positive attitude. Only a few days had passed since he had been injured during the bombing of Clark Field, but Sally knew Angelo was determined to keep his passengers in the spirit of the Christmas season.

“Hellooooooooo, Ladies!” he squeaked into the microphone. “I have for you sheets of American Christmas carols, and we sing them together, no?” He began passing out a sheet of song lyrics, making sure each nurse took one as he walked the aisle to the back of the bus.

“But, Angelo,” one nurse asked, “no one is here to accompany us! There are no instruments on the bus that I can see.”

“Ah, have faith, please, Miss Nurse! I have been practicing in my spare time and I will sing with you while I drive you. I will have my microphone on in the front.” He grinned as he took his seat at the wheel of the bus. “We start with ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem,’ first tune.”

And with that he began to sing in a rich tenor voice so compelling that the nurses soon all joined in.

As they drove through the gates of the beleaguered Clark Field, many signs pointed towards a wartime atmosphere. The gates were heavily guarded now, with many guards with bigger guns. A banner across the gate still wished those entering a “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,” but every nurse on the bus wondered what state the Philippine Islands would be in by Christmas. The sacred day was less than two weeks away, and some nurses had brought bags of wrapped gifts with them. Sally wondered if they would ever see anyone opening them.

After “Oh Little Town of Bethlehem,” they sang “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” while passing through the quiet countryside, followed by “Joy to the World” as they rode through a small town. The civilian community looked perfectly normal. Holiday decorations were everywhere. The people were going about their lives and getting ready for Christmas celebrations as if the American military installations had never been bombed. It seemed the people didn’t know the island nation had been invaded, or perhaps they thought the American troops had beaten back the Japanese forces. Or they were just holding their breath until they couldn’t deny what was happening any more.

Next was a familiar song, and Sally knew most of the words.

God rest ye merry gentlemen
Let nothing you dismay
For Jesus Christ our Savior
Was born on Christmas Day
To save us all from Satan’s pow’r…

Suddenly she stopped singing. Those words, Save us all from Satan’s pow’r… Sally felt a darkness descending over her. As much as she appreciated Angelo’s efforts to keep the nurses’ spirits high, Sally knew the signs were all around them: the Japanese had invaded the country, they had destroyed a great many US aircraft and buildings, and now they had forced the hospital to close. She thought of Statsenburg Hospital and what might become of that building. The nurses had left most of their belongings in the barracks, all Sally’s pretty dresses and jewelry for each outfit. She managed to pack some of her belongings—including her precious cosmetic kit—in a duffel bag. But things she had collected since her arrival here were mostly gone now. She knew they would never return to retrieve them. They were only told to bring their starched white nurses’ uniforms, white nylon stockings and white shoes, and of course, their nurses’ white hats.

Sally shuttered at their situation. To Save Us All From Satan’s Power? Satan seemed alive and determined to make life very, very difficult. Difficult indeed.

***

The abyss didn’t hiss. It didn’t growl. It cast a dark net of fear over the bus full of nurses. They thought the roaring in their ears was 0dd. They didn’t suspect that Pure Evil was coming for each one of them.

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 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 Little Canada, Minnesota.

RULES OF ENGAGEMENT

Sally and some of her nurse friends had been gone the whole weekend of December 6^th to the 8^th. A group of them had ridden the train to Manila from Statsenburg Hospital. The girls rented a hotel room, ate their meals out and went to some of the well-known dance clubs on Friday and Saturday evenings. You might say they painted the town red, but they paid the price riding the train back north to Clark Air Base overnight. They arrived back at the barracks at about 6:00 a.m. Some of the nurses went right to the hospital to work the early shift, but Sally didn’t have to work until the next day. She was asleep before she hit the pillow. Soon, an older nurse named Wila, who out ranked Sally, began shaking her.

“Wake up!” said Wila. “Pearl Harbor’s been bombed!”

Well, Sally thought that sounded bad, but in her tired brain, she reasoned that Pearl Harbor was a long way away, so that didn’t affect the Americans stationed in Manila. And anyway, Wila didn’t say who bombed Pearl Harbor. Sally expected it was the Japanese, but she didn’t think about the fact that the Philippines were a lot closer to Japan than Hawaii.

Wila was having none of this nonsense. She came back shortly later and almost tore Sally’s mosquito net off her bed.

“You get up right now,” she said to Sally. “Get up out of that bed, because Camp John Hay has been bombed now.”

Now that was only a little over sixty miles north of Clark Field and Statsenburg Hospital, so that got Sally’s attention. She got up and got dressed and everyone who wasn’t at the hospital went down to dinner.

And nothing happened. It was so quiet, no one knew what to make of the situation. When the news came that John Hay had been bombed, some of the pilots jumped in their planes and taken off to go see what was happening at the other facility. They came back quickly because whoever was doing the bombing had now disappeared. And it was true, no one was certain at first exactly who had bombed the Camp on the Philippines’ biggest island, Luzon.

The next day, still no sight of the planes doing the bombing. Sally was to go to work at 3:00 that day, so after lunch, she went upstairs to put on her nurse’s uniform. She put her foot up on a footstool to tie her shoelace, and she felt a kind of shudder. Even the barracks building shook a bit. She turned to look out the window, and saw a huge flash of light, past the hospital where the planes landed and took off. Finally, she heard a deafening noise that made her block her ears. And then black smoke. Billows and billows of black smoke. The air raid sirens screamed in protest. Sally knew instinctively that this meant the war had finally come to their very doorstep.

She slowly walked to the top of the stairs, as if in a bad dream. She could feel her heart racing and she could already smell the acrid odor of all that black smoke. Her commanding officer was at the bottom of the stairs looking up as Sally. Other nurses had begun to gather around their superior to hear orders of what to do next. Sally had a fleeting thought about the chief nurse telling her not to be talking about an escape plan. Wasn’t that just a few days ago? And now, here they were, unprepared for what was to come.

Sally spoke to the chief nurse from the top of the stairs.

“This is it, isn’t it?”

The chief nurse looked up at Sally and said, “I suppose it is.”

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 Stotsenburg Hospital north of Manila 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. Meg’s website is www.MegCorrigan.com . She lives in Little Canada, Minnesota with her live plants and a robotic vacuum cleaner named Mabel.

BUILDING UP TO SOMETHING

The summer of 1941 went by in a flash. The dresses the nurses bought in Manila were put to good use as each of them accepted invitation after invitation to accompany handsome young service men to night clubs and concerts in Manila. There was dancing on outdoor terraces amid fragrant blossoms beneath moonlit skies. There were bottomless cocktails with exotic titles served up in sparkling fancy glasses or hollowed-out pineapple and coconut shells. The local cuisine included ocean fish and sea food caught the same day they were prepared, and over-the-top desserts like flaming Bananas Foster and Coconut Mango Bread Pudding with Rum Sauce. The entertainment in Manilla riveled anything offered in any other well-known metropolis in the world. In fact, Manilla was dubbed the Havana of the Pacific The decadence was enough to make a young woman’s head spin. Enjoying that decadence with a handsome man in an all-white dress uniform took the experience to a whole new level.

Bedside Manner

The climate in the Philippines is tropical and maritime, with warm temperatures and high humidity, coupled with abundant rainfall. In Luzon, the area where Clark Field sat, it was not uncommon to have 150 inches of rain a year. This dampened many evenings of dancing under the stars, but there were plenty of indoor opportunities to enjoy. Gambling, legal and illegal, has been available in the Philippine archipelago since the sixteen hundreds, and the US military personnel spent many hours supporting the gambling establishments. Manila also offered a full array of indoor cultural events, including concerts, operas, and plays. Entertainment was available in Manila rain or shine.

It wasn’t long until the nurses began to talk among themselves about Christmas and all the opportunities to wear new and different dresses to the festivities planned in Manila and right on the Army base. The officers club would of course have its own gala, and every club and venue in Manila was poised to offer the best and most memorable holiday experience. Movie theaters were showing “Ball of Fire” with Barbara Stanwyck and Gary Cooper, and “Mr. Smith Goes To Washington,” starring Jimmy Stewart.

***

Back at Clark Field and Stotsenburg Hospital, Sally noticed a difference in the men who were coming to serve there. For one thing, they were greater in number, and for another, they didn’t seem to have their dress white uniforms with them. Was it possible they were coming in as part of a troop build-up, and not to escort pretty nurses to fancy balls and renowned concert and plays? The news told of increasing allied military presence in other places in the world, like the United Kingdom, North Africa, and the South Pacific (on the doorstep of the Philippines). One would have to be blind not to see the “rumors of wars” in other parts of the world. But nothing had been said and no training held about what to do if war came knocking at the doorstep of the Americans in the Philippines.

One night at dinnertime in the hospital staff dining room, Sally and some other nurses were invited to sit at the table with the chief nurse and other higher-ranking officers. Sally leaned over and quietly asked the chief nurse, “Don’t you think it would be a good idea for us to get some heavy clothing organized and ready to wear in case we had to move into Manilla and had to bivouac on the way down?” The chief nurse was from Canada and Sally knew the Canadians displayed a lot of pomp and circumstance.

Her superior officer looked Sally square in the face and said, “I shall do no such thing…unless and until we receive orders from headquarters!” And with that, all talk about the potential for war was immediately stopped.

Little did the young nurses know that the “orders” would definitely come, sooner rather than later, “from headquarters.” The “orders” would come from the Japanese “headquarters.”

The Abyss whispered louder…