Only a few of the 102 American military nurses serving in the Pacific in the 1940s had any combat training, experience or expectations, until the surprise attacks on Pearl Harbor and the Philippines put them on the front lines. They learned wartime nursing under fire, treating thousands of casualties at ill-equipped battlefield hospitals. When the Allies surrendered, the 79 remaining nurses were the first U.S. Army women to become prisoners of war, but they refused to relinquish their professional roles and continued to provide nursing care to fellow prisoners throughout their years of captivity. In the book Pure Grit: How American World War II Nurses Survived in Battle and Prison Camp in the Pacific, Mary Cronk Farrell uses quotes from journals, letters, and oral histories to give voice to the horrific experiences and esprit de corps of these remarkable nurses.
