TY  - BOOK
AU  - Farrell,Mary Cronk
TI  - Pure grit: how American World War II nurses survived battle and prison camp in the Pacific 
SN  - 9781419710285 (hardbound)
AV  - D 807.U6 F37 2014
PY  - 2014///
CY  - New York
PB  - Abrams Books for Young Readers
KW  - Nurses
KW  - United States
KW  - History
KW  - 20th century
KW  - Military nursing
KW  - Juvenile literature
KW  - World War, 1939-1945
KW  - Medical care
KW  - Prisoners and prisons, Japanese
KW  - Campaigns
KW  - Philippines
KW  - Prisoners of war
N1  - Includes bibliographical references (pages 140-148) and index; Adventure and romance -- Surprise attack -- No time for fear -- Nurses under fire -- Retreat to the jungle -- Make-do Medicine -- Boxed in on Bataan -- Retreat to the Rock -- Holding up on Corregidor Island -- Rescued! -- Surrender to the enemy -- Held Incommunicado -- Santo Tomas Internment Camp -- Food? Grow your own -- Hope at last -- Walking skeletons -- Liberation -- Homecoming -- Forgotten -- Moving on -- Recognition at last -- Glossary -- List of nurses
N2  - "Pure Grit tells the important but little-known story of the heroic women who served in the Philippines during World War II. In the late 1930s, a number of young women enlisted for peacetime duty as United States Army and Navy nurses. More than a hundred were stationed at several base hospitals in the Philippines. Work was routine: officers' kids having their tonsils or appendix removed, or wives in labor. Aside from contracting tropical fevers and occasional parasites, military families were young and healthy. When off duty, the nurses took advantage of their exotic and beautiful surroundings, picnicking, hiking, swimming, and enjoying all that the islands had to offer. In the evenings, there were often parties and dances at the officers' club.

All this changed dramatically when on December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, blasting the United States into World War II. Within hours after this initial attack, the Japanese military began its invasion of the Philippines, with massive bombardments followed by soldiers on foot. The American nurses quickly had to learn to treat wounded and dying soldiers while bombs exploded all around them. As the Japanese invasion slowly gained ground, the base hospitals were moved into the jungle as well as into underground tunnels on Corregidor Island.

When the Philippines finally fell to the Japanese, and the Americans surrendered, the nurses were gathered up as prisoners of war and assigned to a prison camp. There they suffered disease and near starvation for three years but never forsook their duty as military nurses, helping to establish a hospital and caring for the other prisoners.

Pure Grit is a story of sisterhood and suffering, of tragedy and betrayal, of death and life. This is the story of how a group of women cared for one another, maintained discipline, and honored their vocation to nurse anyone in need, all of them coming home alive."
ER  -