Mercy More Than Life

The Other Pearl Harbor

While December 7, 1941, is etched in history as the day the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, that same day marked another critical event far from Hawaii. Over 5,000 miles away, the Japanese launched an invasion of the Philippines, targeting the island nation with relentless bombing and strafing attacks as they advanced toward Manila. Amid this chaos, a group of American nurses-88 from the Army and 12 from the Navy-stationed in military hospitals across the Philippines, found themselves in an unimaginable situation.

To protect patients from the advancing enemy, these nurses, along with 50 American doctors and numerous hospital workers, evacuated truckloads of patients to the dense tropical forests of the Bataan Peninsula. There, they established open-air field hospitals. For four months, the Japanese forces were unable to breach the American-Filipino defense line that shielded these makeshift hospitals. By the time of their eventual surrender, the number of patients had reached 10,000.

Following their surrender, the patients and the medical staff were sent to

various prisoner-of-war camps, where the nurses and doctors once again set up hospitals to care for the wounded and ill. Nearly three years later, in February 1945, American troops liberated the prisoners. Among them was Ethel "Sally" Blaine, the author's aunt. This account, largely drawn from her own words in an oral history recorded before her death in 2005, tells her remarkable story.