This Is Really War: The Incredible True Story of a Navy Nurse POW in the Occupied Philippines

by Emilie Le Beau Lucchesi

Overview

In January 1940, navy nurse Dorothy Still eagerly anticipated her new assignment at a military hospital in the Philippines. Her first year abroad was an adventure. She dated sailors and attended dances. But as 1941 progressed, signs of imminent war grew more urgent. Military wives and children were shipped home to the States, and the sailors increased their daily drills. Days after Pearl Harbor was attacked, the Japanese military assaulted the Philippines.
When Manila fell to Japan in early January 1942, Dorothy was held captive in a hospital and then transferred to a civilian prison camp.  Under the direction of Chief Nurse Laura Cobb, Dorothy and ten other navy nurses maintained rank and reported each day to a makeshift hospital. Cramped conditions, disease, and poor nutrition meant the navy nurses and their army counterparts were overwhelmed caring for the camp.
In May 1943, a civilian physician asked Cobb if the navy nurses would consider transferring to a new prison camp in the countryside. The twelve nurses feared the unknown, but they could not deny they were needed. On the morning of their departure, inmates used the public address system to play the navy fight song, "Anchors Aweigh." The nurses were overwhelmed by the response. They had indeed been the anchors of the camp, who kept ill inmates form drifting.
In the new prison camp, the "twelve anchors" turned a stripped infirmary into a functioning hospital. Despite their own ailments, they provided nonstop care for starving, diseased, and abused inmates. Over the years, their friendships deepened, and several of the women, including Dorothy, even found love.
This Is Really War is an inspiring story about a young nurse who fought for life during a dark time.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781641600767
Publisher:	Chicago Review Press, Incorporated
Publication date:	05/07/2019
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Emilie Le Beau Lucchesi is the author of Ugly Prey and has contributed to the the country's largest newspapers, including the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, and Los Angeles Times, as well as Discover magazine and TheAtlantic.com. She holds a PhD from the University of Illinois at Chicago and teaches communication and media courses.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

I'd Die Before I Wore Those

Dorothy Still slept soundly in her bed in the nurses' quarters. It was comfortably dark, and a breeze flowed through the veranda attached to her private room. She did not stir as the telephone rang downstairs, sending a shrill scream through the quiet house. Dietitian Bertha Evans picked up the handset and heard her fiancé's voice on the other end of the extension. He was an officer assigned to the nearby naval yard in Cañacao, Philippines, and he was calling with urgent news.

"Bertha," he said. "Pearl Harbor has been bombed. We've been up all night with the admiral."

The US armed forces in the Philippines anticipated they would be next. At one point during the night, radar had detected a formation near Manila Bay. Warhawks took to the sky to intercept the threat, but no contact had been made.

Bertha knew she had to wake her superior, Chief Nurse Laura M. Cobb. She hurried up the stairs and knocked on Cobb's door. "We're at war with Japan," she reported.

Doorways began to crack as the other women heard the commotion. Cobb instinctively knew a blackout order was in effect. "Do not turn on your lights," she warned.

Nurse Mary Rose Harrington squinted in the darkness. Cobb ordered her to dress and accompany her to receive orders. Dorothy continued to sleep through the disturbances. She didn't hear Cobb and Mary Rose return to the quarters. Nor did she wake when Mary Rose clanked around the kitchen, looking to start a pot of coffee. Dorothy finally opened her eyes when the auburn-haired woman stood over her bed.

"Dottie! Wake up!" Mary Rose urged.

Dorothy stumbled from bed and followed Mary Rose. The other nurses stood in the darkened hallway, stunned and confused. Cobb was brief. All they knew for certain was Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor around midnight Manila time. It would be only a matter of hours before Congress officially declared war. But what did that mean to the nurses? Should they expect an attack as well? Cobb didn't know. She ordered her nurses into uniform.

Dorothy felt her way back to her room. She went to her washbasin and turned on the water, thinking about newspaper reports describing the fighting in Europe. She had seen photos of decimated villages and images of destroyed battlefields. Would war in the South Pacific look the same? Dorothy thought not. If there was indeed a war with Japan, she assumed the United States would quickly win. It wasn't the same as the hostilities between the Europeans.

Dorothy opened her dresser drawers and selected a pair of white knee-high tights. She stepped into the white dress, fixing the buttons that ran down to the high-waist belt. She combed back her blond hair and secured her striped cap to her head. Dorothy pulled her flashlight from the box and screwed off the bottom. She slipped in two batteries and then felt the spring press tighten as she rotated the end back into place. After masking the top with blue cellophane so it was safe to use in a blackout, she shone the light on her mirror and felt unnerved as she studied her reflection in the ghostly blue light.

Dorothy joined the other nurses in the living room. The women traded mixed expressions of doubt and reassurance. Several of the nurses didn't think the Asiatic Fleet was prepared for battle. Others thought the same as Dorothy — Japan was a small nation and it was no match for the mighty United States. Susie Pitcher, a forty-year-old nurse anesthetist from Des Moines, lit a cigarette. Susie loved smoking and seemed determined to not let her emphysema interfere with her favorite pastime.

Susie inhaled and released a swirling cloud as she spoke. "You girls ready for war?" she asked.

The young nurses weren't sure what to think. Earlier in 1941, the navy had begun censoring mail, and spouses and dependents of military personnel had been shipped back to the States. At the time, the nurses felt odd to be the only women on base, but then they adjusted to the new routine. Blackouts and air raid drills became standard, yet with all the warnings and preparation, nothing ever happened. Now it was difficult to determine whether they should truly be alarmed.

It was easy, however, to feel vulnerable. The naval base was located on a small peninsula just south of Manila. The peninsula had an odd shape, like a crab's claw. The navy occupied the parts that resembled the pinchers, filling the area around the bay with an ammunition depot, hospital, living quarters, and a naval yard to service marine vessels. There were also two soaring radio towers, which the nurses detested for being an easy target. What would happen if they were bombed? The women shuddered to think, especially if the ammunitions depot took a direct hit. The concussion could obliterate the entire peninsula.

Several of the nurses didn't want to face the possibility of war. But others, like Bertha, experienced ominous warnings and sensed the time had come. Bertha had transferred to the Philippines in February. On the boat ride to Hawaii, a reserve officer said he felt sorry for her.

"You'll be eating fish heads and rice before you come home," he warned.

"Do you really think so?" Bertha asked.

"I know so," he cautioned.

The comment stuck with Bertha. At thirty-seven years old, she had been in the navy for a decade. She had wavy brown hair and beautiful dark eyes that turned downward at the corners. Most sailors typically boasted in an attempt to impress her. The reserve officer's lack of bravado felt like a chilling omen.

The women came to attention as Cobb entered the room. She reported they did not have specific orders from the admiral. However, the fleet surgeon had told Cobb they needed to evacuate the hospital. The women were to report immediately for duty. Dorothy followed the other nurses into the humid air. Rain had fallen overnight and the ground was spotted with puddles. Cobb instructed the nurses to run to the hospital as if they were under attack.

Dorothy and the other women began to jog without much enthusiasm. In the distance, a pathologist stood outside the hospital and watched the pack of approaching blue lights. He wondered how long it would take the nurses to run the two-block distance. If the base was hit, how quickly could the nurses arrive? He pulled out a stopwatch and began to time them.

The nurses were hesitant in the dark. As they approached, the pathologist saw they were trying to avoid splashing in the puddles. The nurses did not want to get their shoes wet or their uniforms dirty. They took the long way around larger pools of water and carefully stepped over smaller puddles, sometimes stopping to hold on to each other for support. The pathologist looked at the second hand spinning around the dial. What were these nurses doing? Had they no sense of urgency?

The pathologist held up the stopwatch as Dorothy and the other nurses trotted up the circular drive. "Two minutes and twenty-three seconds," he scolded.

* * *

War was not what Arissa Still had intended for her daughter when she brought Dorothy to the Los Angeles County General Hospital for an interview with the nursing school. It was 1932, and Arissa knew people who had lost their jobs and then their homes. She wanted her daughter to find a stable career, and Dorothy had failed to supply one practical idea of which her mother approved. Dorothy had dreamily proposed working as a costume designer in Hollywood. The girl could sew, yes, and she appreciated fashion, but Arissa thought Hollywood was unpredictable and competitive.

Nursing, Arissa had assumed, was a far safer choice. The Los Angeles County General Hospital offered a three-year program with free tuition, room, and board. The student nurses worked at the hospital and received a small monthly stipend. Being paid to go to school? At a time when unemployment was near 25 percent? Arissa promptly brought Dorothy in for an interview and hovered in the hallway while her daughter met with the admissions director. She knew her daughter was an excellent candidate. Dorothy had performed well at Burbank High School, and she was one of a few students with enough merit points to join an exclusive honorary. The nursing school officials were impressed, as Arissa expected.

Arissa's plan for her daughter was on track — until Dorothy graduated and received her pin. Then Arissa realized nurses were not immune from the crippled economy. Low wages and job insecurity were standard, and nurses typically bounced from one short contract to the next. In the first two years after graduation, Dorothy cycled through three jobs. The last of these was at a small hospital in a desert town where a few senior nurses successfully campaigned to have Dorothy and another young nurse fired. Demoralized, Dorothy returned to her parents' home and looked for a new position.

Dorothy flipped through the November 1937 issue of the American Journal of Nursing and stopped on an article about the Federal Nursing Services. Its military nurses enjoyed the "security of a regular salary," the article promised. They also received medical care, four weeks' leave, and the opportunity to train in a specialty. Dorothy was intrigued, but she still stung from her recent termination. She figured she was wasting a stamp when she wrote to request an application. Within a month, she received notification that the navy was indeed interested. Before the year was over, Dorothy was instructed to report to duty in San Diego as a member of the Navy Nurse Corps.

As Dorothy reported to San Diego, the world was becoming increasingly unstable. The United States maintained an isolationist stance, but American military commanders watched with unease as Japan conquered Nanking, the capital city of China, on December 13, 1937. Within mere weeks, more than 250,000 Chinese were massacred by the Japanese army. It seemed that every newspaper in the United States had a front-page story about the invasion, but few Americans understood the extent of the massacre. Chinese men, women, and children were rounded up, marched through the streets, and then sadistically executed. Every type of agony emerged in Nanking. Yet American attention instead focused on the sinking of a naval ship on a river near Nanking. President Franklin D. Roosevelt demanded an apology and payment, both of which Japan supplied. The US government then edited the news footage. When newsreels spun in cinemas across the county, Americans were treated to a sanitized account of the violence, as well as a false sense that Japan knew better than to mess with Uncle Sam.

The world was darkening, and the United States simply wasn't ready to defend itself. In 1937, the annual report of the secretary of war to the president described the country's forces as a "peace time army." Just one year later, the authors of the report were looking long and hard at their own inadequacies. With only about 162,000 enlisted men, the US military was merely the eighteenth largest in the world. The report also admitted that after the recent World War, the United States failed to keep pace with the development of defensive weapons. Materials shortages during the Great Depression added more budgetary challenges, and the military was woefully short on antiaircraft defenses. As for aircraft, the report authors pitifully described themselves as making "progress."

At the end of 1939, Dorothy learned that she was being transferred from San Diego to the Philippines. She was to report before February 1, 1940, to Cavite Naval Base. Dorothy promptly consulted a map and anxiously scanned the distance across the Pacific Ocean and into the Philippine Sea. She had never left the United States, and the Philippines seemed so far away. The other nurses helped to ease her anxiety. They recommended that Dorothy pack plenty of party dresses. Nurses at Cavite were only required to work half shifts due to the high temperatures, so Dorothy would have plenty of time to play tennis, golf, swim, and enjoy evenings out with officers. She was assured it was a very good assignment.

Dorothy eased her own anxiety by visiting the library in her Southern California hometown of Long Beach during her two-week leave. She read about the history of the Philippines and its quest for independence, which gave her an admiration for the Filipino people. The Spanish had colonized the archipelago in the sixteenth century. After the Spanish-American War in the late 1890s, the United States took over foreign rule and brutally suppressed Filipino resistance. In 1935, President Roosevelt proclaimed the Philippines a constitutional commonwealth and established an eleven-year timeline for the country to transition into full independence. The Filipino people, it seemed, were so close to achieving the independence they had long craved.

The farewells were still difficult. Dorothy stood at the train station in Los Angeles with her parents, sister, and infant nephew. Her brother-in-law was absent due to work, but he sent a message for "Dixie" to have a good time.

"Tell him I intend to!" Dorothy told her sister optimistically.

* * *

Around 6:00 AM, the loudspeaker in the hospital at Cavite crackled. A slight static popped, and everyone paused to hear the announcement. "Hear this," a man's voice thundered. "Pearl Harbor has been bombed."

The patients had mixed reactions. Men eligible for discharge were eager to give the Japanese a good pounding. They anticipated the fight would be fast and easy. For the patients with broken limbs, there was a helpless feeling of vulnerability. They were marooned on their backs with cast-covered limbs suspended in the air. If the hospital was hit, they were tethered in place, unable to run or even roll under the bed for protection.

An attack on the hospital was a terrifying possibility. The Empire of Japan had signed but did not ratify the Third Geneva Convention, which meant they never agreed hospitals were off limits. And the empire had already violated the Hague Convention of 1907 — which it once pledged to uphold — by bombing Pearl Harbor without first declaring war or issuing a warning. The navy nurses were only several hours into the conflict and they already knew they weren't dealing with an honorable enemy. The 150-bed hospital needed to be emptied and prepared to receive causalities.

Patients stood single file with charts in hand. A physician swiftly reviewed each case, flipping through the chart and deciding if discharge papers were indeed appropriate. Men were classified as "ambulatory" and ready for discharge or as a "no-go" who required evacuation. Dorothy felt concerned as men assured the physician they would continue to take their medicines. Others promised to keep their bandages clean or not put too much weight on a healing sprain.

Dorothy found that most able-bodied men were anxious to leave the hospital. The sailors wanted to return to their assignments, and the civilians needed to get home to their families. But the men with broken limbs, severe infections, diseases, or undiagnosed conditions had no way of escaping a label of "no-go." They were sent back to their beds with a sense of vulnerability.

Dorothy followed a physician as he worked his way down the ward, writing discharge or transfer papers for the patients still in bed. At the end of the row, a sailor recently released from the iron lung asked to be discharged. Of all the nurses, Dorothy spent the most time tending to the iron lung patients. She knew the man's condition and felt he was too unstable for discharge. Until just a few days earlier, he had relied on the pressurized machine to force his weak lungs to breathe. The physician neglected to consult her opinion, and she cringed as he signed discharge papers.

A jittery current streamed through the wards as rumors heightened the anxiety. One man repeated how he heard the Japanese had blasted the California coast. Dorothy immediately thought of her family. What if her parents were injured by a bomb? Were her sister, brother-in-law, and nephew safe?

The Japanese did not reach California. The threat was much closer to Dorothy. The Japanese military turned its attention toward the Philippines that morning and bombed Camp John Hay, an army outpost located in the mountains. The attacking planes dropped more than 128 bombs. Thirty-seven casualties were rushed to the tiny hospital, where only two nurses and one surgeon were on duty. War had indeed come to the Philippines — the navy nurses at Cavite just didn't know it yet.

Outside the hospital, sailors stacked sandbags around the building. Inside, the nurses were submerged in the hospital's liquidation. By 10:30 AM, most patients had received either discharge or transfer orders. The discharged men simply walked out the front door with their papers. The transfers were far more complicated. Other military hospitals were in the midst of their own evacuations and not inclined to add to their own patient census. Dorothy noticed her superiors seemed flustered. Nurse Margaret "Peg" Nash passed Dorothy and whispered how Chief Nurse Cobb had given her contradicting assignments and then seemed irritated when nothing was completed.

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "This Is Really War"
by .
Copyright © 2019 Emilie Le Beau Lucchesi.
Excerpted by permission of Chicago Review Press Incorporated.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Author's Note ix

Key Figures xi

Chronology xiv

Maps xvii

Part 1 1941

1 I'd Die Before I Wore Those 3

2 Oh My God, This Is Really War 19

3 Everything Under Control 29

Part II 1942

4 Banzai 49

5 Chin Up, Girls 59

6 Room 30A 75

7 Where Were You When We Needed Help? 93

Part III 1943

8 Fed Up with the Way Things Have Been Going 105

9 They Will Suffocate! 113

10 Take Them Outside 125

11 I Am Ashamed of You 139

Part IV 1944

12 We Might Not Come Out of This Alive 157

13 I Have Returned 169

14 Do the Best You Can 181

Part V 1945

15 'Tis You, 'Tis You Must Go and I Must Bide 197

16 Roll Out the Barrel 211

17 Today We Either Live or Die 221

18 Don't Worry Anymore About Me 235

Epilogue: I Hear You 255

Acknowledgments 267

Notes 271

Bibliography 303

Index 309

Editorial Reviews

"This Is Really War tells the mostly unknown story of the US Navy nurses captured by the Japanese in the Philippines in World War II. The reader will learn how these nurses, who considered themselves average women, rose to the challenge and survived a prison experience that many, many others did not. A thoroughly researched, fascinating book.” —Elizabeth Norman, author of We Band of Angels: The Untold Story of the American Women Trapped on Bataan and Women at War: The Story of Fifty Military Nurses Who Served in Vietnam
 


“With her vivid style coupled with immaculate research, Emilie Le Beau Lucchesi tells an incredible true story that reads like great fiction. This Is Really War is an unflinching portrait of women surviving the unthinkable. This is history both epic and personal, recounted by a gifted writer.” —Arnie Bernstein, author of Swastika Nation: Fritz Kuhn and the Rise and Fall of the German-American Bund 
 


 
“This Is Really War is a testament to both the horrors of Japanese captivity during the Second World War and the resilience of the American nurses forced to endure it. Emilie Le Beau Lucchesi’s beautifully detailed writing is equal parts captivating and heartbreaking.” —Kathryn J. Atwood, author of Women Heroes of World War II


“Lucchesi’s well-researched, horrifying story effectively and compassionately recounts underappreciated courage, professionalism, and resiliency.” —Booklist

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