Mercy More Than Life

<p><strong>The Other Pearl Harbor</strong></p><p class=ql-align-justify>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 5000 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.</p><p class=ql-align-justify></p><p class=ql-align-justify>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 24000.</p><p class=ql-align-justify></p><p class=ql-align-justify>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.</p><p class=ql-align-justify></p><p class=ql-align-justify><strong>The Other Pearl Harbor offers a gripping and poignant account of the American nurses' courageous and selfless efforts to save lives under siege during the Japanese invasion of the Philippines in 1941 highlighting a crucial but often overlooked chapter of WWII history.</strong></p><p></p>