They find it advantageous to process, to grow foods where its cheaper in countries where the environmental laws are weaker, where can they can have an easier time dictating policy and so increasingly our foods are being produced in these countries and if we are talking about organic, its very difficult to even verify in the u. S. That organic products are meeting the standards, so we can imagine how this is happening in places like china. He next on booktv encore booknotes from 1999. Elizabeth norman talked about her book we band of angels the untold story of American Nurses trapped on bataan by the japanese. The book tells the stories of army and navy nurses that were caught during the bombing of manila philippines by the japanese and their establishment of the jungle hospital for the numerous casualties. Its about an hour. Cspan elizabeth m. Norman, author of we band of angels, who are you talking about . Guest im talking about the army and navy nurses who were in the philippines when world war ii began, who surrendered to the japanese and are the Largest Group of american women pows in the history of our country. Cspan wheres this picture from . Guest thats the picture taken of the army nurses when they were liberated from santo tomas interment camp in manila. Theyre on their way out of camp. Cspan and where did you get the idea for this book . Guest it grew out of two sources. My mother served in the spars in world war ii. And i was always very interested in her time in uniform. Everybodys dads served in world war ii, but not too many mothers. So i had that interest. And im a nurse. I had done a book about nurses whod served in the vietnam war and was very interested in the contradiction, really, between nurses Whose Mission is to save lives being put in a a world of war where the mission is to kill. The contradiction fascinated me. Cspan i notice your husband has something to do with all this. Guest he did. My husband served in the marine corps in 1968 in vietnam, and, therefore, i was always very interested in war because of him. Cspan and where do you do nursing now, teaching . Guest i now teach i run the Doctoral Program in nursing and teach in it at New York University. Cspan eight years, it says in this book, that you wrote that it took to write this. Why did it take so long . Guest again, there are two reasons for that. First, i had to work on it part time. I was working full time in higher education, raising children and doing this in my spare time. And the other reason, the material about these women is scattered all over the country and in garages and basements, and i knew it would take me a very long time to find it. And it did. Cspan i know youve done a lot of interviewing. Before we kind of get the whole picture here, pick one of the nurses and talk about her. Guest i would talk about cassie or helen nester, as shes known. Cassie lives in pennsylvania, not far from philadelphia, and she really embodies, to me, what these nurses are. She is bright. Shes funny. Shes the most humane person. And underneath what looks like such an ordinary woman just is a very, very brave and courageous woman. Cspan we have a picture from the book. When was this taken . Guest that was taken i took that in the early 1990s when i first went to meet her. And shes sitting in her favorite rocking chair right by the farmhouse kitchen where she lives. And. Cspan who who who is she . Guest shes a daughter of italian immigrants, grew up in massachusetts in a town called bridgewater, wasnt a particularly scholarly child, a bit of a tomboy, as she called herself, but she decided to go to Nursing School because she liked working with people. She graduated in 1938. And at that time nurses were able to join the red cross, and the red cross was almost used as a reserve force for the army nurses. When things began to build up in the early 1940s, cassie was sent into th she became a member of the Army Nurse Corps, reserve status. She went to work in massachusetts at an army base and really had an itch to be where there was action, wanted to get out of massachusetts, wanted to see the world, and she volunteered for duty in the philippines. And as she said to me, i wanted to have an adventure. I had a little bit more than i bargained for. cspan what was her adventure . Guest her adventure was she went over there in peacetime, spent a whole five weeks in the philippines before the bombs started to fall, and wound up the first day of the war volunteering for duty in clark field in the philippines, which was destroyed. And, again, in the blink of an eye, she went from sort of a funloving, very nice young woman into a nurse who was working in an operating room working with trauma and damage that she never thought shed ever see. Cspan when did she arrive in the philippines . Guest she arrived in the philippines in the very late october of 1941, and, of course, the war started there december 8th, 1941. Its the same day as pearl harbor, but across the International Date line. Cspan when did they first have a bomb drop on them in the philippines . Guest the first bomb dropped in a place called baguio, which is in northern luzon, at a small army camp. There was an army nurse there named ruby bradley. And the first bombs fell in the philippines about six hours after they first started to drop on pearl harbor, so it was almost immediate. Cspan what did they do . Guest well, ruby bradley was up that morning getting ready for a routine surgical case. She said she was scrubbing in the operating room for a hysterectomy. And a a soldier came to the door and said, stop. Theres not going to be any surgery today. she couldnt figure out what was going on. He said, go to the surgeons office. she went over to meet the surgeon whom shed worked with, and he said, look, ive just been notified theyve bombed pearl harbor. They may bomb us at any time. she said at that moment, they heard the drone of the planes. They went to the window, cause they didnt know, looked out, and there was a whole squad of japanese zer zeroes coming in on the base dropping bombs. Cspan what happened next . Guest well, the first thing and its actually one of my favorite stories in the book. You know, the casualties were enormous, and she and the surgeon ran to the operating room. The first case to come in was a little boy. Hed been out walking with his mother that morning, just a normal monday morning, and he was in very bad shape. He was in shock, he was blue. And they tried to revive him any way they could. They werent having any success. So the surgeon turned to her and said, look, weve got too many people to deal with here. Weve got to let him go. well, ruby and i understand this as a nurse and a mother just couldnt do it. She said, please, one more try. he said, you do something. so he handed her the needle which the they often will inject into the heart to get it going, and the needle is about six inches long. Its not like wed usually get put in our arms. She couldnt do it. But she looked over across the operating room, and she saw a bottle of whiskey, which was sometimes used in the old days as a stimulant. And she put the stimulant shes not on that page. Cspan thats all right. Go ahead. Guest she put the stimulant on a piece of gauze with some sugar, stuck it in the babys mouth, he started sucking, and he was revived by the whiskey. They operated on him and saved his life. The next person to come into the operating room was his mother, and shes screaming and crying, wheres my baby . Wheres my baby . and ruby went up to her and said, do you hear him . Hes just fine. cspan whos this lady right here . Guest thats eleanor garron. Shes from indiana. She was really the intellect in the group of nurses, very well read on foreign policy. Eleanor tended to keep her intellect quiet and her thoughts she was the one who knew the japanese were going to come, but said nothing. And the interesting thing about eleanor is after surrender, she kept a diary, but not of her own thoughts and feelings; she copied poetry from the famous poets and from aristotle, various thoughts that captured what she felt. So its a fascinating diary. Cspan is she alive . Guest no. Eleanor died about three years ago. Cspan did you talk to her . Guest i did. A friend of mine spent a lot of time with her. I had difficulty getting out to indiana for there was a for financial reasons. And a friend of mine went out and did all the interviews for her. Cspan and who is this right here . Guest oh, thats red harrington, or mrs. Mary nelson. She lived nearby here in virginia. She was a navy nurse, and she was as beautiful as a movie star when she was a young woman. Mary, or red as they called her, was a real spirited young woman, met her future husband when he was a prisoner of war in los banos interment camp. And they married and lived in virginia for 57 years. Both of them just died within the last three months. Cspan did you talk to her . Guest yes, many times. Cspan and what was the reaction when you would sit and talk to somebody and talk about something that happened in 1941, 2, 3, 4 . Guest i was so worried when i first started these interviews, and im thinking, my god, im asking people to recall memories from 50 years ago. i just didnt know if theyd be able to. M mary nelson, red, the person we just looked at, she was one of the first, and within 10 minutes of talking to her, my fears were completely put aside. This experience was so intense and just the the turning point in their lives, they remembered everything about it. These women and other war veterans, i noticed, follow a pattern when you talk to them. Theyll tell you very funny stories at first, and then theyll watch you carefully, and theyll listen to the questions that you ask. And if they see youre interested, you believe them and youve prepared a little bit, theyll start to open up. And thats what happened with every one of the women that i talked to. Cspan total number of people that are in your book . Guest well, there are 77 prisoner of war nurses, plus 20 who got out, a little more; 99 nurses were involved in this. I spoke to 20 of them directly. Cspan go back to the story about baguio at in 1941. Where was Douglas Macarthur then . Guest Douglas Macarthur was in manila the day the war broke out. He was in his suite in the manila hotel. And for whatever reason and other historians have written books about it there was a delay really in letting the troops know exactly how near the japanese offensive might have been. So clark field was destroyed. Baguio was bombed. Everything happened. And macarthur was in his headquarters at that time. Cspan when did he leave for australia . Guest he first, he left manila for the island of corregidor, which is in the mouth of manila bay. And he was there from december until march, when the president ordered him out of the philippines to australia. The controversy about that is that the troops and the nurses were with the troops they were fighting in the jungles of bataan and on corregidor, and macarthur left, and he left his troops. So theres a lot of feeling about that. Some people think, well, he was just obeying orders, so you cant fault him for that. but other people say, wait a minute. I mean, he left. He took people with him. He left 77 women behind to surrender to the japanese. and these were American Nurses with absolutely no training. They didnt even have uniforms to go into the field, and he left them behind. Cspan how often did one of the nurses you talked to Say Something negative about General Macarthur . Guest i would say about half the time. There are some nurses who forgive him and just just write it off to things that happen in war, but there are other nurses who felt that, as a result of his leadership or his lack of insight, that he really what he what happened to the americans left in the philippines is a real di was a disaster. Cspan did i notice in your book a little twinge of irritation when you say he got the congressional medal of honor when he was in australia . Guest yes. Well, think about that. The American Forces under general king and wainwright surrendered in april and may. It was the largest. Cspan of what year . Guest 1942. It was the largest surrender of American Forces ever, i mean, if you exclude the confederacy in the civil war. And the troops were just being they were on the death march. They were being annihilated by the japanese. The American Nurses were in great danger. No one knew what was going to happen to them, and heres General Macarthur in australia being awarded the congressional medal of honor for his leadership in that campaign. And general wainwright, who took over from him after the macarthur left, someone had put him up nominated him for a congressional medal of honor, and Douglas Macarthur wouldnt support it. And general wainwright went in the prison camp. Cspan how ma how did 77 women become prisoners of war . Guest well, they were able after bataan fell on in early april 1942, the nurses were sent off the Bataan Peninsula across two miles of water to this island fortress of corregidor, which had long been a an american stronghold. They were underground in this cavern of labyrinth of tunnels that the americans had built. Its the sense of people and being war, there are papers that are lost that they probably would have gotten all the american women out of the philippines, but the japanese blockade was too great. Our fleet was sitting at the bottom of pearl harbor. There just wasnt the time or the resources to get them out. Therefore, you had these nurses on corregidor when the japanese troops landed on the island, and general wainwright knew that if he didnt surrender the forces, who were they were horribly outnumbered, there was going to be a bloodbath. Cspan give us an overview. The japanese bombed pearl harbor on december 7th, 1941, and how Many American troops were in the philippines . Guest well, the americans and filipinos were grouped together. It was all an american force. And there were 72,000 troops in the american and filipino troops. The vast majority were filipinos, but there were tens of thousands of american men and then this small group of women there. Cspan you can see the map on the screen showing the philippines. Im going to drop it down a little bit. Explain the manila on the right and the Bataan Peninsula is that part of the philippines . Guest yes, it is. Its part of the largest island called luzon, which is the northern philippine island. Cspan and then the Little Island of corregidor right below it there, how big is that . Guest its very small. Its about three miles long, and its shaped like a tadpole. I was on it in january and was just amazed at the small size of it. There were 12,000 troops on that island the day the surrender occurred. Cspan what was the Bataan Death March . Guest after general king surrendered to the japanese on bataan, they japanese wanted to capture corregidor, which, as you could see on that map, was at the tip. They were very they turned their guns towards corregidor. They wanted to get the american troops out as quickly as they could. Something, however, happened at that point that no one has really fully described. They took the troops from the point of the peninsula, the tip near corregidor, and started to march them off the peninsula, which, in itself, you could say, all right. Thats a military strategy. our american troops didnt have enough food or medicine during the fourmonth battle from january to april, so they were not in good physical shape to begin with. Thats a very arduous walk along the coast, where it says cabadbaran and balanga. What happened, the japanese were moving them so quickly, if they wouldntthey didnt feed them. They didnt give them water. It was tropical weather. If a man fell by the wayside, he was most likely murdered. So why they didnt put them on the trucks, why they didnt slow the pace down, why they didnt feed or give them water, no one knows. But it was one of the great atrocities of world war ii. Cspan well, how many troops walked and how what was the distance again . Guest the distance was 65 miles. And the numbers are a little theyre theyre frankly, theyre kind of fuzzy cause records have been lost, but there were about 62,000 troops on the death march. Cspan and how many made it . Guest again, estimates are tough. They figure about 8,000 to 10,000 died on the march. The vast majority were filipinos, but there were many, many hundreds of american men who died. Cspan who are these three women in this picture here . Guest that picture was taken on bataan during the battle of bataan, most likely taken in march. Its at one of the hospitals that the nurses set up, but it was a hospital literally under the jungle trees. The woman in the middle is captain Maude Davison. She was the chief army nurse in the philippines, a rather formidable woman, as you can see from that photograph. She was a world war i veteran. She was 58 years old when that was taken. Shed come over from corregidor to inspect the hospitals. The woman to her right with the hat on is josephine nesbit. She was a 48yearold Second Lieutenant who was the chief nurse of Hospital Number two, and thats where this was taken. There were 6,000 patients in that openair hospital. And josie nesbit worked with her staff and they ran it quite well. She was beloved by the women. She was the type of leader that possessed this mixture of toughness and great humanity. Cspan where was Hospital Number one . Guest number one was originally on the seacoast of bataan, but it was moved inland when the japanese started bombing, and it was in a Mountain Region a mountainous region. It was an ordnance you can see thats an old ordnance shed, where theyve put hospital beds up underneath. The japanese actually bombed this hospital right around easter in 1942, dropped bombs right on it, killed many patients, and two nurses were wounded with shrapnel. Cspan the tunnel. Guest yes. Cspan whats what was it called . Guest it was called malinta tunnel, and it was built in the 1930s to store things. And once the japanese started bombing, the forces moved underground. There were all sorts of laterals. It really was a catacomb. And