Photo of brave women from Pearl Harbor

[easternabeille]

I know fundies always like to talk about the 'good old days' when women were women and knew their place was in the home and men folk did all the hard work despite so much evidence against this belief. Anyway I was browsing MSNBC when I saw this photo of a group of brave women fighting a fire directly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

http://openchannel.msnbc.msn.com/_news/ ... arl-harbor

[ladypuglover]

Wow, what an amazing photo. Thank you for sharing it as it really made me feel pride in them and in being a woman. To bad Dougie will just see them as somehow less than a feminine ideal.

[NurseNell]

Amazing photo. As I posted on Dougie's wall, 67 Army Nurses and 16 Navy Nurses were POWs during WWII. Please do not ignore them.

[easternabeille]

Doug makes me so angry I can barely tolerate even looking at his face. When I saw this photo I felt such pride and it makes my blood boil that Doug will never acknowledge the work and sacrifice done by female veterans.

[Ms A E]

Wow, this photo is amazing! As a person who was raised to believe "the good ol' days" were a time when men were men and women were incapable of contributing to society, it's so refreshing to have that view de-bunked. Thanks for the inspiring photo!

[Nothing2CHere]

Just posting to also say that that is an amazing photo, and makes me so proud.

[desertvixen]

Amazing photo. As I posted on Dougie's wall, 67 Army Nurses and 16 Navy Nurses were POWs during WWII. Please do not ignore them.

For anyone interested in the subject, We Band of Angels by Elizabeth Norman is pretty good.

[jenny_islander]

I am willing to bet that any one of those women would have decked Doug "Dress-Up" Phillips within about five minutes of meeting him. More power to 'em!

[Angri-la]

For anyone interested in the subject, We Band of Angels by Elizabeth Norman is pretty good.

My grandmother was one, and she gave me a copy of the book. "This one got it right", she said.

[PennySycamore]

Angri-la and desertvixen, I'm gonna have to read that book. I've got a particular interest in women's roles, both on active duty and the homefront, during WW II.

Did anyone else notice that the women whose faces we see in that photo aren't white? The woman at the front of the hose looks like she may be a native Hawaiian and the other two women appear to be at least part Asian. I hope those women's patriotism was never questioned.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

Purely by the odds there's good chance at least one of them is Japanese-American (or however that works out for territories - remember, at this point Hawaii wasn't a US state).

[NurseNell]

For anyone interested in the subject, We Band of Angels by Elizabeth Norman is pretty good.

Thanks, I'll add it to my reading list. I like WWII stories.

[NurseNell]

My grandmother was one, and she gave me a copy of the book. "This one got it right", she said.

Was your grandmother a POW, or do you mean a military nurse? I need to research who the POW nurses were. I was a Navy Nurse, different war. I bought a scrapbook on ebay several years ago that belonged to a Navy Nurse stationed in the Pacific in WWII, it is very interesting.

[Angri-la]

Was your grandmother a POW, or do you mean a military nurse? I need to research who the POW nurses were. I was a Navy Nurse, different war. I bought a scrapbook on ebay several years ago that belonged to a Navy Nurse stationed in the Pacific in WWII, it is very interesting.

She was briefly a POW as a military nurse, I think only for a few weeks, but it left an indelible impression. A group of them were exchanged for other prisoners in the Pacific.

If you PM me some questions, I am happy to ask her. She is 94, but bright as a button, and she looooves to talk about her time as a military nurse. She still gets visits, occasionally, from "her boys", who aren't much younger than she, and that is her greatest joy.

[NurseNell]

My grandmother was one, and she gave me a copy of the book. "This one got it right", she said.

I looked the book up. I haven't read this book but have read about this group of nurses before. That's very special your grandmother was one of those nurses Angri-la.

OK, I just ordered it from Amazon, along with 5 other WWII non-fiction books.

[Witsec7]

WoW those women are hot, I think I failed to mention it earlier :D

[NurseNell]

She was briefly a POW as a military nurse, I think only for a few weeks, but it left an indelible impression. A group of them were exchanged for other prisoners in the Pacific. If you PM me some questions, I am happy to ask her. She is 94, but bright as a button, and she looooves to talk about her time as a military nurse. She still gets visits, occasionally, from "her boys", who aren't much younger than she, and that is her greatest joy.

A few weeks as a POW is like months of non-POW life. The military nurses did not get the honors and recognition they should have. She has my respect, and I thank her for her service.

[NurseNell]

She was briefly a POW as a military nurse, I think only for a few weeks, but it left an indelible impression. A group of them were exchanged for other prisoners in the Pacific.

If you PM me some questions, I am happy to ask her. She is 94, but bright as a button, and she looooves to talk about her time as a military nurse. She still gets visits, occasionally, from "her boys", who aren't much younger than she, and that is her greatest joy.

Was she in the Army or Navy? If she was in the Navy I might know some of the nurses she served with as there were still several WWII Navy Nurses serving during Viet Nam.

[liltwinstar]

What an awesome photo!! Thanks for sharing.

[NurseNell]

I wonder where they came from and what they were doing on that Sunday prior to the attack? They are wearing pants, unusual for that time unless they were some sort of specialized workers on the base.

I know in CA Japanese Americans were rounded up and interned in camps but what about in Hawaii? I've read a few novels written by Asian writers set in WWII Hawaii and the Japanese Hawaiians were not interned. White people were a minority in Hawaii of that time, maybe that's why? Time to google.

Only about 1% of Japanese in Hawaii were interned in camps. http://www.hawaiiinternment.org/history-of-internment

The number of Japanese in Hawai‘i who were detained was small relative to the total Japanese population here: less than 1%. By contrast, Executive Order 9066, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942, authorized the mass exclusion and detention of all Japanese Americans living in the West Coast states, resulting in the eventual incarceration of 120,000 people. However despite the relatively small numbers of local Japanese who were interned here, the impact was significant.

edited to add above quote

[koolmom]

VERY touching and heartfelt picture, indeed. My departed mother was 12 years old and lived in Oahu then, of Hawaiian heritage. One of her cousins, a small child, was killed by fire during the bombing. She'd met my dad some years later (1949), they then married and had my older sister, born in Honolulu in 1951. The face of that Hawaiian woman just made me tear up right now.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

Yeah, it just would not have been possible to detain any significant fraction of Japanese (or Okinawa) background people in Hawaii.

For quite a while already by that time, Japan had been exporting population (lots of poor people looking to emigrate). Some went to its colonies (most of them returned to Japan after the war), but plenty migrated to other countries and territories including the US, Hawaii, Peru, and Brazil. In Hawaii the big plantation companies were always hiring.

And definitely that picture makes me wonder who those women were, or what they were doing before the war - are they wives? Mothers? Definitely good on them.

[Angri-la]

I looked the book up. I haven't read this book but have read about this group of nurses before. That's very special your grandmother was one of those nurses Angri-la.

OK, I just ordered it from Amazon, along with 5 other WWII non-fiction books.

She was Navy. I won't tell her that you asked if she was an Army nurse- according to her, there is a huge difference! She worked under Captain Sue Dauser. G-ma is my hero- she had a life of privilege and chose to serve her country. I do come from a military family, but she was the only woman who served, that I am aware of. Huge Catholic families, I could have more I just don't know about.

I've offered many times to help her write her memoirs, I've read letters and journals she wrote, and we have some recordings, but she made me promise I do not do anything until she is "With her boys and husband in heaven". Her husband, my grandfather, fell madly in love with her before the war, they both joined the navy, and promised to marry when they both returned. He almost died on the beach on D-Day, and she was a POW. It is such a miracle they made it, married, and continued my paternal line. She has always been bright as a button, but my grandfather was shell shocked, and she cared for him so tenderly; he died before I was born. Nurses are amazing to me.

[NurseNell]

She was Navy. I won't tell her that you asked if she was an Army nurse- according to her, there is a huge difference! She worked under Captain Sue Dauser. G-ma is my hero- she had a life of privilege and chose to serve her country. I do come from a military family, but she was the only woman who served, that I am aware of. Huge Catholic families, I could have more I just don't know about.

I've offered many times to help her write her memoirs, I've read letters and journals she wrote, and we have some recordings, but she made me promise I do not do anything until she is "With her boys and husband in heaven". Her husband, my grandfather, fell madly in love with her before the war, they both joined the navy, and promised to marry when they both returned. He almost died on the beach on D-Day, and she was a POW. It is such a miracle they made it, married, and continued my paternal line. She has always been bright as a button, but my grandfather was shell shocked, and she cared for him so tenderly; he died before I was born. Nurses are amazing to me.

When I told my Dad I was joining the military (I was already a nurse) he said I damn well better not become an Army Nurse. He was fine with the Navy. So I understand where your grandmother is coming from. Ask her if she knew Mary Kovacevich, she was from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. She served in WWII, then got called back to active duty for Korea so decided to stay in. She was a Captain (a Navy Captain = an Army Colonel) when she was my chief nurse. She was the chief nurse on the hospital ship Repose. You can read about her here:

http://yourdailyglobe.com/Main.asp?Sect ... leID=12428

[DinnerPlateDahlia]

Angri-la and desertvixen, I'm gonna have to read that book. I've got a particular interest in women's roles, both on active duty and the homefront, during WW II.

Did anyone else notice that the women whose faces we see in that photo aren't white? The woman at the front of the hose looks like she may be a native Hawaiian and the other two women appear to be at least part Asian. I hope those women's patriotism was never questioned.

At least one is African American and one or two are Pacific Islanders. Anyone who says racial diversity in history books is "politically correct" is nuts. People of all races and religions built our country in it's most critical periods.