![Army nurses board evacuation trucks, February 12, 1945 after they were liberated from Santo Tomas University in Manila, Philippines, where they had been imprisoned by the Japanese for almost three years. Most of the 55 prisoners of war suffered symptoms of malnutrition and starvation such as beriberi and had endured malaria, dysentery and other serious diseases. They all survived and managed to care for not only their fellow prisoners, but their own rescuers. (Photo courtesy of the National Archives)](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20130216120035im_/http://soldiers.dodlive.mil/files/2012/03/Angels-5-236x121.jpg)
The ‘Angels of Bataan’
30 March 2012They called themselves the Battling Belles of Bataan, but to the GIs fighting a desperate and doomed battle for the Philippines in 1941 and 1942, and later to their fellow civilian internees, they were, simply, angels.