All This Hell: U.S. Nurses Imprisoned by the Japanese by Evelyn M. Monahan

All This Hell: U.S. Nurses Imprisoned by the Japanese Reviews

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  Debbie Floyd

  4.5 stars. This book is well worth reading. U.S. nurses performing their duties in what would become a war zone, captured and held as POWs by the Japanese. I have read other accounts, this one covered many of the atrocities that were faced by all of the POWs, but in particular the nurses who were suffering from the same diseases that kept their patients bedridden. The nurses still performed their duties and in some cases surgeries to free the doctors for more complex operations. There are many things that are not covered in the normal US history books. This chapter of our history was not covered for many reasons, one of which was the fact that the military had the nurses sign agreements that they would not speak about their experiences with anyone including their own families. The nurses also wanted to put their experiences behind them. It was a sign of the times. Many members of the greatest generation were reluctant to speak of their experiences after WW II. I had a great uncle that was a POW of the Japanese, the family did not at first know he was alive. When he eventually came home, my aunt had to nurse him back to health, he rarely spoke of those times. By reading this book I have even more insight into what he experienced as a POW. Overall I feel that the authors were able to organize the accounts of these brave women who against all odds came through their experiences and along the way saved many of the other POWs lives with very few medical resources. We should encourage all those we can to read books that cover experiences that our general history books for whatever reason do not so that we are not doomed to repeat history again.
• 
  Positive Kate

  I found this book very well organized. It covers the same information as 'We Band of Angels,' so it was nice to get a different perspective on the same information. This book explained where all the hospitals were located and how many nurses were staffed at each one. This book had a better background to what was happening before the bombing in the Philippines.
• 
  Michael

  A bit of history that is little known brought to light. Well worth reading.
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  Sarah

  This book was incredibly informative. I could not put it down. It painted the picture well of what these nurses had to endure while both on the frontline in Corregidor in the Malinta Tunnel during hours of shelling, the lack of supplies, the mountain of wounded, and ill patients and of course the 3.5 years these women were kept as POWs in Santo Tomas as well as the other camps around the Philippines. There's is a story of true courage and heroism.
• 
  Amy Keene

  It's not surprising to know that women in military nursing careers went through such atrocities. What is both enlightening and disappointing is that they went largely unrecognized within our history books and within their profession and military branches. I'm honored to know what they did for our military, their colleagues, their enemies and our country. They are truly heroes.
  
• 
  Rea K

  This is the second book that I've read about the American Army and Navy nurses from the Philippines. Personally I preferred We Band of Angels, but this one also introduced me to the knowledge that there were Navy nurses on Guam that were also taken as POWs. However, they barely got any page time. Which leaves me curious as to what happened to those particular women. (Guess that's another book search).
  It was a little light on some of the information, but I also read the other book by these women And if I Perish, which was a very thick book (I read it in three days when I was home with Covid in January of 2022, and my one roommate was amazed that I'd read about 500 pages while he wasn't home those three days). I think it helped that I had read We Band of Angels, because I had more information that I knew.
  The only thing that I really truly did not like was the blurry maps. I don't have my map book of wwii here with me (a thing that I will likely soon remedy), so the inclusion of maps was exciting until I realized that I couldn't read a word on these maps in the book. Some of the pictures were also blurry and hard to see, but I will attribute that to outside matters (photographers, cameras, lighting, circumstances around the pictures, distance, all those little details) and not the book.
  We Band of Angels is a contemporary to this book, but not identical. Which is precisely why you read different books. Obviously they have much of the same information, but different authors have access to different people and different ideas on how to tell the story. This one basically focused on the women who ended up at Santo Tomas. Which is fine, but the blurb on the back tells us about the women who were taken prisoner on Guam and so I was expecting a little more about them as well.
  If this is the first you're hearing about women POWs in wwii, I definitely recommend this and also continuing your reading. It's horrible to read about the things that these women went through, but it's a story that needs to be told.
• 
  Nicolle

  As a nurse I was interested to learn more about the history of the nursing profession- and WW2 in the pacific. As with all WW2 novels, it’s sad to learn about the struggles and hardships. I can’t imagine being in a camp and still having to work while on food scraps, the rations and amounts are mentioned repetitively, where I would have been more interested in the diseases caused by the lack of nutrients like berry berry disease (that was briefly mentioned) and more about the nurses experience working in that environment.
• 
  Xenia

  To me, the true sign of a great book is when I want to go research more of its subject. With this book, I spent alot of time out of it looking up certain events or names because I wanted to delve deeper. It makes me want to know more about these nurses that haven't gotten the credit they deserve.
• 
  John

  I really found the book interesting through the fighting on Bataan and Corregidor, then it just became another POW no food, no supplies, poor conditions, treated badly story.
• 
  Margaret Johnson

  Would recommend to others. Great account of what happened in the pacific.
• 
  Joe Vonnegut

  Not an in depth treatment of the subject, but an enjoyable read about a little known and even less discussed facet of WWII in the Pacific. I recommend it!
• 
  Sierra

  I learned so much from this book. I have never heard about any of this before and that is ridiculous. This should be talked about so so much more. It is so important to know this part of our history.
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  Fergie

  ALL THIS HELL: U.S. NURSES IMPRISONED BY THE JAPANESE is a book worthy of being read, if only for the fact that those women who courageously faced the harrowing horrors of war only to find them captives by the heartless forces of the Imperial Army of the Empire of Japan deserve to have their bravery, endurance, and sacrifice remembered. This was a decent read, but one that was even better in scope was BEDPAN COMMANDO; a memoir about the experiences of a U.S. Army Nurse in the European theatre during WWII. With that said, I'm glad I read Evelyn M. Monahan's book. She deserves credit for shedding light on a part of our history that, for too long, has been neglected.
• 
  Bonnie_blu

  4.5 Stars. This book reveals the horrors that U.S. nurses faced when captured by Japanese forces during WWII. The casual brutality, rampant diseases, and body-hollowing starvation that these young women and other prisoners faced brought out the best in them. Their courage and perseverance in the face of atrocities helped other prisoners endure. However, it is absolutely despicable that the U.S. government told these women not to talk about their experiences to anyone and did not offer mental/emotional support to them after the war. I'm glad that writers are chronicling the women's stories before they are all gone.
• 
  Nancy

  Excellent report of the hardships encountered by the Nurses imprisoned by the Japanese during WWII. Everyone knows about the soldiers, sailors and airmen who were POWs during WWII but few know about the nurses and other medical personnel who are women and what they experioenced while imprisoned by the Japanese. A very thought provoking book especially as many of these 'heroines' have passed away.
• 
  Pat Carson

  The role of nurses in World War II isn't widely known by most of us. The authors take us into the world of American women who served during the fighting at the beginning of the war. These people were imprisoned in Manila until 1945. Riveting read.
• 
  Mary Farrell

  A gripping true story of courage and resilience.