Dress uniform.

 

A nurse's war in the South Pacific

Glen Arm, MD

My mom, 1st. Lt. Angelina Mango Anderson R.N., served three-plus years as an Army nurse in the South Pacific with the 20th Station Hospital on New Caledonia and the 25th Evacuation Hospital on Espiritu Santo, the New Hebrides and Luzon in the Philippines. She cared for GIs who fought on Guadalcanal, Bougainville, Saipan and the Philippines while herself suffering from facial and foot fractures, dengue and jungle rot.

While on Espiritu Santo she met and married my dad, 1st. Lt. Gustavus "Andy" Anderson Jr. of the the 3119th Signal Battalion. Interestingly, the famed author James Michener, was on Espiritu Santo when he wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning book "Tales of the South Pacific" that Rogers and Hammerstein turned into the Broadway play and movie "South Pacific." They knew some of the folks who served as models for Michener's characters.

After the war, she worked 35+ years for Milford (Mass.) Hospital, most of them as night supervisor,. where she used the skills and commitment to service she learned in the Army as a fierce advocate for her patients. Unfortunately, soon after she retired in 1984 she developed Alzheimer's disease, which she battled for an incredible 17 years.

When she passed, I found she had kept a daily diary of her time in the Army, hundreds of letters she and my dad wrote each other after their wedding, more than 300 candid photos and other mementos including many thank-you poems from injured GIs, and her military records. I read, scanned and transcribed all of those to create and have published a book about her service, "A Nurse's War in the South Pacific" (Pocolpress.com and Amazon)

The more than 75,000 nurses (all volunteers) who served in World War II have not been given the thanks they deserved - I hope I've changed that a little.

John E. Anderson, M.D.


Her patients.

A nurse, a Jeep, a .45 and a bottle of "Jack."
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