Deaths: Last Known Female Military POW of WWII-- Part 1

From theMarch 15, 2013, Chicago Tribune. By Matt Schudel, Washington Post.

MILDRED DALTON MANNING (1914-2013)

Was an Army nurse held captive for almost three years in the Philippines and the last-known female military prisoner of war from World War II.  Died at age 98, March 8, 2013.

Her name was Millie Dalton when she joined the Army Nurse Corps in 1939 from her native Georgia.  She asked for a transfer to the Philippines to see the world and arrived October 1941.  Six weeks later, Japanese forces attacked U.S. installations at Pearl Harbor and bombed the air base near Manila.

The Battle of the Philippines raged on for months, particularly on the Bataan peninsula and the island of Corregidor.  She was one of about 100 nurses who cared for wounded soldiers around the clock.

For two months she workked at a makeshift outdoor clinic at Bataan and at an underground hospital in a tunnel on Corregidor.  Mrs. Manning and her other nurses became known as "The Angels of Bataan and Corregidor."

When U.S. forces were overrun in May 1942, Mrs. manning was one of 77 military nurses--  66 from the Army, 11 from the Navy-- taken prisoner.  Several other civilian nurses and medical workers were also held captive as well.

The Last of The Greatest Nurses.  --GreGen