Mildred Manning said the daily allotment of food consisted of two watery bowls of rice. She endured beriberi, dengue fever and malnutrition and, in the years after the war, lost all of her teeth.
"We were scared and tired, but we kept working," she said in 2001.
On Feb. 3, 1945, a U.S. tank battalion broke through the gates of Santo Tomas, ending their captivity. All 77 of the nurses captured at the fall of Corregidor survived. They were awarded the Bronze Star and a Presidential Unit Citation.
Mildred Jeannette Dalton was born July 11, 1914, on a farm in Barrow County, Georgia, and she graduated from nursing school in Atlanta in 1937.
She married managing editor of the Florida Times-Union newspaper Arthur Manning in 1945 and lived almost 40 years in Jacksonville, Florida. She seldom discussed her wartime experiences.
And, I had never heard of Mrs. Manning or the "Angels of Bataan and Corregidor. I'm glad that is no longer the case.
The Greatest Generation
The USS North Carolina (BB-55) My all-time favorite warship. As an elementary school student in North Carolina, I donated nickels and dimes to save this ship back in the early sixties.
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