This is an IHeart podcast.

This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star, the show where the American people are

the star. One of our favorite topics to talk about on this show is history. The Angels of Batan

were Navy and Army Nurse Corps members who were stationed in the Philippines during the outbreak of

World War II. These nurses face some of the most grueling conditions of the war,

some even being captured and held as POWs by the Japanese.

Here's our regular contributor, Anne Claire, with the story of one of them.

Nursing was not a career for a nice unmarried girl in the 1930s.

After all, it was dirty physical work, and it required learning far too much information about the opposite sex.

However, it was also one of the few opportunities for a young woman who couldn't afford

college to continue her education. In the Depression era United States, the 16 cents an hour a hospital

paid wasn't bad either. Georgia-born, Francis Nash, was one of the many young women who ignored social stigma and joined the Army Nurse Corps.

Nash was given the relative rank of lieutenant, meaning she didn't undergo military training and didn't rank a salute or full pay.

She didn't even have an official uniform, just insignia to wear on the

collar of her white civilian nurse's dress. However, she did have the opportunity to volunteer

for service overseas. In 1940, Nash volunteered for a two-year tour in the Philippines.

Stirrings of war on the horizon concerned her family and friends.

Was now really a good time to go abroad?

Nash responded to the effect that, if war were coming, the Philippines would be where nurses were needed.

She wasn't the only one who thought so. The United States' preparations If war were coming, the Philippines would be where nurses were needed.

She wasn't the only one who thought so.

The United States' preparations for war were slow and incomplete,

...