Rita Palmer, a young nurse from Hampton, joins the Army Nurse Corps in 1940 to see the world and thinks she has accepted a plum assignment in the Philippines. Instead, she practices battlefield nursing in a malaria infested jungle and, in a harrowing series of events, she becomes one of the first female prisoners of war when her evacuation plane is damaged on take-off. Ultimately Rita and her companions are forced to surrender to the Japanese and join other captured Army nurses at the Santo Tomas internment camp in Manila. The nurses organize and run a camp hospital for three years, serving 3700 prisoners.
This band of nurses became known as the “Angles of Bataan and Corregidor,” and their battlefield heroism inspired WWII patriotism, movies, and books. Wounded during an early Japanese attack, Rita was one of the first women to receive a Purple Heart.
Her unbelievable and inspiring story will be revealed at the Tuck Museum, Sunday, March 23 at 2PM. For more information call 926-2543.
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