Pure Grit: How American World War II Nurses Survived Battle and Prison Camp in the Pacific

by Mary Cronk Farrell
Foreward by First Lieutenant Diane Carlson Evans
Hennepin County Library hardcover 133 pages plus glossary, timeline, etc.
genre: YA non-fiction, history

This wasn't as gripping as I expected. Perhaps because I've read enough accounts of WWII experiences so that I'm a bit jaded? The writing was very appropriate for middle-school. The photographs and documents included in the book were superb. I especially liked the first-person accounts that were included, though I got quite confused at which nurse was which.

The most enlightening part was chapter 19 "Forgotten." On page 119, "After four grim years of war, Americans wanted heroines to raise their spirits. But no framework existed in the 1940s for people to understand women who had acted with enduring courage and strength on the battlefield and as prisoners of war - women who had acted like men." The expectation that these women would just settle down and "return" to some kind of normal life after what they had been through . . . mind-boggling. Many of their children didn't know about their war service until decades later.