Lieutenant (JG) made $90 a month plus a living allowance called "maintenance," which meant a room in the nurses' quarters and a meal allowance. Single male officers of equivalent rank made $166 a month plus an additional $60 for quarters and 60 cents per day subsistence.' But the money was apparently not a bone of contention with the women. After all, they made more than their civilian counterparts, and they were working in a tropical paradise. During these carefree days in the Philippines, the one sour note was the war news in the daily newspapers. Although the military community was interested in what Hitler was doing in Europe, it seemed far away. As for the Japanese threat to the islands, it was not until the spring of 1941 that the senior commanders of the Philippine command, Generals Jonathan M. Wainwright and George Grunert of the Army and Admiral Thomas Hart of the Navy, became concerned about their readiness for a possible war with the Japanese. Paradise Lost As the European war intensified and the possibilities of a conflict in the Pacific increased, the 100 military nurses in the Manila area received two signals of how seriously Washington viewed the possibility of war. In March 1941, the Navy sent the wives and children of its personnel back to the United States. In May, the Army followed suit. Minnie Breese, nearing the end of her two idyllic years in the Philippines, observed an increase in tension at the time of the dependent evacuation. There also appeared to be greater interest in President Roosevelt's Fireside Chats, heard regularly on the radio.3 The golden days in the Philippines were coming to an end for the military. In both Washington and Manila the threat of a war with Japan focused attention on the vulnerability of the Philippine garrison. General Wainwright later wrote that "the sparkle went out of Manila in the spring of 1941. War was coming and we all knew it. ,,4 Wainwright would have been even more pessimistic had he known that by the spring of 1941 Army and Navy planners had already written off the Philippines. Reviewing the old War Plan Orange, formulated in the 1920s and calling for relief of the Philippine garrison within six months of the Spring 1992 Lieutenant Colonel Michele Manning, USMC, is head of Plans, Policies, and Support in the Officer Assignment Branch, Personnel Management Division, Headquarters, US Marine Corps. She is a 1965 graduate of Eastem Michigan University and holds master's degrees from Winthrop College and the College of Naval Warfare. She is alsO a graduate ofthe Marine Corps Command and Staff College. She has had tours as a battalion adjutant with the 4th Marine Aircraft Wing; a Force Headquarters adjutant with Fleet Marine Force, Atlantic; Assistant 0-1 at Division and Force level; the Graduate Education Coordinator for the Marine Corps; and command tours as a recruit series officer and as a squadron commanding officer. This article is a condensed version of her longer research work on Army and Navy nurses imprisoned in the Philippines, written at the Marine Corps Command and Staff College in 1985. 87
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