; chapter 227), granted women in the Nurse Corps relative rank. This gave them the right to wear the military insignia, but did not confer military status or privileges. This arrangement meant women serving throughout World War II received 50 percent of the pay as compared to their male counterparts, and none of the veteran benefits. Because they did not receive military status, they received no orientation or training before being deployed to hospitals near the front lines. (3) Nurses served under fire in field hospitals and evacuation hospitals across 6 continents, on hospital trains and ships, and as flight nurses on medical transport planes. Several nurses were killed in action when their ships were torpedoed or field hospitals were bombed. Some even entered into combat areas as flight nurses to retrieve the wounded, and 2 groups were captured as prisoners of war by the Japanese. (4) General Douglas MacArthur ordered Army nurses to the Bataan Peninsula to prepare 2 emergency hospitals for United States and Filipino forces. General Hospital 1 received casualties directly from the front lines, and more than 1,200 battle casualties requiring major surgery were admitted within a month. General Hospital 2 accepted patients strong enough for evacuation, as it was out in the open, with no tents or buildings, and only tree canopy to conceal them from Japanese aircraft. Hospital 1 was bombed on March 29, 1942, killing or wounding more than 100 patients, but the nurses carried on with their duties as well as they were able. Following the United States Army surrender of the Philippines to the Japanese on May 6, 1942, 67 Army nurses were taken to Santo Tomas Internment Camp in Manila, where they remained until February 1945. During the 37 months in captivity, these women endured primitive conditions and starvation rations, but continued to care for the ill and injured in the internment camp hospital. (5) Early in the morning of November 8, 1942, 60 nurses attached to the 48th Surgical Hospital landed off the coast of