Wartime drama of U.S. Army nurses in the Philippines: So Proudly We Hail! (1943)
So Proudly We Hail! (1943) It is May 1942. Less than six months have passed since the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and Allied forces in the Pacific have endured defeat upon crushing defeat. From Burma, Java, Wake Island, Guam, Hong Kong, Singapore, Rabaul and the Philippine Islands, the flag of the Rising Sun has replaced the Union Jack, the Dutch flag and the Stars and Stripes. In Melbourne, Australia, a U.S. transport plane arrives with a group of recently-evacuated Army doctors, medics and nurses aboard. As they deplane, Lt. Janet Davidson (Claudette Colbert) is carried on a stretcher due to her mental and physical exhaustion. The nurses are then shipped Stateside aboard a Navy transport and given what amounts to first class treatment. Most of them respond well to the care they receive, but “Davy” remains withdrawn and wheelchair-bound, perhaps haunted by her experiences during the sieges of Bataan and Corregidor. Determined to help his patient recover, her attending p