This Day in History: Rosemary Hogan Luciano, Angel of Bataan

On this day in 1964, Col. Rosemary Hogan Luciano passes away. The former Army nurse had been one of World War II’s “Angels of Bataan.” She spent nearly 1,000 days as a prisoner of war before being rescued.

“Those army and navy nurses had shown what American women could do and be, even in times of defeat,” historian Walter Macdougall concludes.

Rosemary was among those enjoying relatively easy work and a relaxing social life in the Philippines when the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor—then the Philippines—thrust our nation abruptly into war.

What a shock to the system that must have been, especially to the nurses and soldiers who’d been stationed there? Rosemary would later report that she worked for about 70 hours straight after that surprise attack.

The Japanese attacks were relentless, and Americans soon found themselves retreating toward the Bataan peninsula, where two makeshift hospitals were set up. Rosemary was a senior nurse responsible for much of what was happening. The hospital was little more than a giant shed with a thatched grass roof, but she and her nurses did their best with what they had.

They persevered, even when they had to move the entire hospital because the Japanese were getting too close.

“The nurses didn’t run for their foxholes in Bataan every time the siren sounded,” Rosemary later explained, “for it happened so often that no one could have accomplished anything.”

Matters came to a head in early April when the Japanese directly attacked the hospital. Rosemary was assisting with an operation when a bomb hit.

“I saw Rosemary Hogan being helped from her ward,” one nurse described. “Blood streamed from her face and her shoulder; she looked ghastly. ‘Hogan,’ I called, ‘Hogan, is it bad?’  She managed to wave her good arm at me. ‘Just a little nosebleed,’ she said cheerfully. ‘How about you?’”

Military officials decided to evacuate the nurses to the nearby island of Corregidor.

“The memory of their coming ashore on Corregidor that early morning of April 9,” one officer later wrote, “dirty, disheveled, some of them wounded from the hospital bombings—and every last one of them with her chin up in the air—is a memory that can never be erased.”

An April 26 bombing at Corregidor soon sent officials scrambling to evacuate the nurses a second time.

Rosemary was among those evacuated by seaplane. Her PBY departed on April 29 but then landed at Mindanao to hide until sunset. Unfortunately, rough winds the next morning battered the plane on some rocks, leaving those nurses stranded. They were eventually captured and ultimately moved to Santo Tomas Internment Camp, along with other civilian POWs.

Those brave nurses made the best of it, establishing a hospital and organizing themselves into 4-hour shifts. They treated patients and even smuggled what supplies they could to the American soldiers at a different POW camp, through a Japanese doctor who visited both sites.

Finally, the nurses were liberated in February 1945.

“On Liberation Day we were all alive and whole,” Rosemary said. “I can’t say alive and well, because that would be stretching it. You don’t feel very well after months of semi-starvation.”

Nevertheless, her family soon found that she’d maintained her sense of humor. “Since I’ve been eating American food again, I have gained 10 pounds,” she chuckled. “If I gain any more, I’m going back on my rice diet.”

Rosemary later transferred to the U.S. Air Force Nurse Corps, where she achieved the rank of Colonel. Nevertheless, she never really recovered from her injuries.

She unfortunately passed away just two short years after getting married and retiring with disability.  She was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery.

RIP, Colonel.

Primary Sources:

• "Angels of Bataan" Return to U.S. From Philippines (Lawton Constitution; Feb. 25, 1945) (p. 1)

• Colonel Rosemary Hogan Luciano: Oklahoma’s Own Angel of Bataan (Oklahoma Nurse mag.; Nov./Dec 2019)

• Doris Weatherford, American Women During World War II: An Encyclopedia (2010)

• Elizabeth Norman, We Band of Angels: The Untold Story of the American Women Trapped on Bataan (1999)

• Evelyn M. Monahan & Rosemary Neidel-Greenlee, All This Hell: U.S. Nurses Imprisoned by the Japanese (2000)

• James Wise & Scott Baron, Women at War: Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Conflicts (2006)

• NAM Pays Tribute to Captain Hogan for Heroic Bataan Work (Anadarko Daily News; May 22, 1945) (p. 2)

• Nurse POWs: Angels of Bataan and Corregidor (National WWII Museum)

• Rosemary Hogan Luciano (Oklahoma History Center)

• Walter Macdougall, Angel of Bataan: The Life of a World War II Army Nurse in the War Zone and at Home (2015)