When We Had Wings

By establishing a third-person omniscient point of view that alternates among the three women, the Prologue characterizes each protagonist and provides differing perspectives on nursing and duty. In many ways, these perspectives disrupt the common narrative that patriotic fervor motivated soldiers and nurses of World War II, since each character is using her service to run away from something else. Eleanor loves nursing but “had not considered that a Navy nurse would see war, […] She’d only wanted to escape the pain of a broken heart and chart a new purpose for her life” (24). By contrast, Lita believes she lacks the true devotion necessary for her work, seeing nursing as a way to escape the Philippines for a better life in the US, before the violence in the Pacific erupts and she’s “trapped here, caught in the crossfire” (5). Penny’s decision to flee the pain of losing a child and a husband has only caused her more pain: Her parents insist on ignoring her, which she says is punishment “for joining the Army and leaving them. They feel abandoned. Betrayed” (11). This further conveys the sense that many Americans believed their sons and daughters shouldn’t have been in the Pacific.

In addition, the Prologue introduces two male characters who play significant roles in the women’s lives later in the novel, subtly foreshadowing their upcoming connections. Ensign David Mathis introduces Eleanor to Manila and guides her to the ANC and the Yard, and he later continues to guide her during their time at Los Baños; he comments, “You being a nurse, I sort of hope that I don’t see you again. If you know what I mean” (3). This seems like banter but connects poignantly with their later experiences. This foreshadowing is more overt in Penny’s interactions with Captain Charley Russell: “Penny was certain of little in her life other than Charley Russell infuriating her for two hours every Friday afternoon” (9). His routinely calling her back to fix typos aggravates her, but it represents the stability and resourcefulness she later comes to love about him.

Following the exposition about the protagonists and the setting in the Prologue, the pacing quickens in Chapters 1-3 as the inciting incident—of both the novel’s main action and America’s entry into the war—upends the paradisiacal setting of Manila and turns it into an active war zone. Eleanor and Penny’s experiences depict the surreal nature of war and thematically introduce The Impact of Extraordinary Circumstances on Ordinary Lives. As Eleanor wakes to news of the attack on Pearl Harbor, her sense of unease is “immediate and foreign,” interrupting her feeling that she was on a “perpetual vacation.” Penny’s experience of evacuation is similar, and she focuses on the mundane concerns of ordinary life, such as missing the next HAM Day and not packing the right clothes for a battlefield: “Not three hours ago Penny had been asleep in bed” (35), but since then she was transported over bombed-out roads and saw the ferry she was on moments earlier sink. By interweaving facts about the military decisions behind the evacuation—including MacArthur’s efforts to make a final stand on Bataan and Corregidor while leaving Navy nurses, officers, and patients behind in Manila—with the characters’ reactions, the novel conveys a sense of how military decisions affected individual lives, casting new light on the predominant historical narrative.