Speaker recounts imprisonment of U.S. nurses in the Philippines, says all 81 survived

An unidentified speaker described the capture and imprisonment of U.S. nurses in the Philippines during World War II and said all 81 American women held as prisoners survived despite disease, starvation and lack of medicine.

The speaker recounted that some of the nurses were captured at Corregidor and that Lieutenant Colonel Madeleine Ullum "has described" conditions in the camps: "Our atmosphere is on a dusty fall, ever present, in which we moved, worked, tried to eat, tried to breathe in an endless nightmare," the speaker said, quoting Ullum's account as presented in the transcript. The speaker said the nurses organized into shifts to care for other prisoners and fought against disease and starvation.

The speaker said the women spent "nearly 3 years in prison camps" and that they were honored in Washington "40 years later," describing their patriotism as "strong and vibrant." The speaker attributed survival to their volunteer service and mutual care but did not provide operational details about locations beyond the names used in the account (Corregidor; a site transcribed as "Sata Tama's prison camp" and a reference to "Colonel Olin").

These remarks were presented as historical testimony; the transcript contains no motions, votes, or directives tied to the account. The address did not specify who organized or led the Washington recognition ceremony beyond the speaker's mention of the event taking place decades later.