A healing touch: Retired M.D. pens book on Upton mom's time as wartime nurse

MILFORD — While he was growing up, Dr. John Anderson knew some information about his mom's military service, but it was limited.

It wasn't until she died in 2004, while he was going through her belongings, that he found boxes full of documents and photos detailing her time as a nurse during World War II. Among the items he found was a leather-bound diary in which she wrote every day and letters his mother and father had written to one another.

Anderson thought about writing a book about her story for quite some time. And in December, he made that dream a reality with the publication of "A Nurse's War in the South Pacific."

His mother had her fair share of troubles during her stint in the Asiatic-Pacific Theatre.

"During her time in the Army, she broke a foot, her nose and a cheekbone, was hospitalized more than a month with Break Bone Fever aka dengue, and Jungle Rot, survived Japanese submarine and bomb attacks, earthquakes, and the not infrequent boorish behavior of U.S. G.I.s, Marines and sailors," Anderson wrote in the book.

During the war, hospitals would send over large groups of doctors and nurses together to work in military hospitals.

Anderson's mother, Angelina "Andy" Margaret Mango, was a replacement nurse and moved around in the 3½ years she served, including to the island of Espiritu Santo in the southwest Pacific. There she worked at the 25th Evacuation Hospital.

That island was featured in James Michener's Pulitzer-prize-winning book, "Tales of South Pacific" and the Broadway play "South Pacific," John Anderson said. A movie of the same name was released in 1958.

Mango, an Upton native, enlisted at age 27 on July 23, 1942. That was seven months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Anderson noted in the book.

A medical doctor by profession, Anderson worked at Johns Hopkins University's Department of Medicine for 30 years. He left the university in 2010 and fully retired in 2015.

Now 75, he spent the past few years working on the book. He took several writing courses at Johns Hopkins to help sharpen his writing.

"I realized I really never learned how to write," Anderson said. "I was a physician at Johns Hopkins and you write for medical journals, but that's a very narrow niche."

He also dedicated two years to conducting research for the book.

On the island, Anderson's mother met her future husband, 1st Lt. Gustavus Adolphus "Andy" Anderson Jr. He was a member of the Signal Corps 3119th Signal Battalion, overseeing about 30 men. Taking advantage of his degree in radio and television engineering, he would send, receive and decode messages over radio.

They met at a bar. Gustavus was so drunk that Angelina had to walk him home. She liked him, though, because he was kind and polite — not surprising, given his Georgia upbringing, Anderson said.

She described him as the "kindest ever met." They married at Espiritu Santo on April 25, 1945.

A few years after the war ended, Angelina Anderson became a nurse at what's now Milford Regional Medical Center and was eventually promoted to night supervisor. She worked at the hospital for more than 30 years.

John Anderson estimates his mother helped deliver hundreds of babies.

Once his father came home from the war, he worked as an electrical engineer for the Massachusetts Electric Company in Hopedale. He also worked part time as a radio and television repairman in Upton for 20 years.

Anderson's 456-page book is more than just a story about his mother's career, love life and family. It also touches on the realities of war for nurses.

"They didn't have to go," he said. "They weren't drafted. They weren't forced. Yet a quarter of the nurses in the United States went," he said. "They didn't die at the rate Marines did or other men landing at Omaha Beach, but they went through a lot and were treated as second-class citizens. They were harassed, just like what goes on in the military now."

John Anderson said after the war ended, nurses gained more respect in the country.

"The nurses who came back were confident in their ability," he said. "According to one scholar, a big impetus behind the development of intensive care units was these nurses who came back having taken care of literally hundreds of sick people and being confident that they could do it."

John Anderson's book can be purchased on Amazon.

Cesareo Contreras can be reached at 508-626-3957 or ccontreras@wickedlocal.com. Follow him on Twitter @cesareo_r.

'A Nurse's War in the South Pacific'

This article originally appeared on The Milford Daily News: "A Nurse's War in the South Pacific" details Upton nurse in World War II