1. Margaret Elizabeth Doolin "Peggy" Utinsky was an American nurse who worked with the Filipino resistance movement to provide medicine, food, and other items to aid Allied prisoners of war in the Philippines during World War II.
17 Facts About Margaret Utinsky
1. 2.
Margaret Utinsky was recognized in 1946 with the Medal of Freedom for her actions.
3.
Margaret Utinsky died the following year, leaving her with an infant son, Charles.
4.
Unwilling to part from her husband, Margaret Utinsky refused to obey the order and took an apartment in Manila while Jack went to work in Bataan.
5.
Margaret Utinsky secured a position with the Philippine Red Cross as a nurse, and went to Bataan to search for her husband.
6.
Margaret Utinsky resolved to do all she could to help the POWs that survived.
7.
Margaret Utinsky was then confined to a dungeon for four days without food or water.
8.
Margaret Utinsky never revealed her true identity and was released after signing a statement attesting to her good treatment.
9.
Margaret Utinsky spent six weeks recovering from injuries at a Manila hospital.
10.
Margaret Utinsky directed the surgeons to remove the gangrenous flesh without anesthesia.
11.
Margaret Utinsky left the hospital before fully recovered and escaped to Bataan, where she served as a nurse with the Philippine Commonwealth troops and the Recognized Guerrilla forces, moving from camp to camp in the mountains until liberation in February 1945.
12.
Margaret Utinsky had lost 45 pounds, 35 percent of her pre-war weight, and an inch in height.
13.
Margaret Utinsky was attached to the US Army Counter Intelligence Corps, and later was flown to meet the 511 POWs who were rescued from the Cabanatuan POW camp.
14.
Margaret Utinsky credits a 22-year-old Filipina hairdresser, Naomi Flores with being the impetus for the so-called "Miss U Spy Ring," which was an effort to help American Prisoners of War survive the difficult conditions in the Japanese POW camp of Cabanatuan.
15.
Margaret Utinsky was awarded the Medal of Freedom in 1946.
16.
Margaret Utinsky died in Lakewood, California, at Pioneer Sanitarium on August 30,1970.
17.
Margaret Utinsky is buried at Roosevelt Memorial Park in Gardena, California.