When We Had Wings

The notion of hope and the personal connections that sustain it are central throughout the novel. This begins with the bond the three protagonists share on their HAM Days, and though they’re repeatedly separated, they never lose faith that they’ll reunite. During the early years of the war, as they come to grips with their increasingly dire circumstances, small moments provide escape, remind them of the people they love, and recall the joy of better days. On a convoy through the jungle escaping attack, Helen Cassiani leads the nurses in song, reminding Lita of a childhood when “rarely had a day passed when their house wasn’t filled with music. Singing, after all, cost nothing. Same for their frequent laughter” (45). Though her childhood was poor, Lita recalls it with fondness because of the joy she took in her connection to family. Later during their imprisonment, short on supplies, food, and other material necessities, the characters’ hope and connections give them the will to keep going.

Often, hope juxtaposes the characters’ despair at their current circumstances; this despair is never greater than in 1945, the section of the novel that begins with an epigraph from Emily Dickinson’s poem “Hope is the thing with feathers.” As US forces come closer to liberating them, the conditions at the camps worsen in proportion. At a time when hope is most essential, it’s also most difficult to sustain: “Four hundred miles seemed an eternity away to Penny when a man was dead […] and a child was starving in her cot” (278). Like Penny, Eleanor struggles to maintain hope amid the starvation and death that result from Konishi’s cruelty, and only her connection to David gets her through. He reminds her, “[W]e have to keep getting up every day and hoping every day and waiting. Every day. We have to. This is how we will survive” (292). Though Eleanor can’t stop herself from looking at the ditch Konishi is digging, knowing it surely represents their death, David and his words symbolize the idea that hope allows people to maintain their humanity despite despair.

This theme most closely connects with the novel’s symbols and motifs, which represent the memories the characters hold dear and the promises they hope to keep. Penny’s necklace represents her connection to her father and to Newt. Similarly, Charley’s flag and the eight of hearts are constant reminders of her connection to him and symbolize the possibility that they’ll see each other again. Lita’s notes to Lon, including the one he leaves behind at the novel’s end, serve the similar purpose of reminding her to have courage and strength for others. For Eleanor, hope resides in her memories of home and the comfort of recalling her mother’s lefse, but it’s also symbolized by the people she most admires, like Laura Cobb, Dr. Nance, and David Mathis, who follow their consciences unquestioningly. The three women’s friendships with one another and the promises they make to Reyna, Lon, Charley, and David enable them to imagine a future beyond the war and the imprisonment they endure.

As a novel about war, When We Had Wings conveys key ideas about patriotism, duty, and loss often associated with loyalty, grief, and honor. These broader contexts are reflected in the main characters’ unflinching service to the soldiers in their care and in myriad secondary characters: Yamada’s conflicted loyalties and the humanity he shows Lita; Akibo’s coercion of Penny and abuses of power; Ida Hube’s allegiance to American POWs despite her German nationality; Konishi and Onozaki’s betrayals of the promises they make; and the guerillas, nuns, and priests whose courage forms the backdrop of events. Each represents a different interpretation of loyalty to country versus loyalty to personal values, what it means to have honor and also keep one’s humanity, and how the grim realities of war can corrupt these lofty ideals. However, the novel primarily explores the ways that personal grief can complicate loyalty and honor, as all three protagonists attempt to escape feelings of loss through their service. As they do so, each woman must determine what it means to have honor and identify where her loyalties lie.

For Lita and Penny, this theme develops through the belief that forging new loyalties is a betrayal of their grief. After her mother dies, leaving their argument over nursing unresolved, Lita feels obligated by the financial support her village provided as “a tribute to her mother” (163). She knows her mother would have wanted her to be a nurse in the US and feels compelled to live up to the examples her older sisters set. However, her experiences and connections create a tangle of other loyalties—to the life she envisions in the US with Lon, to Reyna’s definition of patriotism, and to the children she has come to love. Lita’s recognition that she’s capable of deciding her future for herself while still honoring her mother’s legacy lets her resolve these conflicts and move past her grief: “Pridefully it was her turn, together with the nuns and Reyna, to be like the village that had once aided her when she was in need” (375).

Grief initially makes Penny view loving Charley and Newt as a betrayal of the husband and daughter she lost. Even as she reconciles these feelings and contemplates a possible future, the potential for further loss tinges Penny’s most important relationships with fear, including her reluctant affection for Newt: “She listened to the faint whistle of a child’s snore and cursed herself for caring at all, for loving the girl, for putting herself in this position” (278). Despite her misgivings, Penny gradually recognizes that these relationships don’t betray or dishonor the memories of loved ones she lost but are a natural part of moving past her grief.

For Eleanor, the concepts of loyalty and honor are in many ways the source of her grief and suffering. Her sense of pride compels her to put an ocean between herself and John by joining the Navy, ironically depriving him of the chance to tell her how he really feels until she receives his letter at the end of the war. Additionally, her loyalty to Laura Cobb results in her mission to Los Baños, where she learns new lessons about honor but also experiences starvation and the devastation of David’s death, creating a grief that “tore through and out of her, from the deepest part of her soul” (357). While her loyalty to David’s memory allows her to keep going even though she knows death might come any moment, his loss stays with her for the rest of her life. By marrying John and naming their son David, Eleanor again shows her steadfast devotion to those she loves. Significantly, even as each woman mourns what she has lost, their journeys illustrate that true honor comes from loyalty to one’s values and that knowing one’s own heart is the only path forward through grief.