A Post-Internment Wrestling Chronicle by Martin Meadows

Posted on February 27, 2022 by Cliff Mills

A long-forgotten name from out of the dim and distant past suddenly came to my attention recently as I was looking through a “Maurice Francis Archives” post of 30 January 2022. It concerned an individual named William Sidney Nabors, who in World War II (WWII) was a civilian prisoner of the Nipponese for 37 months in Manila’s Santo Tomas Internment Camp (STIC). The significance of Nabors is the fact that his assumed name — which he used when he performed as a professional wrestler — was Danny Dusek (pictured at left). Now, while I did not know Nabors, in STIC or elsewhere, I was aware of the name and occupation of Danny Dusek, for he was well-known in the U.S. and the Philippines before WWII. He must have been well-known, as even I had heard of him, although I was not interested in sports at the time and was just 11 years old when I was welcomed into STIC. Probably I knew of Dusek because I was (and still am) a habitual listener to radio, and possibly also because of mentions by my father, who was interested in wrestling and especially boxing (he once took me along to see Jack Dempsey’s arrival at the Manila airport); and publicity surrounding Dusek’s arrival in the Philippines in 1941 undoubtedly was a major factor. [Note: for present purposes, pro wrestling is treated as a legitimate sport.]

The initial material available to me (via the various links in the cited Maurice Francis post) about Nabors/Dusek — hereafter cited only as Dusek — revealed that he had resumed his wrestling career when he returned to the U.S. after STIC’s liberation in 1945, and indeed continued it long thereafter. But one thing about that material puzzled me: it did not once mention what I considered to be a significant fact — his STIC imprisonment for over three years. That odd omission (even in his obituary) helped propel my decision to investigate “The Dusek Story” in more detail. This account, which is primarily about his post-STIC exploits in the ring, is intended both to alert the “ex-internee community” to the fact of his imprisonment, and more generally to attempt to rescue from obscurity the post-internment record of one of the thousands of WWII civilian guests of the Nipponese — plus (last and certainly least) in so doing, possibly to stir the interest of any fans of professional wrestling who may yet be lurking somewhere in the audience.
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77th anniversary of STIC Liberation

Posted on February 2, 2022 by Cliff Mills

3 February 2022 is the 77th anniversary of the liberation of Santo Tomás Internment Camp by elements of the U.S. First Cavalry Division. I have compiled some photos, quotes and links to celebrate this event. The U.S. Army photograph at left shows the flag-raising which occurred at 9:15am on Monday morning, February 5, 1945.

Here’s a little more info about that flag draped over the entrance of the Main Building in Santo Tomas. It was brought into the Camp in 1942 by a family who had sewn it into a pillow. It was deployed right after the Japanese guards who had taken the hostages in the Education Building were marched out of the camp. The ex-internees gathered around sang God Bless America.

On Liberation evening, the people on the south side of the Main Building saw the searchlights and tanks as they entered the gate. Screaming like fury, they raced down the stairs and out of the door from the main lobby into the plaza to greet the liberators. By the time I got to the lobby, I could only get down to the mezzanine level. Troops were holding the people back at the bottom of the stairs and a tank was sticking it’s snout through the double doors from the plaza to the lobby. It is my belief that the troopers drove the tank through the door to act as a cork to prevent more people from flooding into the plaza. Then shortly afterwards, Japanese began to snipe from the windows of the Education Building, and the tank was backed out and the troopers herded the internees back into the lobby. They then deployed in front of the Education Building and a fierce fire-fight developed. It lasted about 20 minutes, then the Japanese retreated to the third floor and dispersed among their hostages.

Angus Lorenzen, 5 February 2022

The “Battlin Basic” was the first U.S. tank to enter Santo Tomás at about 8:40pm, Saturday night, February 3, 1945, according to A.V.H. Hartendorp. I hope to post an article on the U.S. tankers at STIC in the near future.

The 8-page STIC Liberation Bulletin, 1945, by internee Peter C. Richards, includes camp chronology, statistics, prices of commodities and even advertisements. This copy includes notes from the original owner.

We had gone to bed feeling that it wouldn’t be long and at about nine o’clock we heard sounds of heavy motors out toward the front [gate] and cheers. At first we thought it was, perhaps, that the Japanese were finally pulling out. But there were shouts of “They’re here!”

Only a Matter of Days

The hysterical men, women and children swarmed the Plaza placing the soldier boys in a very difficult position for they could not clean up the Japanese guards as they intended to do. They dare not shoot for fear of drawing the Japanese fire that would have killed hundreds of internees. “The Brightest Day: February 3, 1945, from Santo Tomas Internment Camp, 1946, by Frederic H. Stevens.

Liberation! Such a sweet event that those who were not there can’t possibly understand the euphoria that swept through the prisoners when they first saw the men with the strange pots on their heads and realized that they were Americans. Angus Lorenzen, We Were There Too Uncle, 2018.

Roy Doolan, 1936 – 2021

Posted on August 13, 2021 by Cliff Mills

I am very sorry to report that Roy Fisher “Mike” Doolan died in Berkeley, California, on 1 August 2021. Roy was born in Manila in 1936 and was interned with his parents at Santo Tomas Internment Camp from 1942 to 1945. His daughter, Lark Doolan, wrote his obituary for Berkeleyside.org. It was also published online in the East Bay Express via Legacy.com.

Roy was very active in ex-POW organizations. After retiring, he wrote about his War experiences in the book
My Life in a Japanese Prison Camp During World War II, which is still available on Amazon. The book contains some articles written by his father, Roy Gibson Doolan.

Photo courtesy of Lark Doolan.

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Books, old and new …

Posted on June 18, 2021 by Cliff Mills

The War Diary of Jane Doner tells the story of “a 17-year-old high school senior, born in Cebu City and living there on December 8, 1941 . . . She fled from her home and hid in the jungle during the early days of the war but was betrayed and forced to surrender to the Imperial Japanese Military. Thereafter, Jane was interned in four prison camps before her eventual rescue and liberation in 1945 by the armed forces of the United States. During captivity she endured fear, starvation, disease and the death of many of her friends, but survived to tell the story.” Published in May 2021, the book can be purchased through Lulu press.

In January 2021, Joe Huber published Rescue Raids of Luzon!, which chronicles the liberation of the civilian and POW camps. Here is the publisher’s description: “Between January 26th and February 23rd of 1945 on Luzon in the Philippines, America made its greatest rescue of civilians and military prisoners from deep behind enemy lines . . . This book summarizes these raids and describes the prison camp experience of the author and his family [who were first interned on Mindanao]. Photos, drawings, and old documents help tell the tale. In the largest raid on the prison at Santo Tomás in Manila, his family had “ringside seats . . .”

The book includes numerous family photos and diagrams of the camps and is available on a variety of sources including Amazon and authorHouse.

War and Resistance-Philippines, 2021, Morningstar- According to the publisher’s writeup, War and Resistance in the Philippines, 1942-1944, published March, 2021, “repairs the fragmentary and incomplete historiography of the events in the Philippine Islands between the surrender of Allied forces in May 1942 and MacArthur’s return in October 1944. Chronicles by politicians and guerrilla leaders reflect limited points of view and personal and political agendas. No academic study has comprehensively examined the Filipino resistance with a critical interdisciplinary approach. As a result, this book provides the first coherent narrative of the protracted fighting by 260,000 guerrillas in 277 units across the archipelago.” Book includes index and bibliography.

James Kelly Morningstar is a retired U.S. Army armor officer and decorated combat veteran with degrees from West Point and Kansas State University, a master’s degree from Georgetown University, and a PhD from the University of Maryland. He currently teaches military history at Georgetown. He is the author of Patton’s War: A Radical Theory of War.

Francis C. Gray is a retired bishop in the Episcopal Church and has served in congregations and dioceses in Florida, Indiana and Virginia. He was born in the Philippine Islands in 1940, where his parents were missionaries, and had a lifelong commitment to world mission. He was interned, with his parents, at Camp Holmes, Baguio, in 1942. The photo on the cover of For Thou Art With Me shows the Gray family, after liberation from Old Bilibid Prison. The book is based on the diaries of his father and was published in 2010.

It can be ordered directly from the author for $13, which includes postage. You can contact him directly at Karenandfrank@comcast.net.

Frank Gray also published a small book of poetry in 2020 titled Released. A few of the titles are:

Prison Food

Death Warrant

Homecoming

The Sacrament of SPAM

This book can also be ordered directly from the author for $13, which includes postage. You can contact him at Karenandfrank@comcast.net.

“Covering both the strategic and tactical aspects of the campaign through the participation of its soldiers, sailors, and airmen, as well as its commanders, James P. Duffy leads readers through a vivid account of the nearly year-long, bloody campaign to defeat over a quarter million die-hard Japanese defenders in the Pacific theater. Return to Victory: MacArthur’s Epic Liberation of the Philippines, is a wide-ranging, dramatic and stirring account of MacArthur’s epic liberation of the Philippines.” Published in March 2021, the book includes maps, photos, an index and bibliography. However, it has little information about the civilian camps.

Interrupted Lives is a short book with perspectives by four American women who were interned in the civilian camps: Margaret Sams, Jane Stoll Wills, Sascha Jean Jansen and Karen Kerns Lewis.

Last printed in 2018, it is an excellent introduction to the struggle for everyday life in the camps during the War. The book includes several photos and illustrations.

Margaret Sams also wrote Forbidden Family: Wartime Memoir of the Philippines, 1941-1945.

Amazing Grace: The Unbroken Spirit of a Japanese Prisoner of War, was published in 2015. “In early 1942, Grace Brown was taken a prisoner of the Japanese in the Philippines along with her husband Caldwell and their three-month-old son Iain [first on Cebu and later at STIC]. Their ordeal lasted three and a half years during which time they were starved and at the mercy of their captors.
For most of that time, Grace had to care for her son alone after Caldwell was taken from camp by the Japanese. She endured the next two years not knowing if her husband was alive or dead.
At her lowest point, Grace started keeping a secret diary, which she hid in her son’s teddy bear. Finally, back at home in Scotland, she wrote this dramatic account of all they had been through, which is being published for the first time to mark the 70th anniversary of VJ Day.” Son, Iain A. C. Brown reports that the book is available in Kindle format on Amazon.com. You can also contact Iain at brown@carlton-brown.eu.

Disclaimer: The inclusion of any titles in this list are intended to benefit the interests of our readers and do not imply any endorsement.

R. G. Southerton drawings from the Hoover Institution

Posted on April 30, 2021 by Cliff Mills

There is a small collection of drawings by former STIC internee, Robert Grindley Southerton Jr., in the Hoover Institution Archives, in Palo Alto, California. I found them in a folder in the 37-box collection of materials donated by Roger Mansell.

In 2005, Robert’s daughter, Lorna Loveland, who has granted permission to post these items, wrote on Tom Moore’s website:

“My father’s name is Robert Grindley Southerton (RGS 2) . He was interned in Santo Tomás in the Philippines with his mother, Edith Southerton, when the harbour was bombed and the ship’s crew mutinied. They had been on holidays in Australia and were returning to Shanghai when war broke out. They only got as far as Hong Kong. My grandfather, whose name is also Robert Grindley Southerton, [had] sent his wife and my dad to Australia for safety and that was how they ended up in Santo Tomás.”

Robert Grindley Southerton Jr. (Source: Lorna Loveland)

Robert was about 16-years-old when he made these drawings in 1942. In 1943, he and his mother were transferred back to China, to be reunited with the rest of their family at the Yu Yuen Road Camp, Shanghai. Robert died in 1980 in New South Wales, Australia.

Photo courtesy of Lorna Loveland.

Credit for making these available is courtesy of Lorna Loveland. Link to a longer article on the Southerton family. Click on any of the drawings to enlarge.

R. G.. Southerton drawing of Santo Tomas main building, 1942

R. G. Southerton drawing of the courtyard of the Santo Tomas main building, 1942

R. G.. Southerton drawing of Santo Tomas Education building, 1942 — R. G. Southerton drawing of Santo Tomas Education building, 1942

R. G. Southerton drawing of restaurant at Santo Tomas, 1942

R. G. Southerton drawing of Santo Tomas main Seminary building, 1942

R. G. Southerton drawing of Santo Tomas University campus, with notes, 1942

The Andersons of Davao

Posted on April 15, 2021 by Cliff Mills

Alonzo and Mayte Anderson, 1946

A brief article was published last week in the Adventist Review regarding the lives of two former Davao and STIC internees, Alfonso and Mayte Anderson.

The author, Bruce N. Anderson, begins “For more than three decades, Alfonso Nils Anderson and his wife, Mayte Landis Anderson, were missionaries to the Japanese people, first in Japan, then in the Japanese community in the Philippines, where they survived three years in the harsh conditions of World War II internment camps.”

The article describes the background and marriage of the couple and details their years in Japan, from 1915 – 1937. It then tells of their move to Mindanao and ultimately their internment in Davao and later Santo Tomás. For more, link to the full article. This article is also published in the Encyclopedia of Seventh-Day Adventists.

Photo courtesy of Bruce N. Anderson.

Huber family Philippine saga

Posted on February 5, 2021 by Cliff Mills

The story of the Huber family in the Philippines is told in a recent Akron Beacon Journal article titled Raised in the jungle, Cuyahoga Falls man recalls Goodyear rubber plantation. In the article, Joe Huber Jr. recounts growing up on a rubber plantation, on Mindanao, and being interned in Davao and later in Santo Tomás.

The Huber family included Joseph C. Huber Sr., Thelma Thompson Huber, Joseph C. Huber Jr. (born 1934), Barbara Jean Huber (born 1935) and Stephen Lewis Huber (born 1936). Joe Jr. was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, while Barbara and Stephen were both born in Zamboanga, Mindanao.

The article spans the family’s story before, during and after the War and includes several family photographs, including some that show the rubber business on Mindanao. The family was repatriated on the S.S. Klipfontein leaving Leyte in March 1945, arriving in San Francisco on 21 April 1945. For more, link to the full article.

The Joseph and Thelma Huber family in 1945, after liberation. (photo courtesy of the Akron Journal)

Former STIC internee, Ruth Renfrow, reaches 100!

Posted on January 2, 2021 by Cliff Mills

Ruth Renfrow turns 100

Former STIC internee, Ruth Renfrow, was the subject of a recent feature article which appeared in The Union, of Nevada County, California. The article, titled Ruth Renfrow, who spent time in a prisoner of war camp before moving to Nevada City, turned 100 this year, tells the Ruth and Clyde Renfrow story from their first meeting in the Philippines, to marriage, to evading the Japanese after the invasion, to internment and to having two children, Willie and Winnie, in Santo Tomás.

The Renfrow family was repatriated on the S.S. John Lykes leaving Manila on 28 March 1945 and arriving San Pedro, California, on 2 May 1945. The article has several historic and contemporary photos. Link to Ruth Renfrow’s story.

Christmas behind the wire

Posted on December 22, 2020 by Cliff Mills

Recently, I happened upon the recent article This is how Christmas was spent in POW camps, by Roger Towsend, published in the Southern Daily Echo (Redbridge, Southampton, England). It begins:

As Families contemplate their Christmas arrangements in this most extraordinary of years, many will find it hard to accept that this cannot be like any normal year and that we may not be able to visit our loved ones.

But let us remember that this is the 75th anniversary of the repatriation of our Far East Prisoners of War (FEPOW) to Southampton and Liverpool around this time in 1945.

Perspective may be able to enlighten our thoughts at this time.

Though the article concerns mainly British civilian internees and POWs, it reminded me of the situation in the Philippine camps, where parents worked hard to normalize the wartime situation for their children. In his book, Santo Tomas Internment Camp, Frederic Stevens devoted a chapter to Christmas, 1942-43-44, where he describes all three Christmas’ at Santo Tomas.

And Sascha Jansen described her family’s creative use of face cream 1944 STIC Christmas Menu in the May 2010 issue of Beyond the Wire:

2 garlic buds
1 can of corned beef (last one from our Red Cross comfort kit)
1 small can of pineapple (last one from our Red Cross comfort kit)
1 taro root (from our Elephant Ear plant)
1 scoop Lugao
We traded a small can of “old” mustard powder for a big bunch of Talinum.

My mother cooked and mashed the taro and added the corned beef to make “hamburger patties.” She cooked them on a tin plate with Mabelline face cream for oil. She made a salad out of the garlic and Talinum.

A small amount of taro was mixed with the lugao and the drained pineapple chunks for dessert muffins. Before serving she spooned the juice over the muffins. It was incredible!

In The Christmas of 1944, from Inquirer.net, very different perspectives from Albert Holland, in STIC, and Warren A. Wilson, in Old Bilibid Prison, are given.

Isabelle Holter wrote a short article about the Christmas of ’44 in STIC, published in the September 2009 issue of Beyond the Wire. Titled Caroling Between Blackouts, the author tells of one child saying:

“I sure hope Santa Claus picks a cloudy day to come, so those bombers won’t bomb him,” exclaimed one, after a day of continuous air raids. Grim indeed was the prospect of any who contemplated serious preparation in celebration of Christmas that year.

Isabelle ends with the comment, “that experience has given us a life-time membership in the fellowship of the homeless, the hungry, the sick and the suppressed, wherever they may be.”

Australian War Memorial photos

Posted on September 15, 2020 by Cliff Mills

This week, I’m posting a small collection of photographs from the Australian War Memorial, at Canberra, Australia. These photos are in no particular order but relate to the Battle of Manila and the liberation of Australian internees in the Philippines. I am not posting descriptions of these photos, as most of them are self-explanatory.

Click on any of the photos to enlarge, but unfortunately, these are not high-definition photos. For print quality images, prints, or for commercial uses please contact the Australian War Memorial. If you reuse these photos, please reference AWM as the source.

On their website, the AWM also has a feature article on VP Day: Victory in the Pacific, and an article on the Japanese surrender at Morotai, on 9 September 1945.

Please use the comment form if you have any comments, corrections, questions or if you recognize any of the unnamed people in the photos.