Articles

Angels and more

Posted on by Cliff Mills

Following are some items relating to the civilian internment camps, liberation of the camps, the Battle of Manila, etc., and the many “Angels” who helped the internees survive. Click on any of the images to enlarge.

Angel of Santo Tomas 2022, byTammy Lee
A new children’s book was recently published by Tammy Lee titled The Angel of Santo Tomas. It tells the story of a Filipina doctor, Fe del Mundo, who administered add to the internee children for the Red Cross, in Manila, and at the Holy Ghost Children’s home. She later helped care for the wounded in the Battle of Manila.

Suggested for children ages 5 to 7.

 

Liberated U.S. Navy nurses in Honolulu, March 1945The U.S. Naval Institute recently published The Angelic Nurses of World War II on their website. This brief article tells of their ordeal after the Japanese invasion and in the camps. It has a few photos of the eleven U.S. Navy nurses liberated from Los Baños in February 1945. They were Lt. Mary Frances Chapman, Lt. Cmdr. Laura Mae Cobb, Lt. Bertha Rae Evans, Lt. Helen Clara Gorzelanski, Lt. Mary Rose Harrington, Lt. Margaret Alice “Peg” Nash, Lt. Goldia Aimee “Goldie” O’Haver, Lt. Eldene Elinor Paige, Lt. Susie Josephine Pitcher, Lt. Dorothy Still and Lt. Carrie Edwina Todd. Photo courtesy of the U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command.

Civilians being collected for internment, 1942Mystery Woman
 
This photo shows a group of civilians being collected for internment in Santo Tomas in early 1942. Can anyone help identify the woman in front wearing the white gloves and dark glasses? If you recognize her, please reply using our Comments form. Photo courtesy of the U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command.

 

 

Angels of Bataan – U.S. Army Nurses in Japanese Captivity, is a 45-minute audio recording by historian Mark Felton posted on YouTube.  He has written extensively on World War II topics and posted many videos and audio on Youtube.




The Angel of Santo Tomas drawing, 1943, J. E. McCall

Mrs. Patricia E. Intengan as “The Angel of Santo Tomás,” in the drawing by J. E. McCall, supplied by Caroline Bailey Pratt. This is Plate XXIX from the book Santo Tomás Internment Camp, 1945, by James E. McCall

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Encounters with STIC Guards, by Martin Meadows

Posted on by Cliff Mills

[The following article was originally distributed by Maurice Francis to his WWII Philippine Internment Email List. If you would like to be added to his list, please send a message using the Comments form. Following the article, I have recapped the previous contributions by Prof. Meadows.]

Encounters With STIC Guards (or, “Nippon” at My Heels)
by Martin Meadows

INTRODUCTION. Whenever anyone asks me what life was like during more than three years in Santo Tomás Internment Camp (STIC) in Manila, one question in particular is sure to arise. That question, usually a follow-up to the most obvious ones about food and housing conditions, concerns the treatment of internees by the camp’s Nipponese guards. When that once again came up during a recent radio interview, it prompted me to decide to provide as detailed an answer as memory would allow (certainly one far too detailed for any sort of interview). This is a purely personal account, one which should not be considered as necessarily applying to the experiences of STIC internees in general. In the following discussion, I distinguish between what I call “routine” and “non-routine” encounters with guards. The former deals with “normal” or every-day kinds of encounters, meaning the type that most internees would have undergone; the latter covers a limited number of interactions which were not “normal,” in the sense that very few other internees would have experienced them. And, to be properly pedantic as befitting a former professor, I further divide (and sub-divide) each of those two major kinds of encounters.

I. ROUTINE ENCOUNTERS. In this classification I distinguish between two types, which I call “random” and “non-random.”

    A. The random category includes, as might be expected, the numerous times when internees happened to randomly cross paths with Nipponese guards. In my case, these instances almost always occurred somewhere on the STIC grounds — that is, not within a building. On such occasions, having been suitably warned as to the required behavior, I made sure to bow correctly — from the waist rather than merely with a nod of my head. The guards for the most part simply ignored me, looking straight ahead as they walked; if and when they did react, it was usually with a head nod. Rarely did a guard actually bow from the waist, and even then only slightly so. Never (that I can recall) did I observe any of the guards bow “properly” in return (nor did internees expect them to do so).

    B. The non-random category includes two kinds of encounters.
    (1) One kind involves regularly-scheduled encounters, meaning specifically the twice-daily roll-calls, in which the residents of each room would, at the direction of the room monitor, bow in unison as guards strode past. (I do not know if this was the procedure in the Annex building, where mothers with younger children were housed.) Precisely because such encounters affected almost all internees, and were routine as well as non-random/regularly scheduled, normally they would require no further elaboration, except of course in the case of an out-of-the-ordinary event, one example of which is discussed as a “non-routine” occurrence (see II. A.).
    Continue reading →

Tribute to the late Roderick Hall

Posted on by Cliff Mills

Inquirer.net just published a tribute by Manuel L. Quezon III to the late Roderick Cameron McMicking Hall, who died on 13 January 2022. Though Rod and his family were not interned, they became victims of the War. Their story is told and Rod’s post-war life and work are detailed.

For example, the article references the Roderick Hall Collection, a research treasure to those interested in the history of World War II in the Philippines.

Rod will be sorely missed.

Link to the complete article:

Roderick Hall


PTSD of WWII Nurses

Posted on by Cliff Mills

The current worldwide Covid-19 pandemic is taking a huge toll on nurses worldwide. Author Emilie Le Beau Lucchesi recently posted a historical perspective on post-trumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on the Discover website titled The Ignored History of Nurse PTSD. She uses the case of U.S. Navy nurse, Dorothy Still, as a focus for this short essay.


From the article “Prior to the pandemic, studies estimated that as many as half of critical-care nurses experienced post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Since the pandemic began, researchers have found the crisis has amplified symptoms of mental health problems. A 2020 study in General Hospital Psychiatry found that 64 percent of nurses in a New York City medical center reported experiencing acute stress. “

Lt. Dorothy Still in uniform

Lt. Dorothy Still in uniform.

Ms. Lucchessi is also the author of the book, This is Really War : The Incredible True Story of a Navy Nurse POW in the Occupied Philippines.

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The disappearance of Father Douglas

Posted on by Cliff Mills

Rev. Francis Vernon “Frank” Douglas was born in Johnsonville, New Zealand, in 1910.   According to Wikiwand, “Douglas trained for the Catholic priesthood at Holy Cross Seminary, Mosgiell. Within a few months of his ordination, at the end of 1934, he applied to join the Missionary Society of St. Columban. He was curate at New Plymouth when he left to join the society at the start of 1937. He was appointed to the Philippines in July 1939.”  Father Douglas was never interned, but recently, The New Zealand Catholic (NZCatholic) published The disappearance that should not be forgotten. 

Father Francis V. Douglas, S.S.C.M.E., before the War.  

In July 1943, Father Douglas was arrested by the Japanese in Pililla, on the edge of Laguna de Bay, and taken to be interrogated in nearby Paete.  The NZCatholic article describes the various attempts to find out what ultimately became of him.

He is one of the over 100 priests, nuns, missionaries and church workers who died in the Philippines during the War.  The complete list will be published in an upcoming post on this website.

Links to more information about Father Douglas:

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The Andersons of Davao

Posted on by Cliff Mills

Alonzo and Mayte Anderson, 1946

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 by Cliff Mills

Joe Huber Jr., 2021The 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.

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

Rosemary Hogan Luciano, Angel of Bataan

Posted on by Cliff Mills

Rosemary Hogan LucianoFormer STIC internee, Lt. Rosemary Hogan, is the subject of a recent article in the Muskogee Phoenix by Edwyna Synar titled Remember the Ladies: Oklahoma’s Angel of Bataan.

The article begins “Shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, nurse Rosemary Hogan was transferred to the Philippines. When the war finally ended, this small-town Oklahoma girl would be one of the most honored and decorated nurses of the war, awarded the Purple Heart, Bronze Star and Presidential Unit Citation.

Rosemary Hogan was born in March 1912, in the tiny farming community of Ahpeatone. Too small even for a school, she completed her studies in Chattanooga, near Lawton, where she graduated as valedictorian. A local doctor sponsored a nursing scholarship for Hogan to attend Scott-White Hospital in Temple, Texas. As one of 10 children, this helped her pursue a military career. Hogan was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps at Fort Sill in 1936, serving there until she transferred to the Philippines.

On Christmas Eve 1941, nurse-in-charge Hogan took 50 American and Filipino nurses to Bataan Peninsula to establish a thousand-bed hospital in Limay. In January 1942, the hospital was ordered to move closer to the fighting, to a place called Little Baguio.

She served as assistant Chief of Nurses until she was wounded in April 1942. While she and another nurse were assisting a surgeon in an operation, a bomb destroyed the makeshift hospital. Hogan suffered leg wounds and shrapnel in her arm, nose, and face. She learned later that her left eardrum was also ruptured. The surviving nurses and patients took refuge in foxholes until they could safely move to Corregidor to recover… ”

Link to the full article online.

Lt. Rosemary Hogan gets new bars from Maj. Juanita Redmond.

Lt. Rosemary Hogan gets new bars from Maj. Juanita Redmond.

Former STIC internee, Ruth Renfrow, reaches 100!

Posted on by Cliff Mills

Ruth Renfrow turns 100

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 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.”