CPOW Reunion 2023 – Update!

Because of Covid, the CPOW (Civilian ex-Prisoners of War) (formerly BACEPOW) reunion was cancelled last year. So we are making up for it in 2023 with a meeting at our familiar hotel in Sacramento, California. The hotel is newly renovated for guest rooms and the atrium lobby, and features a managers cocktail social period in the late afternoon plus a cooked-­to-order breakfast.

CPOW 2023 Reunion Agenda


Thursday April 13 through Sunday April 16
Embassy Suites by Hilton Sacramento Riverfront Promenade

Thursday

    2:00 to 5:00 Registration, Cindie Leonard, Atrium

Friday

    Friday morning, Self-Registration, Atrium
    9:00 Opening & Welcome, Sally Meadows, Steamboat/Central Pacific Room
    9:10 Presentation of the Colors, California National Guard
    9:20 Los Baños Liberation, Sondra Shields
    10:05 Bilibid Liberation, Francine Bostrom
    10:50 Break
    11:05 Video of Internees, Melanie Chapman
    12:35 Lunch Break
    2:00 Twice a POW, Angus Lorenzen
    3:25 Break
    3:40 A Matter of Faith: Religion and Hope at Santo Tomas, Mary Beth Klee
    5:00 End of Session

Saturday
Steamboat/Central Pacific Room

Sunday
Various Rooms

    9:00 Book Discussions and Sales, Atrium
    9:00 CPOW Board of Directors, Sally Meadows, Tower Bridge B
    10:30 Authors Work in Progress, Mary Beth Klee, Tower Bridge B
    12:00 Banquet, Steamboat/Central Pacific
    1:00 Reunion Summation and Closing Remarks, Sally Meadows
    1:15 Keynote Speaker, Jim Zobel
    2:30 Adjourn, Sally Meadows

Hotel Reservations:
To reserve a room at Sacramento Embassy Suites using our discount code:

  • Visit www.sacramento.embassysuites.com and make a reservation using the group/convention code: POW
  • Call (916) 326-5000 and let the Front Desk Agent know you would like to make a reservation under the CPOW Civilian Prisoners of War discount rate.

Meeting Registration: CPOW 2023 Reunion Registration Form

Like to join CPOW? Link to the CPOW 2023 Membership Form

Checks should be made out to Civilian ex-POWs should be sent to CPOW Treasurer:

Cindie Leonard
1675 S. Lake Crest Way
Eagle, ID 83616

Online Videos page updated

I have recently updated the Online Videos page to include more items by, and about, ex-internees. These videos come from a variety of sources, including YouTube, Vimeo, the Library of Congress, and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), among others. The page also includes a video of an ex-STIC internee interviewing other ex-internees. If anyone knows the name of the interviewer, please send a message to me via the Comments page. [See below for update!]

Unknown STIC interviewer, 1945

Unnamed STIC interviewer, 1945

The list of individuals include:

  • Frank Woodruff Buckles
  • Ed Cadwallader
  • Lillian Rose Goynes
  • Samuel Weir Hamilton
  • Eleanor Herold Heimke
  • Lotte Cassel Hershfield
  • Louise Howard Hill
  • Catherine Cotterman Hoskins
  • Mary Jane Bellis Laznibat
  • Angus Lorenzen
  • Prof. Martin Meadows
  • Patricia Chittick Remley
  • James Stewart & Judy Stewart Harding
  • Prof. Rupert Wilkinson

Other contributions are always welcome. Link to the Online Videos page.

Update: Martin Meadows has identified the unnamed interviewer as Clarence Alton Beliel, aka “Don Bell.” Thanks, Martin! George Baker and Angus Lorenzen also recognized Don Bell correctly.

Philippines’ role in saving Jews during the Holocaust

Two recent articles detail the role of the Philippines in helping Jews escape the Holocaust by allowing them to migrate to the Philippines:

How the Philippines saved 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust, by Madison Park, appeared on CNN Online on 12 February 2015. Photos, videos and commentary by Lotte Cassel Hershfield are featured. Posted on philSTAR, on the same day, was Philippines to the rescue: 6 tales of Jews’ escape from Nazis, by Camille Diola. The six people referenced are Hans Hoeffler, Ralph Preiss, Margot Cassel Pins, Gordon Lester, Mary Faquhar and Celia “Topsy” Black.

For more information about this topic:

Rod Hall WWII collection now online!

Filipinas Heritage LibraryRoderick Hall, a former STIC internee, has announced that his collection, Roderick Hall Collection on World War II in the Philippines, is now available online on the Filipinas Heritage Library website. According to the introduction to the collection, by Prof. Ricardo T. Jose, “The Roderick Hall Collection is a unique and important private library of books and papers dealing with World War II and the Japanese Occupation of the Philippines. The bulk of the titles are personal memoirs, many privately published and difficult to find, from various vantage points: American, Filipino, Japanese and also French, Australian, British and other nationalities. Extremely well covered are the prisoner of war and Allied internee experiences, but there is also much on the Philippine defense campaign of 1941-1942, the guerrilla resistance movement and the life under the Japanese. There is also much on the battle of Manila in 1945.

Rod Hall himself was eyewitness to the Japanese occupation and its horrors: born in Manila of a Scottish father and a Spanish-Scottish mother (a McMicking), he experienced the luxury of pre-war Manila life and witnessed the disintegration of this during the war. He experienced the terrors of the Battle of Manila; his mother and several other relatives were killed by the Japanese.”

For more information, please link to the collection.

Video of Sam Hamilton posted on A-V page

A short YouTube video featuring STIC internee, Sam Hamilton, has been added to the Audio-Visual Materials page on this site. He describes the emotional liberation of the Camp by the American in February 1945. Link to Audio-Visual page