Jim Crosby relates his STIC memories

Former child internee, James Crosby, talks about his Santo Tomas Internment Camp memories in a recent San Diego Union-Tribune article titled Internee has different memories of war. Jim was 9-years-old when he and his parents, Ralph and Flora, were interned. Ralph was a mining company executive who stayed after Liberation to help rebuild the destroyed mines.

According to the article,

Within three weeks, the interned schoolteachers set up classes again in the university’s chemistry labs. Every subject was taught except American history, which was forbidden by the Japanese.

Crosby didn’t much enjoy going to school, but it passed the time. He said he often despaired that the internment would never end. For distraction, he and his buddies played cops and robbers for hours.

“We didn’t have any guns, so we’d take the long beans from acacia trees and cut them up into little pieces and throw them at each other,” he said.

The article includes two contemporaneous photos of Jim and his family. The full article is available on the San Diego Union-Tribune website.