Former internee, Pamela Brink, has announced that her new book, Only by the Grace of God, is now available. She and her family were interned in three camps during the War: Cebu, Santo Tomás , and Los Baños Internment Camp.
Pamela was only eight-years-old when first interned, but the book also includes the memoirs of her late brothers, Robert and John Brink. The family all survived the War and were repatriated on the M.S. Torrens, arriving in San Francisco on 15 May 1945.
The announcement at Amazon.com has this to say about the book:
Three siblings from the Philippines wrote down what they remembered about being imprisoned by the Japanese during World War II.
Pamela J. Brink, Robert A. Brink, and John W. Brink all survived the ordeal, but only one of them–Pamela–is still alive today. She shares their experiences in this memoir that recounts the horrors of war as seen through the eyes of children.
At age thirteen, John W. was the oldest when they were captured, and his account is likely the most accurate of all three.
Robert and Pamela’s versions are different as they saw everything through younger, more fearful eyes. All three, however, remember being overjoyed when they were rescued from the Los Baños prison camp.
When they were freed, everyone wanted to hear about atrocities, but their slow starvation could not compete with the horrors that Jews suffered in Nazi Germany. Most ignored their tales, and over time, they stopped telling them.
Three adults look back at their childhood experiences as prisoners of war, how they survived, and how they continued on in Only by the Grace of God.