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Post by pdh54 on Jul 3, 2012 9:01:45 GMT 8
Thank you gentlemen for taking the time on this.
All I could seem to find were articles about the POWs not the lists of names for civilians.
It's just one of those tiny, weird coincidences that I was due with our daughter 45 years to the day after Lilla was due with her baby. Sarah was born Dec 31,1986 at Cubi's hospital. It just caught my attention, one of those girl things I guess.
At least we didn't have the Japanese banging at the door.
Thanks again
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Post by The Phantom on Jul 24, 2012 3:44:49 GMT 8
After December 10th or so.........A look into the Residence.......
"The plan to evacuate us to Baguio had been abandoned, ( Camp John Hay had been bombed early on), the Residence, ( today's Embassy complex on Roxas Blvd.), was prepared for a state of siege, and the building rapidly lost it's official appearance.
At the wide sweeping entrance, all the great iron grills doors were closed but one. Just inside lines of people waited before an improvised counter to receive gas masks and to get their anti-tetanus and other inoculations.
All the windows were taped and darkened. Sandbags filled in each rounded archway of the patio blocking out light and the sight of greenery.
One's feet gritted on the dirt and sand that had been tracked along over the tiled floor.
Along one side of the patio, mattresses had been laid. A rude scaffolding about 3 ft high enclosed about 4 or 5 of these mattresses in groups, with mosquito netting nearly as big as parachute hanging over them.
Just off the patio, and next to the library, there was a small den which was Air-conditioned and relatively protected and which had a telephone. 2 small beds a couch and a chase lounge were squeezed in. Mr. and Mrs. Sayre slept on the beds. (Amea slept on the couch.)
The air-raid shelter at the Residence was originally the base of the elevator shaft, which also housed air-conditioning machinery for the rest of the house. We all slept fully clothed to avoid fumbling endlessly about for our things.
............Woody found the incessant and sudden awakening in the house to the accompaniment of sirens, gongs and bombs so nerve shattering that he preferred to spend all night in the shelter. And we usually found him sound asleep when the alarm sounded.
We stayed in our sweat soaked clothes because there was no time to change them.
But right before us we could see with our own eyes the ruin of one of America's greatest naval bases--and the only U.S. base in the far East."
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Post by The Phantom on Jul 25, 2012 4:55:20 GMT 8
"With the coming of dark, flares set by fifth columnists sprang up all over the city. The first night of the war Nichols field was clearly outlined by them.
........that not only was a flight of enemy planes over Luzon, headed for Manila, but that flares were being set up all around the Residence.
The guards were instructed to shoot anyone on the grounds........
Actually the flare holders turned out to be relatively innocent. Caught and hauled up for questioning--the ones who didn't get shot in the excitement---they were simply country boys.
Bewildered, they explained that some strangers had thrust the flares into their hands, together with a small sum of money.
These flares were set off by a fuse, like Roman candles. With a sputtering hiss a long snakelike red light would shoot straight up into the sky, defining the target.
One young American soldier, explaining the fuse principal, said that it was almost impossible to catch the traitors since they were far away by the time the flare ignited and gave the alarm.
'So now, when I see a match struck, ' I just shoot'. I put my cigarette back in my bag.
The shooting ---of another kind---reached some sort of record one morning about 3:00 AM.
......we looked toward town and saw the enormous ALHAMBRA CIGAR electric sign, blazing with light and certainly visible for miles. No one could find the switch to turn it off so they trained machine guns on it.
We never heard how the sign came to be light at such a time." ............................... ( I think the Alhambra cigar factory was located then on present day U.N. Ave. east of Taft Ave. It's gone now)
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Post by okla on Jul 25, 2012 5:38:46 GMT 8
Hey Phantom....I, at one time during my Air Force hitch (1951-55), had a Squadron First Sergeant who was a Buck Private stationed at Scofield Barracks, Oahu on Dec y, 1941. He said that his Company was staked out on the beach area near the Eastern part of Honolulu and it sounded like D-Day would sound some three years later with nervous rookie sentries shooting at anything that moved. There were some "casualties" according to the Old Sarge. Manila, it appears, had these same type jitters. The only difference being that the Japs were coming and at Oahu, the Japs were in full steam ahead out of the area. Cheers.
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Post by The Phantom on Jul 25, 2012 6:23:50 GMT 8
Off to Corregidor.................
" passing the calm beauty of Marivelas, we transferred to P.T. boats again. ...........A railway car was moved ponderously along its narrow tracks, coming to stop at the rim of the concrete dock.
At once blue- and khaki- clad figures swarmed over it bearing crates and heavy boxes.
(Malinta tunnel information Fots. written precisely as she has....)
At Malinta Tunnel we started walking through the underground passages, noticing at once that, although the air was cooler, it was lifeless. We turned to the right, down a smaller tunnel marked with a big black and white sign, 'Hospital'.
(So they went in from the East entrance?)
Hurrying, busy figures brushed past us. From numbered archways other long passages branched out on both sides of us. A trim blond nurse came forward and greeted us. Under her guidance we took #11 to the left and passed through an aisle between neat cots.
'This is where the doctors sleep,' said the nurse. Halfway down the passage she pushed aside a screen.
She pointed to a similar row of cots. She said, 'And this is where you'll sleep, for the present'. Cheerfully she mentioned the recent whitewashing of the walls and what an improvement it made.
I walked the length of our low arched passage. The beds were jammed end to end, to close for bedside tables between. At the far end there was a washbasin.
This was evidently the head of the corridor, for 3 beds there had pieces of paper pinned to the pillows reading, 'Mrs Sayre', 'Mrs Quezon', 'Mrs MacArthur".
The rest of the beds were unmarked. I dropped on one as far from the washbasin as possible.
Deep underground, protected and really safe for the first time in weeks, it was impossible to not feel really let down.
I looked over at Mrs Sayre, sitting on the edge of her bed, which suddenly seemed so far away, and wondered if she felt like I did.
For the first time it was unnecessary, and indeed useless, to listen for sirens or planes. The thick walls which held back hundreds of feet of rock from crushing us also deadened all sound from outside.
Our suitcases had not yet caught up with us, but we took off our dresses and laid down. I would have given my soul for a little solitude.
We had no bombs or sirens to contend with that night, but it was rather like trying to sleep in Grand Central Station.
The bright lights were switched on and off periodically. People walked up and down the passage between our beds. By midnight it was really quiet. But, soon after, we were all wakened at once by bright light and loud argument from the other side of the screen.
Two well dressed women had arrived, and they apparently found everything was wrong, everything. They were protesting vigorously to the tired nurse, who, incidentally carried in their 2 heavy suitcases. They made quite clear their sense of outrage at being asked to sleep in a roomful of females. At this point Mrs. Sayre politically feigned sleep.
The younger woman had a dog on a lease. Animals were not allowed in the tunnel but she refused to be parted from her dog. He snapped and growled at the nurse, who looked ready to boil over.
Finally the women decided there was nothing to do but spend the night with us. The nurse informed them that breakfast was at 6:30.
At this there were more protestations and arguments.
'Well that is when breakfast IS' the nurse said with finality. As she swept by my bed I heard her mutter scornfully, 'society women'!
Then the newcomers entertained us with elaborate and noisy preparations for the night, as through as any beauty expert could have devised. The younger woman donned delicate nightwear while the rest of us watched, fascinated.
She began to be friendly and asked me if we were all Army wives? I managed a brief 'No' and firmly shut my eyes. Mrs Sayre quietly got up and took an empty bunk near me. The lights went off.
Then the Quezon's returned from midnight mass, with a start I realized it was still Christmas Eve. Their considerable efforts to be quiet filled the air with a sense of dramatic expectancy.
They got out their Holy images and rosaries and, dropped to their knees, prayed in sibilant penetrating whispers. After that some of them unwrapped paper packages and made a supper of sandwiches.
When sleep finally came it was of short duration-- almost immediately, it seemed it was 6:30."
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Post by fots2 on Jul 25, 2012 21:30:14 GMT 8
Phantom, That is an interesting glimpse into war time life in the tunnels. Coming from the East Entrance along the main Malinta Tunnel you do turn right into a lateral on the way to the hospital. There was a sign above this lateral and a big cross painted on the domed wall above it. Here is a screen shot from a Japanese newsreel. The sign is washed out so you cannot read it though. Screen capture of the cross and sign above the lateral going to the hospital. This screen capture shows the same sign and the entrance to the hospital lateral. Lateral #11 is the first lateral on the left as you enter the hospital from the main Malinta Tunnel. Many of the hospital laterals are whitewashed today which I assume is original paint, can’t say for sure. In one of the hospital laterals looking out towards the main N-S tunnel.
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Post by okla on Jul 25, 2012 22:57:30 GMT 8
Hey Fots...Thanks for posting these pics. What stories these plain, dull looking walls could tell. Can you imagine what a strain those "uppity, full of it" wives put on the other women jammed into those close Quarters. Conditions were tough enough without the attitudes displayed by those Officers Wives (I guess that's what they were). I betcha Mrs Chad (Patty) Hill wouldn't have acted in such a manner. I have found that Wives of Pilots, especially Fighter Pilots, are a different "Breed of Cat", as are their Husbands. Some of those types just can't handle the fact that their Husbands have a lofty rank or position and it rubs off on some of the "better halves". I will throw out one little anecdote that happened to yours truly as an example. This Lieutenant Colonel's (He was Deputy Operations Director of this Air Division outfit that I had been assigned to upon returning from frozen Chosen in the late summer of 1953) "full of it" wife came bouncing into the Ops Section with a stack of invitations to a Tea to be held at the Club with a list of attendees, pitched them on my desk and said to see to it that they were addressed and put in the mail. I was livid. Being a newly minted Staff Sergeant, I didn't want to refuse to do it, but I, with my short fuze, didn't want to risk getting on the wrong side of the good Colonel and maybe getting "busted",etc, bit my lip and implied I would get it done. She left the building and I immediately went to this grizzled, old NCOIC Master Sergeant (who, I referred to in another post, concerning his being a Buck Private at Schofield Barracks, Oahu, Dec 7, 1941) with my problem. "Pappy", in his infinite wisdom, told me to cool it and he would take care of it. He sauntered into the Director of Ops (former room mate of Colin Kelly at West Point), spoke with said Colonel, came back gathered up the invitations/list took them back to the Colonel and I never heard anything more about it. I did think afterward that the Lieutenant Colonel was always giving me a rather curious look. I didn't press "Pappy" on what he had said or done. Just goes to show how abrasive some people can be and just how much "pull" old Master Sergeants possess. Just thought I would throw this tidbit out there. Even in dire circumstances like that on Corregidor that Christmas Eve way back in 1941, some people, who are so impressed with their status, cannot refrain from being "Horses Arses". Cheers.
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Post by pdh54 on Jul 26, 2012 0:09:46 GMT 8
Good morning Okla. How fare's the birthday boy?
You have hit it on the head when you say what stories these walls could tell. That is the enchantment in visiting history. I know that is what catches my imagination. I love reading about all sorts of archeological things and coming at these places from the everyday man's point of view. What in the world did they use this for? How did moms keep their kids safe and healthy? Did they react to things more or less as we do today?
Going back to the post: I think those two women eventually mellowed out a little.
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Page 134
The ladies' lateral on Corregidor presented a contrast of personalities, and ways of life and general backgrounds, that was strange, dramatic, and bizarre. Four of us were there from the H.C.'s group, Mrs. Sayre, Mrs. White, Miss Newcomb and I. There were Mrs. Quezon and her two teen-age daughters, Baby and Nini. The Navy was represented by two wives, Mrs. Ryder and Mrs. Jansen; the Army by Mrs. MacArthur, Mrs. Seals, Mrs. Grady, and Mrs. Chaleck. Mrs Bewley and her daughter, Virginia, were civilians from Manila. These women, for one reason or another, had not been able to leave when the Army and Navy wives had been evacuated months earlier.
Anna Lee Jacoby, whose husband Melville Jacoby, was with Time, Inc., joined us a little later. The Quezons had a nurse and two women servants, but these three were so unobtrusive that they were the nearest thing to no one at all I ever encountered.
We were of all ages, and of differing tastes and habits. In a design for living that afforded no privacy, or even luxury of modesty, we could not hide from each other the little faults and traits of a lifetime. We were stripped of social artificialities along with the outer props of prestige and material acquisitions. Qualities other than bravery earned medals in that composite group. Mrs. MacArthur earned one by the way she told little Arthur stories during raids. Mrs. Seals had arthritis, but she didn't talk about it. There should be honorable mentions for those who went to bed without waking others, and left the shower as they found it. And a salute to all noncomplainers for never voicing their fear and their worry.
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Post by pdh54 on Jul 26, 2012 0:21:33 GMT 8
Okla, Thanks for the compliment. I was frankly too busy with three kids,a dog, cat and Chad to worry much about my "social standing". Plus I just wasn't raised that way.
My dad was a first generation German-American whose dad cut limestone in southern Indiana, and while my mom's family had been here since the 1600's and we are descended from William the Conqueror (as are about 1 million others) my folks were regular people from regular people. I put on "airs" with the kids at school sometimes when I tell them about William the Bastard and all they say is "Get Real Mrs. Hill!" Nothing like teenagers to keep you down to earth. (I have been a substitute teacher for about 18 years now)
Patty
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Post by okla on Jul 26, 2012 2:54:51 GMT 8
Hey Patty....One more little item, showing how pilot wives, I think, were unique. When I was 19 years of age (and underage as far a legal drinking), stationed at Great Falls AFB, Montana, we had an ex-B-26 Combat Pilot who, due to vision problems, had lost his pilot status in Korea and was chained to a desk in the Wing Ops/Intelligence Section where I labored as a lowly Corporal at the time (early 1952). This Officer's wife, when she spotted one of her husband's "boys"getting a bit out of line in downtown Great Falls, she would grab them up in order to keep them from the Military Police's clutches, haul them back to the base, and deposit them at their barracks. She was our Mom away from home so to speak. Now I ask you, is that a classy Pilot's wife or not???
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