Beyond Pearl Harbor by Clio Mathews Wetmore
DATE: 12 September 2001

1000-WORD EXCERPT

Page 13: "January 2, l942, thousands of Japanese troops paraded down the streets of Manila waving their red and white flags, symbols of the Rising Sun, and marching to strange martial music. It was frightening. We were now in their hands. Our instructions over the radio were to stay indoors and not offer any resistance or try to escape.

January 4, a car, accompanied by a truck, stopped in front of our house. Two Japanese officers and a civilian interpreter came to our door. . . . I felt no trepidation until I was forced to climb into the back of the waiting truck. In it, some of our neighbors were squatting, guarded by Japanese soldiers holding bayoneted guns. We picked up a few more neighbors before being driven through the City to the campus of Santo Toms University on Calle Espana. I had driven past this ancient edifice many times but had never been inside the gates.

Upon our arrival we were hustled up the stairs of the Main Building to the third floor. I was taken to a large corner room, No. 45, which had been part of the Architectural Department. My brothers went to a room down the hall. My room contained many large wooden desks about four feet high with cupboards underneath. Several women and children were sitting on the desks. I knew most of them. They were British, as was I. Little did I suspect that this room would be my home for the next three years, and longer.

As the day wore on more women and children were brought into our room. Each time, the Japanese officer took roll call, checking our names with agonizing slowness, reading the names with difficulty. What had started out as a British room now had some Canadians, Australians, Americans, Dutch, and a few Filipina mestizas, the latter probably wives of American servicemen. There was bedlam. Most of the children were crying, and we were all confused and nervous.

By nightfall we were extremely crowded and the poor mothers had a hard time appeasing their mewling children. We spread our blankets on the desks and tried to get some sleep, though with the hard beds, the crying babies and the mosquitoes this was almost impossible. To make matters worse, every few hours or so the lights were turned on and more people were ushered in.
The name checking on the roll call was by now a very lengthy process, especially as some of the exhausted women had fallen asleep. Each time we were disturbed the room became a turmoil and the Japanese officer trying to take roll call seemed harried by his task. . . . Few of us got much sleep on that first night in Santo Toms. Morning could not come soon enough. When the inevitable roll call was taken at eight o'clock we were in a sorry state. . . ."

Page 154 (February 3, 1945): "Pulling myself slowly upstairs by the handrails, after the long stand in the Plaza where we all lined up for roll call inspection and the demeaning bowing to the Japanese officers, I felt so weak I wanted to sit right there and cry when I felt an arm slide around my waist giving me an assist. It was Fred.

'Come on, old girl,' he said. 'One more time. I just heard that our boys are on the outskirts of Manila. Bet they'll be here tomorrow.'

'Oh God, Fred, I hope it's true. I don't know how much longer I can stand this.' My eyes were filled with tears. For the moment I was oblivious to anything but my feelings of tenderness toward him, and a desire to have him hold me close. The feel of his arm around me left me trembling. As we moved slowly up the stairs I wished we could have a few moments together. No chance of that, I thought, as he helped me to my door. We stood there a moment. Then he squeezed my hand. 'Goodnight, Clio,' he said, 'see you in the morning,' and went to his room next door.

I was thinking of him as I undressed, looking out of my window at the glory of the sunset sky which was turning from orange to gold, then purple to gray quickly, as it does in the tropics. I was about to climb into bed with my bedmates when I heard a loud, prolonged rumbling sound coming from the direction of the road facing the Main Gate. . . . Suddenly the miracle we had waited for so long occurred. A giant tank smashed through the Gate and surrounding walls. It came slowly towards the Main Building, its enormous headlights blazing a path before it in the semi-darkness. In this path I could see a few American soldiers led by a slender young Filipino who seemed to be guiding them with a strange wand in his hand. I learned later it was a Mine Detector.

The grinding, rasping sounds of the gargantuan treads on the tarmac drowned out our screams of joy, and those of the hundreds of internees who had stayed in the Plaza, who were now milling around the tank like frenzied insects, disregarding all the gunfire between the soldiers riding on the tanks and the startled Japanese guards. Behind this tank others followed, together with trucks bristling with soldiers who were attacking any Japanese they could see."