When Manila fell to the Japanese in January, 1942, the Van Sickles were among the enemy aliens taken by the victors to the campus of Manila's University of Santo Tomas, where they were to remain unwilling "guests" for more than three years. This is a fascinating, detailed and insightful account of life in a civilian concentration camp as gripping and readable as any tale of adventure.
When Manila fell to the Japanese in January, 1942, the Van Sickles were among the enemy aliens taken by the victors to the campus of Manila's University of Santo Tomas, where they were to remain unwilling "guests" for more than three years. This is a fascinating, detailed and insightful account of life in a civilian concentration camp as gripping and readable as any tale of adventure.
The Iron Gates of Santo Tomas: The Firsthand Account of an American Couple Interned by the Japanese in Manila, 1942-1945
370
The Iron Gates of Santo Tomas: The Firsthand Account of an American Couple Interned by the Japanese in Manila, 1942-1945
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Overview
When Manila fell to the Japanese in January, 1942, the Van Sickles were among the enemy aliens taken by the victors to the campus of Manila's University of Santo Tomas, where they were to remain unwilling "guests" for more than three years. This is a fascinating, detailed and insightful account of life in a civilian concentration camp as gripping and readable as any tale of adventure.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780897335546 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Chicago Review Press, Incorporated |
| Publication date: | 04/01/2007 |
| Pages: | 370 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.79(d) |
Read an Excerpt
The Iron Gates of Santo Tomás
The Firsthand Account of an American Couple Interned by the Japanese in Manila, 1942â"1945
By Emily Van Sickle
Chicago Review Press Incorporated
Copyright © 1992 Emily Van SickleAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-89733-554-6
CHAPTER 1
War struck like the proverbial thunderbolt a few months after our return to the Far East on what was to have been a brief mission. The time: December 8, a Monday morning — Pearl Harbor Day in Manila.
Only the night before we had dined with an old friend, Jack Littig, at the home of his wife's parents, longtime Manila residents Walter and Bettie Stevenson. At about ten o'clock Jack, just back from the States wearing a new U.S.N.R. Commander's uniform, had telephoned his wife, whom he had been forced to leave behind with their two-year-old son in San Francisco. All had appeared that night to be well in our relatively normal and secure world; no warning sign prognosticated the cataclysm to engulf us.
It was nine-thirty on Monday morning before I picked up the paper and stared dazedly at the headlines: "HONOLULU BOMBED!" I could not grasp it at first; then I thought, "Thank God Van got back!" What a narrow escape, to have returned only five days earlier from Hong Kong, where I was not allowed to go!
Van was sleeping. When I wakened him, he glanced at the paper, said, "I don't believe it" — then turned over and calmly went back to sleep. Incredibly stupid though it sounds now, such torpid disbelief mirrored accurately the mental and emotional confusion of most Manilans at that time, although I doubt that others expressed their reaction so graphically. During the weeks since our return, the city had glittered with a resdess gaiety, an almost defiant bravado, as it awaited outbreak of an inevitable war vaguely anticipated some four to six months later. Few indeed were those who had envisioned the possibility of a swift, treacherous assault while Japanese diplomats were still talking compromise in Washington.
However, no one could long doubt that just such an improbable catastrophe had befallen us. By noon, extra papers headlined bombings at Baguio, in the hills north of Manila; then at Clark Field, where Japanese planes demolished on the ground our handful of Flying Fortresses. That night, there was a small raid over Manila. When the alarm sounded, we grabbed our clothes and scurried downstairs with the rest of the bewildered guests at Manila's modern, attractive Bay View Hotel. Two or three bombs fell on Nichols Field, the Army airport on the outskirts of the city.
From midday on Wednesday, when the Japanese staged their first big raid, it should have been evident that the enemy held unquestioned air supremacy, for their planes, swarming over us twenty-seven to a group, were unchallenged by a single American fighter. Navy anti-aircraft guns, flak-flakking ineffectually from ships in the harbor, succeeded only in driving them higher. Enemy wings flashed silver in the sunlight as we watched, horrified and helpless, from a sandbagged hotel entrance. Whenever they glided directly over us, our stomachs began to flutter sickeningly, and we scuttered inside like rabbits diving underground to escape a pack of hounds.
However, the Japanese conserved their bombs for Nichols Field and Cavite, the Naval station farther along the bay, which they blasted mercilessly. Thereafter, unhampered by any effective opposition, the planes attacked our military defenses almost daily.
Although Manila fell with breathtaking swiftness, few of us even now foresaw the inevitable outcome. Between air raids and futile bandage rolling, we often walked along the bay-front up Dewey Boulevard, where in peaceful bygone days we had enjoyed magnificent sunsets painted on sky and water. Now, against the backdrop of nature's rich colors at eventide, tall columns of smoke from Nichols Field and Cavite spoke mutely of the day's destruction. Yet our own lack of planes to forestall the enemy's striking power did not worry us unduly, because we believed President Roosevelt's promise that "help is on the way" — never dreaming how long that help would take to reach us.
Disturbed though we were by stories of enemy landings, we did not yet know enough about war to realize what those landings meant. At night, by the dull glimmer of blackout lights which served only to deepen the gloom, our spirits sometimes quailed, and we asked one another why our Army did nothing to stop the Japanese; yet most of us concurred readily enough in the näive suggestion that our troops probably wanted to lure them inland where they would cut off supplies from their beachheads and trap them en masse.
Ignorance of Manila's pitiful vulnerability, however, did not deter some of us from trying to escape the bomb-blasted city, only to discover that, for the time being at least, all avenues of escape were barred to us. By military order, passengers and crews from ships en route to other ports were brought ashore, and their ships left anchored in the bay to be sunk by Japanese bombs. Only two ships that I know of, and a few privately owned small craft, managed to sneak away form the port.
Not until the High Commissioner and part of his staff had moved to Corregidor on Christmas Eve did we realize at last that Manila, "Pearl of the Orient," was about to fall into grasping Japanese hands. By that time, it had become a city of confusion, its populace surging distractedly from one section of town to another in a frantic search for the elusive "safest spot" — meaning, of course, the spot least likely to be bombed. Many sought refuge at the Bay View.
With the designation of Manila as an "Open City," confusion rapidly degenerated to utter chaos as thousands of Filipinos ransacked abandoned warehouses which the Army had thrown open to the public. After stripping them bare of food, cigarettes, clothing, even office equipment, scavengers returned to loot private stores. From our hotel windows we watched them stream along Dewey Boulevard like endless columns of ants, some hauling away plunder in cars and trucks, others on bicycles, pushcarts, shoulder poles or even by hand. The Philippine Police merely looked on, hopelessly inadequate to cope with such widespread vandalism.
A daily rain of bombs thundered down on the harbor district as the Japanese sank every ship still afloat in the bay and in the sluggish Pasig River. Black smoke, billowing up from oil dumps burned by our retreating forces, blanketed the sky for days in a dismal, depressing murk.
One lone episode brightened that grim Christmas week: on December 29, the Naval Intelligence officer in charge of communications, who happened to be our Pearl Harbor Eve companion, Jack Littig, advised us that telephone wires to the States would be briefly opened for private calls. Although we could mention no dates or places, I conveyed our whereabouts by telling my mother that we still lived at the Bay View. To her, the conversation was one of mingled relief and anguish: relief that we were alive, anguish that we had not somehow escaped to safety. Jack Littig put through a final call to his wife before cutting the wires, a job he had been expressly left behind to execute; then he followed precariously in the wake of truck convoys which had rumbled away to Bataan.
On New Year's Eve, last-minute dynamiting of military installations and materiel transformed Manila into a veritable inferno as torches of burning oil, drifting down the Pasig into the bay, touched off fresh blazes along the river banks. A death-like hush had fallen over the city, punctuated now and again by the crackle of flames and an intermittent roar of nearby explosions. Mutely, we watched the dance of fire and flickering shadow across walls of high buildings which for an instant glowed evilly red against the darkness, only to be swallowed up again in the hellish jaws of night.
Next day, the first of an unpromising New Year, we prepared ourselves as best we could to face the Japanese, who had announced that they would enter Manila on the 2nd. Ignoring optimistic speculations that the conqueror might allow enemy aliens to roam freely, or might concentrate men and women together, Van and I packed separate suitcases to meet any eventuality. Then we destroyed papers which might harm us or help the Japanese: International Harvester code books, copies of contracts with the Chinese government, clippings about my father's recent appointment as the Judge Advocate General of the Army. Meanwhile, the hotel staff was busily engaged in dumping liquor down the drain.
When jubilant Japanese soldiers finally clattered down Dewey Boulevard in their tinny cars and putt-putt motorcycles, we gasped dumbfounded, wondering incredulously whether the weapons which they had wielded to vanquish our brave Americans could have been of the same inferior quality as their motor vehicles. Our rudely jolted national pride was more deeply wounded as we watched the Japanese hoist their flag of the Rising Sun over the High Commissioner's mansion across the boulevard, on the flagpole where only a few days before our own Stars and Stripes had waved so majestically.
Allowed to remain in our rooms, we amused ourselves for the next three days by observing the antics of car-happy Japanese soldiers, to whom every handsome American automobile was now a legitimate prize and plaything. Whooping and hollering, they careened gaily in all directions, over curbs, parking strips, sidewalks, lawns and flower beds. The blare of horns and the sickening screech of stripped gears provided appropriately nerve-shattering background music.
On the morning of January 5th, the Japanese informed us that we were to be taken away for "registration" with what luggage we could carry. As to where we were going, we could elicit no reply, but in response to queries concerning the length of time we might be held, a Japanese officer enlightened us thus: "I do not know. After we have captured all the Americans, we will decide what to do with them." Exchanging sardonic glances, Van and I gazed thoughtfully at some of the "captives": unarmed civilians, men, women and children, nervously waiting with us in the hallway for baggage inspection.
After checking each article and removing radios, cameras, large knives and sometimes scissors and flashlights, the Japanese ordered us to carry our luggage outside. The sidewalk near the Bay View entrance swarmed with people, not only hotel guests but numbers of Filipinos and Spaniards, some led there by curiosity, others searching for friends. Among the latter we discovered Eduardo Roxas, a Spanish friend to whom we had recently entrusted our money and jewelry. Not wishing to attract Japanese attention, we paused only long enough to tell Edu that our destination was still unknown to us. He promised to find us and to help in any way possible.
We crossed the street to join British friends who had moved to the Bay View during the bombings: Helen and Edwin Cogan and their seven-year-old daughter, Isabel. We had known the Cogans for many years, as Edwin was a staff member of International Harvester of the Philippines.
All day long with hundreds of others, we waited our turn to be hauled away. A dry, dust-laden wind parched our lips and stung our eyes, bloodshot and smarting already from smoke that still obscured the sun in an unnatural dusk. Our spirits matched the look of the skies as we watched line after line of busses and trucks, jammed with "enemy aliens," drive off into the unknown. At length, our turn came. Sentries loaded a score of us, some tensely silent, others chattering hysterically, onto a bus which bore us to a destination no longer unknown, one which soon became all too familiar to us as Santo Tomás Internment Camp, prison for civilian enemies of the Japanese.
CHAPTER 2Fearing the worst as we passed through the gates that were to shut out the world for an indeterminate period, we were mildly heartened by the sight of other Americans and Europeans thronging the broad campus lawn. Possibly there was comfort in the thought that we would not have to suffer alone whatever fate lay ahead of us: common burdens and sorrows are somehow less terrifying than persecution in lonely solitude.
There was relief, too, in discovering friends and acquaintances whose whereabouts we had not known during the hectic weeks of bombing. From our bus windows we scanned each group of prisoners along the driveway and lawn as we approached the university buildings.
Our bus swung left across a wide, paved plaza and stopped midway at the main building entrance. Scrambling to gather together our meager luggage, we observed only that this building, four stories high, was solidly built of grey concrete blocks surmounted by the cross. To the left, across a road bordering the east side, stood a small restaurant on the corner, and next to it a three-story stucco building which overlooked the front lawn. The latter, we learned, was called the Education building.
A road on the west of the main building bounded a hedged-in plot of grass, trees and flowers known as the Father's Garden. We perceived through the trees a church-like edifice which was actually a seminary housing the university's Dominican priests. Directly opposite the front of the main building, a narrow park of blossoming trees and hibiscus bushes, flanked on either side by roads to the entrance gates, extended from the plaza to an iron-barred fence that marked our front barrier, a distance of a short city block.
Dragging inside the few possessions we had been allowed to bring with us, the Cogans, Van and I made our way slowly through the sea of humanity which flooded the lobby and overflowed onto the first floor hallway. Since we could gain no intelligible direction from this bedlam engulfing us, we trudged upstairs to the second, then to the third floor, where finally we took possession of a small, unoccupied room containing several desks. Such a thing as a bed was not to be found at Santo Tomás, a university for day students only.
Weary, dejected and perspiring, we sat for a moment in glum silence on our suitcases and boxes. Then all of a sudden we realized that we were very hungry, having eaten nothing since early morning. Helen Cogan unpacked and opened a five-pound tin of Spam and a box of crackers, and began to make sandwiches. Since we had no food of our own, the Cogans shared theirs with us, an act of magnificent generosity at a time when no one knew whether personal food supplies, or lack of them, might swing the balance between life and death.
As we were devouring our supper, Van's face turned a clammy grey color and he collapsed so quickly that Edwin and I barely managed to catch him as he fell. Edwin's instant thought was heart attack.
Leaving Helen with Van, Edwin hastened to look for a doctor while I, agonized, helpless and very frightened, dashed off in the opposite direction down the teeming hallway. Almost immediately, by amazing luck, I found a nurse who, calmly efficient, procured a bottle of smelling salts and administered first aid. After a few moments, Van opened his eyes and exclaimed, "What a helluva time to pull a stunt like this!"
Just then, some Japanese soldiers shuffled up to our door, poked their heads in and grunted "Ugh!" I could feel the goose-flesh rising on my arms — but they departed without further comment. However, their appearance suggested the probability that we would not be long allowed to remain in the privacy of our little classroom. Van, still shaky from his attack, decided to look for space in a men's sleeping room, and he urged me to move to a room for women; but, since the Cogans had made up their minds to stick it out together, I elected to stay with them as long as possible before seeking refuge among strangers.
While Edwin helped Van to find a place on the second floor, I discovered a washroom of sorts: four toilets and a basin with a single cold water tap. Without soap, my lavatory efforts removed little dirt, but the cool water was refreshing.
After Edwin returned, we pushed desks together and hung up our mosquito nets, the only hotel equipment we had had the foresight to take. For sleeping togs, I wore an old, shrunken slack suit and a Japanese coolie coat, the latter for modesty, as my slack suit gaped in the middle. We turned out the light and tucked ourselves in. Scarcely had we closed our eyes when a group of soldiers snapped on the light again. Their interpreter smiled toothily and announced, "We make count."
The soldiers peered at each of us in turn. Much conversation between soldiers and interpreters, then the latter turned to us: "One, two, three, four; one man, two women, one child. No. Not right."
"Yes, that is right," encouraged Edwin.
"No, not right," the interpreter insisted.
More Japanese chit-chat; finally a question from the interpreter: "What nationality?"
"British," Edwin responded promptly.
"All British?"
"No, I'm an American," I volunteered. It was the wrong thing to say; I hope that some day I may learn when silence is wisdom.
More perplexed than ever, the interpreter varied his chant: "One, two, three, four. One American, three British. No. Not right."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Iron Gates of Santo Tomás by Emily Van Sickle. Copyright © 1992 Emily Van Sickle. Excerpted by permission of Chicago Review Press Incorporated.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Preface,Part I: Into the Shadows,
Part II: The Interlude,
Part III: Twilight Again,
Part IV: The Shadows Deepen,
Part V: Dawn Breaks Through,
Photographs and maps,