Through Fire and Through Water.

CHAPTER VIII
FREEDOM

In November we heard rumors that the Americans had landed on the Island of Leyte. These rumors were often confirmed, but after three years in internment camp we had all become very doubtful of rumors. Later on we heard that the U.S. forces had landed in Mindoro, not far to the. west of the Island of Luzon. However up to now we had not seen anything but naval, carrier based planes, which at times would pass over our camp in convoys with fighter escorts. Japanese planes were now almost never seen. Christmas drew near, and our rations of food were still further reduced. Camp representatives pled with the commandant for some extra meat or just something with which to celebrate this usually so joyful a holiday, but we were denied anything. A number of cans of corned beef had been saved up by the camp for emergency use. These had already been partly used for hospital cases of extreme malnutrition, but it was decided to use some of them in our vegetable soup on Christmas afternoon. Each of us also had tried to save a little bit of what we might have for something extra on that day, but at best it was a very poor Christmas dinner. There were two thousand and two hundred of us, and as everyone searched for a few strings of corned beef in his portion of the vegetable soup that he received, many complained that they could find no meat in their cupful at all.

Nevertheless there was one event on Christmas day, 1944, that made us all to rejoice. At about noon our attention was drawn to two planes flying high in the sky that were different from any we had ever seen before, Their speed and their double tailed bodies quickly identified them as P thirty-eights of the U. S. Army, and we shouted for joy, for we realized that landings surely had been accomplished somewhere in the Philippines. We went about happier that day wishing one another a Merry Christmas, feeling it could not be much longer before we should be set free. On New Years Day I opened the last can from our Red Cross kit of the year before. We thought, "They'll be here in a few more days anyway." But our Red Cross supplies of vitamins were now all gone, and the rice rations were now only 150 grams a day per person. People were dying every day of starvation, and we all wondered whose turn would be next. For me, after each days work in the wood, there was just no more energy left.

The Japanese encouraged working in the camp gardens to add to our food supplies, and they gave 100 grams of dry rice extra a day to everyone who would work there f or five hours a day. Sally quit school and went to working each day in the garden, and the rice she earned was saved for extra food, which we cooked on Sundays, and it was also added to our food for Christmas and for New Years Day. There was also a kind of a weed that grew in the gardens that she and other workers could gather and use for greens. It had the appearance of American pig weed, but it had sharp thorns at the base of every leaf and at the forks of the leaves. I had learned that by clipping these thorns off with a scissors the plant could then be cooked and it made excellent greets.

During the first days of 1945 we could see that there were often bombing raids on the city of Manila to the north. Rumors ran through the camp that the U. S. forces had actually taken all the Island of Mindoro, and we noticed that the Japanese guards had now become very jittery. Often great thundering formations of liberator bombers would fly over us going north. Then on the night of January 6th I was awakened by the whispering of someone in our room. Word was being passed to us that our Japanese guards had all fled the camp. I got up to see about it. Soon others arrived with the same news, then a messenger from the camp^'s executive committee arrived. Everyone was awake by now, and we were thrilled to hear the announcement that the Japanese Commandant had called in the officers of our committee just before midnight and turned the affairs of the camp over to them. They then all climbed into trucks and departed Unto the darkness. We were free, though still in enemy territory. My, what a rejoicing there was that night! No one in camp went to bed again. I joined a crew to get two big bamboo poles which we spliced together, and before dawn in front of barracks number 14, our camp office, a flag pole towered. To our surprise several people were able to bring cut carefully concealed American flags, and with the rising of the sun we all stood happily with bared heads while the Star Spangled Banner was played and Old Glory floated out majestically on the morning air at Los Banos in the Philippines.