Posted on 08/15/2016 7:31:39 AM PDT by knarf
all infantry should be marines
” her uncles were Ba’taan and killed by the Japanese “
So were mine! Imagine that.
One disappeared somewhere on the way to Capas (the Death Camp at O’Donnell), probably died on the Death March, another died in Capas. Both have their names on the memorial.
Every single relative of mine is a survivor of Manila, Feb-Mar 1945. Every one had a story. And etc. and etc. I’ve got material for a series of novels if I wanted to do that.
My wife’s family were from San Fernando. Her grandfather was american a wagoneer in the SA War who stayed. Her father was on the march. One night he rolled of the roads. His employees were following the march and saved him.
His house was beeing watched during the war and he smuggled messages to the women inside in bags of rice.
Her uncle was aDR. He ant us navy info from a radio in the clinic he owned. Two days before mac returned he was killed. An employee turned him down and the Japanese tortured him and killed I’m when they left.
“They would be swallowed by China if this was the 1800s.”
They would kowtow to China and be a vassal state, like Korea was (and the Chinese want them to be again).
In 1940, if independent, the Philippines would have kowtowed to Japan as did Thailand. Quezon did make such offers but was blocked by the US. If you are weak, you do what you must. That at least would have saved them from what is, to us safe and comfortable people, very difficult to imagine
Quezon knew exactly what was coming, everyone saw what the Japs were doing to China, and he wanted no part of it.
Interesting story.
A lot of Americans stayed from the SA war. Two odd cases - both Praeger and Ramsey (American guerillas) reported running into and being helped by black cavalrymen, retirees from Pershing’s 9th “Buffalo Soldiers”, one in Cagayan and another in Mindoro.
One of mine who died on the Death March was a son of a US SA officer married to a Filipina. The son became a mining engineer and and was a US Army reservist, when called up he was a Major, Corps of Engineers, on the USAFFE staff.
A lot of mine were guerrillas. One the Japs killed his entire family in 1945 - he went to an outpost of the 8th Cavalry, they gave him a rifle and helmet and he joined their platoon for the duration.
Story after story.
thanx
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