by Peter Eisner
“We’re in the Movies!”
Manila, August 16, 1943
AFTER MORE THAN a year in detention, the POWs at the Park Avenue School in the suburb of Pasay were living with appalling conditions, filth, a bare minimum of hygiene, and near-starvation diets. By now they were used to wearing fetid rags and G-strings and rough-hewn wooden shoes if they could even lash them to their feet. So on Monday, August 16, a typically steamy morning, they had reason to be suspicious, even worried when their guards herded them into a central courtyard. They stood before a mountain of clothing and equipment, a stockpile of new gear. The guards motioned them forward: It was for them.
One of them, Ted Lockard, said they all were baffled. What was happening? Was the war over? Where were they going? “They gave us new everything . . . trousers, belts, shirts, helmets, and guns.” They moved carefully to the rifles and could see quickly that the weapons had neither bolts nor bullets. It was all a show.
While they were gearing up, something strange was also happening in downtown Manila. All the week of August 16, workers were erecting scaffolding and platforms on central streets and along the approach to Jones Bridge that led across the Pasig River toward Taft Avenue and city hall. Soon—judging by the gear, it was evident—the Japanese were making a movie.
The occupation propaganda department had decided to make the best picture of the war, a well-filmed motion picture that would tug at the emotions of the Filipinos and would illustrate the Japanese reason for going to war and attacking the Americans. They brought in Yutaka Abe, a forty-three-year-old Japanese filmmaker who had trained as an actor and director in the early days of Hollywood. Abe was now making propaganda films for the government. He was teamed with Gerardo de Leon, thirty, already well known in Manila film circles as an actor and director.
The melodramatic plot portrayed the life of a young man forced to leave his family to fight for the Americans. He finds, though, that the Americans are heartless lugs and the Japanese are bringing a new world order to the Philippines. In the end he comes to his senses and realizes that the Japanese are his true friends. Two Filipino American actors, Bert Leroy and Frankie Gordon, were drafted, probably compelled to take starring roles. Early in the film, benevolent Japanese liberators arrive to free Manila from the clutches of the craven Americans. The POWs were to re-create the American retreat from Manila and later the American defeat in Bataan. This was why the Japanese needed Ted Lockard and his POW friends.
Word spread quickly. Claire and her friends converged on the avenues surrounding Jones Bridge when they saw that cameras and scaffolding were being set up. The size of the crowd grew in anticipation. Finally a convoy approached, incongruous and otherworldly. Lockard and his friends were just as surprised as the people on the street were. “They took us into the city, and we drove down the streets in these big trucks past big movie cameras.” They wore clean new uniforms and shiny helmets. But with a closer look, one could see the men were thinner than soldiers should be. The crowd cheered and nervous Japanese guards shoved bystanders.
As the cameras rolled, Lockard and his fellow prisoners, resplendent in new uniforms for the first time in almost two years, were amazed by the spontaneous reaction on the street. “You know the funny thing was, word about the filming had spread among the Filipinos, and they came out and just bombarded all our trucks with fruit and food. I think it was just a sign of the Filipinos’ hope.”
Claire also brought food and gifts; she got as close as she could. The crowd was so large that she could avoid the attention of Japanese soldiers and managed to call out to the Americans. She spoke to as many as she could; they must have been doubly amazed to see an American woman with a hometown accent among the people on the street. She was not alone. Some people were able to throw money up to the men, who were excited and exchanging jokes and cheers.
“We’re in the movies now!” one of the prisoners yelled from a truck.
The incongruity between the Americans portrayed as fleeing Manila in shame and the cheering of the crowd was an obvious irony that would be edited out of the final footage. The presence of so many people was unnerving to the overwhelmed, outnumbered guards watching the prisoners. A few Japanese soldiers on the periphery of the crowd rounded up some Filipina women who they thought were too boisterous and dragged them off to Fort Santiago.
After the filming at Jones Bridge was over, the filmmakers, directors Abe and Leon, needed to show one more scene with the Americans, this time in a jungle clearing that would represent the American disaster on Bataan, minus the barbaric treatment during the death march. For this scene they decided to use the prisoners at Cabanatuan. Weldon Hamilton said he and his fellow POWs were as confused as the men had been in Manila. “We had no idea what they wanted, they gathered us and sent us out with a bunch of food. We drove into the mountains to this open, hilly area. . . . Then we had to walk over this hill in a line, throw our weapons in a huge pile and act like we were surrendering. We were treated really nicely that day.”
When it was all over, the men got a ride back to their respective prison camps and were ordered to deposit the gear they had been given in a big pile. Lockard said the men responded with an act of defiance. They dumped the useless guns and helmets as ordered but kept the clothing, leaving instead a pile of their fetid, ragged clothes from before. “For a few days, the guards gave us a hard time for keeping the uniforms, but all of a sudden they just quit.”
After the daytime activity was done, Claire returned to the club, where the rhythm was as demanding as ever. Foreign civilians sometimes mingled with the Japanese officers; so did traveling Japanese businessmen and others, including the film crew of the Toho Motion Picture Company, which was working on the final touches. They announced the title was to be Dawn of Freedom. Claire seemed to beat the competition as she hoped—Tsubaki Club was the go-to place for Japanese officers. It would not be a surprise if one of the officers invited Claire out to see the movie. Attendance was compulsory anyway—it would be fatal to refuse.
The work toll mounted and Claire drove herself on. She was taking care of Dian, working with Fely to manage the club accounts, and worrying that the Kempeitai eventually would realize who they were and arrest them all. At best, she was sleeping five hours a night, lying awake as she imagined where the military police were circulating that night, which suspects they were hunting down, who among them might provide dangerous information, and what would be the outcome. Claire did not always back off on the drinking. Sometimes a guest at the club pushed a real drink toward her and insisted she drink it instead of the cheaper, safer option of lemonade with a spot of crème de menthe to make it seem like an alcoholic beverage. “Even to Madame Tsubaki, a Jap wish was a command,” Claire said. The officers wanted to party. The strong-willed woman behind the mask was reaching her limit.
Giving Thanks
Tsubaki Club, Manila, September 29, 1943
FOR WEEKS, Claire had tried not to pay attention to the growing pain in her stomach. It was getting worse. She had been watching what she was eating and was following a bland diet; that meant rice and water and little else. Milk would have been soothing; eggs, meat, and other proteins would have helped but they were hard to find. She wrote it off to nerves—the pressures on her were taking a toll.
One Wednesday afternoon the club was not open yet as Claire and some of the staff were preparing for the evening. Suddenly Claire collapsed and nearly passed out, writhing in pain. Fely stayed with her and sent one of the helpers to fetch Peggy, who found her in agony in her bed, screaming and running a high temperature. They called in a doctor, who confirmed Peggy’s suspicion. Claire had a perforated ulcer—a life-threatening rupture in the wall of her intestine. She needed emergency surgery.
Wartime realities made the prospects grim. A surgeon was available, but transportation to the hospital was not. Private cars and taxis were not on the street. Peggy tried to commandeer the ambulance at Re
medios Hospital, where she still worked, but the gas tank was bone dry. Gasoline was severely rationed and even emergency vehicles sometimes could not find any at all. The hospital had been using alcohol from the storeroom to run the ambulance but had run out of that as well. Peggy thought quickly and remembered that their friend, Mrs. Kummer, had a permit to be on the road with a driver and often was able to get a ration of gasoline to keep the car rolling. Mrs. Kummer said she could take Claire. The driver came and they carried Claire to the car. Doctors Hospital was closest, about four blocks from the club. By the time they got her in, Claire’s temperature was dangerously high and her vital signs were unsteady. Her personal doctor contacted a surgeon, who quickly went to work. Claire could be nonchalant after the fact. “Doctor Guerrero called in one of the best local surgeons, who operated without delay, removing a perforated ulcer and about six inches of intestines. I dimly remember when I came back to this world Doctor Guerrero joked, ‘Too bad, you haven’t got the guts you used to have.’”
The danger should have been over. Just in case, Claire’s friends kept a vigil. Peggy stayed as much as she could and monitored Claire’s progress; as she watched nurses come and go, she did some of the nursing herself. “At the end of the fourth day, the doctor said that I didn’t have to give the intravenous feeding every four hours, so that permitted me to go home after midnight and then come back early in the morning.”
At some point in the ordeal, when Claire knew she was seriously ill, she managed to give final instructions to Peggy. If I don’t make it, if something should happen, she told Peggy, make sure that my mother is notified in Portland; and take care of Dian. It was no surprise that Fely had called Peggy for help. Peggy and Claire were friends and allies. They had worked together, grieved together, shared time together, and often looked out for each other. But although both were assertive women and big drinkers, they had their differences. The women became trusted friends, but there was also a certain rivalry.
Peggy was only seven years older, but she appeared much older than that. Claire was an effusive presence and an attractive woman who drew men’s attention. Peggy could have been jealous. Both women would write to the men in prison, but Claire’s missives came across as lonely-heart love letters. The men, suffering and deprived, sometimes felt they were reading the words of an angel who gave them hope and the will to survive. Claire was the only one receiving multiple offers of marriage, sight unseen.
After some days Claire was still recuperating at the hospital and the danger seemed to have passed. Her doctors were ready to start her slowly on solid food. Then Claire started to notice she was having trouble speaking and opening her mouth. Her fever spiked and Peggy came running from her nursing chores at Remedios Hospital. Whether from a dirty needle or an unsterilized instrument, Claire had developed lockjaw—tetanus. No one had stocks of antitetanus toxoid. Doctors began to scour the city. Once before, while in Bataan the previous year, Claire had thought she might die, sick as she was from malaria. Now she was rarely lucid enough to consider the possibility: The doctors did not expect her to survive.
Her fever went up again, she ranged in and out of consciousness, she could not speak beyond a mumble, and a new complication developed. “When I started to cough, I almost strangled, and the doctors administered oxygen.” She had contracted bronchial pneumonia. “By the fourth day, I was suffering convulsions, and only semi-conscious.” She awoke occasionally to see Peggy and sometimes Ramón visiting at her bedside. She said Father Lalor also had come once to pray for her health. She was rarely coherent. Finally Doctor Guerrero managed to find a substantial stock of antitetanus serum and decided the case was so far advanced that he had to administer an unusually high dose, which could either kill her or shock her system into responding. “On the following day, after I had received the third shot, my jaws started to unlock and my temperature dropped to 103 degrees. My good friend, Ramón, managed to find some sulfa tablets which were pulverized and given to me in powdered form.”
Her friends worked together to make sure Claire was getting the best care—they argued years afterward about who had paid Claire’s hospital bill. Claire thought she had paid for herself. Lorenza thought she and Ramón had paid. Peggy also took credit. That was never sorted out. Claire recovered slowly. Doctors who had feared the worst said she had beaten tough odds; it was a matter of luck and perseverance. As Claire regained consciousness and visitors came and went, she was startled by the presence one day of an unexpected familiar face. It was Yamada, the Japanese guard who had allowed prisoners to come with him for lunch at the club. Smiling, he gave her a basket of flowers to wish her well.
Ramón got in touch with Judge Roxas, who recalled later, “He told me that the person who was sick in the hospital was a certain lady by the name of Dorothy.”
“I don’t know anybody by that name,” Roxas said.
“You do know her,” Ramón said. “It is the code name we use in the underground.”
The judge realized it was Claire. Ramón said she had been very ill but was improving.
When Claire opened her eyes, she saw the judge. She was recovering by now and could move her jaw and speak, though weakly. For reasons of caution and safety, they had not seen each other for months, but the judge had known all along what Claire was doing in the underground. He was steering clear of direct involvement, though his brother, the general, was getting deeply involved through channels in touch with Ramón, Juan Elizalde, and, by extension, Claire and the guerrillas in the hills. He worried still about the consequences of their all being caught in the conspiracy. Now Judge Roxas was worried about Claire’s health and stamina. He urged her to stop and told her she had done enough already, but Claire said she had no intention of stopping. The club would continue. Gathering supplies and intelligence was important for the war effort and she took solace from the help she was giving the prisoners of Cabanatuan. The judge argued the danger of being caught was greater than ever, especially now. The Japanese were on the offensive against the guerrillas.
Claire respected the judge but her answer was an emphatic “no.” “She told me that she felt very happy doing that work . . . in compliance as her duty as an American.”
For now, Fely was doing fine at the club and Dian was well. But even from her hospital bed Claire told Ramón she wanted to get back to work.
Ramón agreed the work needed to go on. The POWs at Cabanatuan needed food. The rations were low. Despite the regular shipments of food from Manaloto, and although the men were still allowed to come out to the fields and pretend to buy fruit and vegetables hidden with money and messages from Naomi and Evangeline, their caloric intake had been low lately. The men needed protein. He was working on a new plan to send in more water buffalo.
As Ramón got into details, Fely arrived.
“Well, I had better see you later,” Ramón said.
“No. Fely understands all about the work we are doing. . . . I may need her.”
The plan was the same as always. They had a good price for the water buffalo, but they needed more money to bribe the Japanese guards. “There are several different people who are going to contribute and I wonder if you could,” Ramón said.
Claire said he could count on her. If she was still in the hospital when he was ready, Fely would be the contact. “You go to Fely, and whatever she has, why she will give it to you.”
Turning to Fely, she added, “You give whatever you have to Ramón.”
By the time she was ready to get back to work, Ramón was moving ahead with the plan—through her contacts Claire was able to help raise about twenty thousand pesos.
Claire stayed in the hospital from September 30 to November 13. “I was able to go home in time for Thanksgiving and I was thankful for my miraculous recovery.” She had lost thirty-five pounds. She resumed her coded notations in her diary with a shorthand summation of what she could remember. Those days, she “saw and felt death.”
Arrest and Ransom
Manila, October 1943
AS PEGGY WAS checking in at the hospital one morning, she heard “the tramp of heavy feet in the corridor coming toward the ward where I was. I stiffened up. They were at the door, eight of them, fully armed, bayonets fixed.”
“You will come.”
They said nothing more and led Peggy away to Fort Santiago. “The Japanese soldiers took me into a large sunny room on the second floor. Through its open, screened side, I could see the lovely patio, the soft lawn, the flowers . . . the prison itself with its stone cells, many of them out over the water. In the days of the Spaniards, the floor had openings through which the bodies of luckless captives could be dropped into the river with scarcely a sound.”
It turned out that the Kempeitai had remained suspicious after coming to check up on Naomi at Peggy’s apartment back in April. For the next two weeks, Peggy endured endless interviews and interrogations, sometimes brutal, sometimes not, all focusing on whether she was Lithuanian, as she had claimed on her official documents under the Japanese occupation authority, or whether she was an American, as her captors suspected.
One interrogator asked about her father.
“He died when I was a little girl.”
What was her mother’s name?
Peggy thought quickly and made one up.
If she was Lithuanian, why did she not speak Lithuanian?
“My aunt had taken me to live with her in Canada when I was very small. We always spoke English because my aunt was English.”
“We know you American,” the inquisitor said. “We put you into Santo Tomás.”
The Japanese could not break her story, even when they showed her documents from the Red Cross and from an American company in which she identified herself as an American. Peggy said she had faked her answers on those documents because she figured the Americans would not have employed her if they knew she was from a country friendly with Nazi Germany. The stalemate went on. The Japanese wanted to prove in the court of public opinion that they had real evidence, rather than making it appear they were randomly punishing the innocent.