From time to time, I’m struck by the tales of hardship and wrestle that many readers carry with them of their every day lives. These are sometimes tales informed in letters primarily based on firsthand expertise — for instance, of botched abortions earlier than 1972, or from the survivors of gun violence. Sometimes we’ll hear from Holocaust survivors, moved to inform of the atrocities they witnessed as their numbers develop smaller with time.
This week, we heard from one other group of readers affected by the horrors of World Struggle II eight a long time in the past. They wrote to The Occasions after studying a Memorial Day article by Bob Drogin concerning the 1945 liberation of Manila, a largely forgotten battle for the capital of the Philippines during which 1 in 10 of town’s civilian residents died.
However these readers — both the descendants of survivors or survivors themselves — hadn’t forgotten something, and most expressed appreciation for The Occasions’ protection. Studying their letters is a reminder of the historical past and trauma carried by so many people, usually in silence.
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To the editor: I’m one of many remaining few who skilled the Battle of Manila in 1945. Seeing its acknowledgment in The Occasions was unnerving.
Manila had misplaced telephones, gasoline and electrical energy. Components of the water system failed. There have been no police or firefighters. Hospitals couldn’t deal with sufferers. Town was ravenous.
Japanese forces included these from ships sunk by U.S. bombs, a lot of them Korean. They knew they had been going to die. Their commanders had just about no technique of speaking with them because the People shelled the battleground with out regard for civilian security.
Folks didn’t know methods to shield themselves. Many gathered at a school campus, the place males had been separated from ladies and youngsters, and had been then lined as much as be machine-gunned however all of the sudden ordered to return house. My aunt was informed to flee by a Japanese lieutenant. Her space turned the scene of many atrocities.
Remembering this nonetheless brings about post-traumatic stress. It’s inescapable.
Allen J. Manzano, Carlsbad
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To the editor: Your article introduced again recollections of tales heard from kin who had firsthand expertise and witnessed the atrocities and cruelty of warfare.
My grandfather was an officer of the Philippine military who was pressured to depart his house and household to evade the Japanese troopers searching to execute him.
My father was a member of the USA Military within the Far East and was within the Bataan Loss of life March. He survived by rolling right into a ditch stuffed with lifeless troopers and pretending to be lifeless too. Many others described the atrocities they witnessed.
The individuals of the Philippines had been caught in a horrific crossfire between U.S. and Japanese forces. The tales described by Drogin had been acquainted in addition to painful. The previous failure to acknowledge and doc the tales for posterity is disappointing.
Thelma Ordonez, Arcadia
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To the editor: Bravo for Drogin’s very fascinating story on the Battle for Manila.
My uncle was a 19-year previous Marine stationed within the Philippines in 1942 when the fortress on Corregidor island was captured by the Japanese. He spent a lot of World Struggle II as a prisoner of warfare.
Fortuitously, he was not subjected to the Bataan Loss of life March, however he and different Corregidor prisoners had been routinely tortured and overwhelmed. He hardly ever talked about it.
Late in life, he revealed that he had escaped the POW camp and spent a yr within the mountains preventing with guerrillas. I had by no means heard a narrative like that and lengthy questioned if it was actually true. Then I learn Stephen Ambrose’s e-book, “The Pacific,” which informed the story of a number of American POWs who escaped, fought as guerrillas and had been later evacuated to Australia.
My uncle returned house after the islands had been liberated. He was handled on the Navy hospital in Norco, attended UCLA on the GI Invoice and made a profession in aerospace engaged on missiles and satellites. And, like so many veterans, he took most of his warfare tales with him when he died in 1990.
Willard Gleeson, Glendale
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To the editor: For eight days and nights in February 1945, my father guarded the gates of Santo Tomas College in Manila along with his platoon. That they had no sleep, no cooked meals and solely rations to eat. Artillery fireplace rained repeatedly as they secured the college.
In opposition to orders, he compassionately let wounded civilians by way of the gates for medical consideration. He was solely 23 and was awarded the Bronze Star for this heroic service. I cried studying Drogin’s informative article after which re-reading my father’s memoir concerning the occasions.
What a disgrace if many in Manila blame U.S. forces for the “pointless destruction of their metropolis,” as Drogin writes. The innate savagery of warfare shouldn’t be blamed on the liberators who risked their lives to avoid wasting the ravenous captive individuals.
Ellen McCracken, Santa Barbara
