Elizabeth M. Norman (54 page)

Chapter Twelve: STIC, the First Year, 1942

1.
Helen Cassiani Nestor, 1991 author interview. Quotations and information about Cassie in STIC come from a series of six interviews conducted by the author from 1990 through 1995.

2.
Helen Cassiani Nestor loaned the author her notebooks from the classes she took in STIC. Quotations from class on “Interpretation of music, psychological and sociological,” July 15, 1943.

3.
Mimeographed baseball booklet titled “Baseball Program and Schedule, Baseball Committee Carroll Livingston-John McFie-Fred Sanger-Walter Schoening. Price
Twenty Centavos.” The four women’s teams were: the Manila Ladies, STIC Nurses, Hospital Kitchen and Bureau of Education. Helen Cassiani Nestor’s private collection. Used with permission.

4.
Terry Myers Johnson, July 1992 telephone interview. The author interviewed Helen Cassiani Nestor and Terry Myers Johnson in September 1993. All quotations from those interviews, unless otherwise noted.

5.
In 1941, Mack Gordon wrote “Chattanooga Choo-Choo” with music by Harry Warren. It became a best-selling song for the Glenn Miller Orchestra.

6.
Sommers, S. (ed.),
The Japanese Story
, p. 14.

7.
Among others, navy nurse Red Harrington also took part in the underground. Before the war she had befriended a navy physician, Cecil “Cec” Welch, a fellow South Dakotan and a man who shared her impious sense of humor. The two often spent evenings drinking beer and eating green onion seeds at the Nutshell Bar outside Cavite Navy Yard. When the navy abandoned the bombed-out Cavite base in December 1941, Red and Cec found themselves in Manila and, after the enemy occupied the city on January 2, 1942, they ended up together again, working at Saint Scholastica Hospital under Japanese orders until March, when Red and the other navy nurses were sent to Santo Tomas and Cec and the other doctors and corpsmen were locked up in Bilibid Prison. Red and Cec kept in touch through the underground. Using tiny scraps of paper that could be swallowed if they were discovered, the two traded news and words of support.

8.
Cassie’s creative writing essay titled “The Uncertain,” dated August 1, 1944.

9.
Alice Hahn Powers, 1983 ANC interview.

10.
Sallie Durrett Farmer, (no date) ANC interview.

11.
Hattie Brantley, 1983 ANC interview.

12.
Anna Williams Clark, 1983 ANC interview.

13.
Bertha Dworsky Henderson, 1983 ANC interview.

14.
Rose Rieper Meier, 1984 ANC interview. Mrs. Meier was interviewed in her Kansas home after the 1983 Washington, D.C., reunion when the other former POW’s were interviewed. Her transcript is located in the Army Nurse Corps archive.

15.
Anna Williams Clark, 1983 ANC interview.

16.
Nash, Frances, p. 2.

17.
Ann Mealor Giles, 1983 ANC interview.

18.
Young, E. F., p. 92.

19.
Helen Cassiani Nestor, 1983 ANC interview.

20.
Earlyn Black Harding, 1983 ANC interview.

21.
Ruby Motley Armburst was an army dietitian who lived and worked with the military nurses.

22.
Eunice Young, 1983 ANC interview.

23.
Gwendolyn Henshaw Deiss, 1983 ANC interview.

24.
Young, E. F., p. 89.

25.
Alice Hahn Powers, 1983 ANC interview.

26.
Inez McDonald Moore, 1983 ANC interview.

Chapter Thirteen: Los Banos, 1943

1.
Talinum
is a spinachlike vegetable popular in the Philippines.

2.
Hartendorp, p. 108.

3.
Young, E. F., p. 90.

4.
Stevens, p. 406.

5.
Mary Rose Harrington Nelson, 1989 author interview. According to Hartendorp, pp. 151–53, Dr. Leach wrote a letter to the head of the internee Executive Committee stating he needed a “military order” to go to Los Banos. The STIC commandant sent him a letter stating, “You are requested to proceed.” In May 1943, he was repatriated in a prisoner exchange. Dr. Dana Nance from the Baguio Internment Camp replaced him as medical director at Los Banos.

6.
Mary Rose Harrington Nelson, 1989 author interview. Mrs. Nelson told the same story in her 1983 ANC Oral History interview.

7.
Description of Los Banos from: Valentine, C., pp. 66–68; Investigation of Case B-89, Los Banos Internment Camp, Los Banos, Laguna, Philippines, National Archives, Suitland, Maryland. SCAP Collection, Box 1123, Report 155; Reuter, J., pp. 159–63.

8.
Foot baths became a vital ritual since rampant fungus infections developed almost immediately in men who walked barefoot in the warm, humid climate. At first, the nurses treated the infection with potassium permangnate, a purple-colored antiseptic. When those supplies became exhausted, they used boric acid soaks, a mild antiseptic solution, and finally plain warm water baths and hot sun. If an infection became particularly painful, the nurses applied a mixture of alcohol, bichloride of mercury and salicylic acid.

9.
Information about Miss Laura Cobb obtained from the National Personnel Records Center, St. Louis, Missouri, under the Freedom of Information Act. Her personnel records report two different birthdates, 1892 and 1896. The earlier date is closer to the age listed during her internment. Three navy nurses, Margaret Nash, Mary Rose Harrington and Dorothy Still Danner provided descriptions of Laura Cobb to the author in interviews and telephone conversations, 1990–92.

10.
From the “Sweetheart of Sigma Chi.” These lyrics were found with Mrs. Nelson’s transcripts of her 1983 interview in the Army Nurse Corps Oral History Project, Army Nurse Corps archives, Center for Military History, Washington, D.C., Army archives. Used with permission. The original song is by Bryon D. Stokes, 1912, with music by F. Dudleigh Vernon.

11.
Mary Rose Harrington Nelson, 1989 author interview. Quotations about her romance with Page Nelson from this interview.

12.
Lyrics by Frank Loesser, music by Joseph J. Lilley, 1942.

13.
Eleanor Garen’s blue notebook with the imprint “Bureau of Education” on the cover. Henceforth referred to as “EG book.” Garen files.

14.
In a spiral pad titled “Eleanor Garen Nurses’ Addresses,” many women, including Josie Nesbit, Alice Hahn and Anna Williams, wrote their addresses and also mentioned how much they appreciated Garen’s cheerful disposition. Garen files.

15.
EG book, p. 1.

16.
EG book, pp. 10–11. Socrates, “Apology.”

17.
EG book, p. 15. William Blake, “From Auguries of Innocence.”

18.
EG book, p. 54. Stephen Crane, “A Little Ink More or Less.”

19.
EG book, p. 68. A. E. Housman, “Yonder See the Morning Blink.”

20.
Pearson, p. 1012.

21.
According to Hartendorp, pp. 180, 198–99, and Stevens, p. 420, the Japanese participated in the repatriation of imprisoned civilians in STIC because there was going to be a prisoner exchange of Japanese and Allied nationals in Goa, Portuguese India. On September 26, 1943, 127 STIC internees boarded the exchange ship
Teia Maru
. Twenty-four members of the American consular staff joined them. There were 131 Americans, 15 Canadians and 6 other nationals among the 151 people going home. At Goa, the repatriated Allies boarded the diplomatic ship
M. V. Gripsbolm
for the journey to New York. Miss Dorothy Davis, a civilian nurse on board who had worked in STIC’s hospital with the military women, had memorized the names of the army and navy nurses. She gave officials a full accounting. The management of the shipping company in Los Angeles sent form letters to the women’s relatives.

22.
Christmas card found in Inez McDonald Moore’s files. Fort Sam Houston Medical Museum archives, San Antonio, Texas.

23.
Ruby Bradley and Beatrice Chambers’s experience had differed from that of the other army nurses on Bataan, Corregidor and, later, Mindanao. American military officers had decided to abandon Camp John Hay in Baguio in December 1941 after aerial attacks had devastated the post. Bradley and Chambers started out at Camp John Hay; then in April 1942 they moved to Camp John Holmes.

24.
Nesbit, p. 45.

Chapter Fourteen: Eating Weeds Fried in Cold Cream, 1944

1.
Hartendorp, p. 230. The Japanese also renamed the camps: STIC became Camp #1, Los Banos became Camp #2 and Baguio, Camp #3. The internees, however, still used the original names.

2.
Nash, p. 1.

3.
In the clinic, Louise Anschicks, an army nurse whose career began at the end of World War I, was responsible for the administration of vitamin injections, which the camp received in the 1943 Christmas shipment of Red Cross kits. In the twelve months of 1944, Anschicks recorded that 50,608 injections of thiamine, ascorbic acid, liver and chloride were given to STIC’s prisoners. Source: L. Anschick’s scrap-book, U.S. Army Medical Museum, Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio, Texas.

4.
Every adult in STIC was ordered to sign an oath promising not to escape or conspire against the Japanese while they were internees. Initially, the army nurses returned the oath cards unsigned because they felt their jailers could interpret the wording broadly and begin to punish people on a whim. But after a lengthy discussion, the women finally signed the pledge. Many wrote statements in the margins indicating that they were signing under duress. Most, however, shrugged off the oath as meaningless. Only two men refused to participate in the process and, as a consequence, spent time in the camp jail. The oath read, “I, the undersigned, hereby
solemnly pledge myself that I will not under any circumstances attempt to escape or conspire directly or indirectly against the Japanese Military authorities, as long as I am in their custody.” Hartendorp, p. 254.

5.
Her diary reveals other details about the harassment and deprivations the prisoners endured and is located at the Admiral Nimitz Museum, Fredericksburg, Texas. Microfilm. Used with permission of her family.

6.
The packages arrived in September 1943 on the exchange ship
Teia Maru
, but were not distributed to the prisoners until March 1944.

7.
Hattie R. Brantley, May 9, 1945, war crimes testimony. Report 91. National Archives, Suitland, Maryland. SCAP Collection, Box 1118, transcript.

8.
Nesbit, p. 43.

9.
Sally Blaine Millett, 1990 author interview.

10.
Mary Rose Harrington Nelson, 1989 author interview.

11.
Stevens, p. 440.

12.
Helen Cassiani Nestor, 1991 author interview. During the spring and summer of 1944, the Japanese allowed the first mail into STIC, and Cassie finally received news from home. In one letter, she learned that Louis, her older brother, who had taught her to play baseball, was dead from leukemia and that he had a daughter, Roberta, and had named Cassie as her godmother.

13.
In 1992, the doll was on display in the Women’s Corridor at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.

14.
Nash, p. 2.

15.
Stevens, p. 350.

16.
Williams, p. 196. Edith Shacklette’s wartime diary, September 21, 1944, entry.

17.
McCall, p. 133.

18.
The average adult female, ages twenty-five to fifty, requires a daily diet of about 2,000 calories, 50 grams of protein a day for heat, energy and growth and repair of body tissues, 455–490 grams a day of carbohydrates to feed body and brain cells and 85 to 100 grams a day of fat for body fuel.

19.
Hartendorp, p. 329.

20.
Other authors cite twelve deaths that month (Hartendorp, p. 359; McCall, p. 145). The figure used here is from Marie Adams’s Red Cross records. It was her job to record all deaths in STIC and organize burials. She turned over her records to the War Crimes Office in 1945. Her chronological list includes names, ages, nationalities, dates and causes of death. National Archives, Suitland, Maryland. SCAP Collection, 40–31–136.

21.
Madeline Ullom, June 11, 1945, war crimes testimony. Report 91. National Archives, Suitland, Maryland. SCAP Collection, Box 1118, transcript.