Fugitives: Evading and Escaping the Japanese

1. Manila

MANILA Magnuson described the Army Day parade held in Manila earlier in the year. "Hundreds oftanks, armored cars, artillery pieces, and all kinds ofmilitary gear rolled along the parade route, while air corps fighters and bombers zoomed overhead. It was an awesome display ofpower." Although the trip from Los Angeles to Manila on the S.S. Annie Johnson was uneventful, I did not look upon it as a relaxing ocean cruise. Good food, swimming in a twenty-foot-square canvas pool on the afterdeck, lying on a deck chair while sipping drinks which got more and more tropical as we moved closer and closer to the equator kept me occupied. But the news broadcasts describing the diplomatic confrontations between the United States and Japan were of more than casual concern to me and to many other passengers, although we seldom spoke of them. War with the Japanese was a possibility no one wanted to admit even to himself, so everyone avoided the subject in conversations while individually speculating on the future and hoping for the best. I met Harry Magnuson, personnel manager for a stevedoring company in Manila, as we were boarding ship in San Francisco. An American, Harry had resided in the Philippines for ten years and was returning to Luzon after a short business trip to California. Recognizing that I was new to ocean liner travel, he volunteered some tips on shipboard procedures that simplified my getting settled aboard. On 6 Fugitives the second day out we met again when I spotted him reclining on a canvas lounger in the shade of one of the upper decks. I sat next to him and from then on, as if by prearrangement, we met at the same spot to chat each morning. Harry gave me an excellent briefing on life in the Philippinesthe relationship between Americans and Filipinos, the business climate , the culture. And, apart from the other passengers, we shared our ideas about the possibility of a confrontation with the Japanese. Magnuson described the Army Day parade held in Manila earlier in the year. "Hundreds of tanks, armored cars, artillery pieces, and all kinds of military gear rolled along the parade route, while air corps fighters and bombers zoomed overhead. It was an awesome display of power. The Japanese wouldn't have a chance if they tried to take these islands," he said. "And we've got the biggest and most powerful navy in the world," I volunteered. "We'd blast the Jap fleet out of the water and cut their supply lines even if their army was, somehow, able to make a landing here." "You're right about that. And if we can't, we'll call on the Britishers to help." No, we wouldn't be too bad off if war came. It would be a short and minor conflict. Yet our doubts put a damper on much of the trip. After spending the decade ofthe 20s alternating periods ofwork with periods of study, I obtained a degree in mining engineering just as the world was entering the Great Depression. I worked at several mines that soon closed because of the sluggish economic conditions before finding one with a modicum of financial stability. Now, at the age of thirty-six, I was making a career move that would take me, my wife, Dot, and our four-year-old son, Rick, away from the life on the fringe of poverty we had been enduring. I had accepted a position as a mine foreman at the Masbate Consolidated Gold Mines on the central Philippine Island that bears the same name, Masbate. My traveling alone to the Philippine Islands was not intentional. I had little difficulty obtaining a passport for myself, but a family passport was unavailable at the time. Dot and Rick would have to follow me to this tropical paradise later, I was told, with only a vague explanation as to why. The unrevealed reason: the State Department Manila 7 was trying to get Americans and their families out of the Orient and the Pacific islands. War against the Japanese was an accepted certainty our country's leaders were concealing from the people. It was only a matter of time. In fact, war was imminent. Passports for my wife and son were never issued. Our plans for a new start in the Philippines did not materialize. Our lives did not tum out quite as we had...