Child of War: A Memoir of World War II Internment in the Philippines (review)

Born in Davao in 1934 to missionary parents (American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions or ABCFM), Curtis Whitefield Tong, his mother Margaret, and his two sisters moved to Baguio City in 1941 so that he and his two sisters could study at Brent School. On 8 December 1941 the Japanese bombed Baguio. American and British civilians, including the Tongs sans the father, were arrested and imprisoned in Camp John Hay. His father was imprisoned in Davao, but the family knew about this only after several months, before which they did not know whether or not he was alive.

From the brief period of rustic mission life in Davao, Tong swiftly narrates the outbreak of war and their internment, first in Camp John Hay, then in Camp Holmes (now Dangwa Camp) and finally in Bilibid Prison in Manila. Among the three internment camps, Camp Holmes was the least dismal, simply because of the large field where the inmates could play ball. Bilibid Prison was the most restricting, for the very reason that it was a real prison. However, during the battle for the liberation of Manila in February 1945, Tong realized it was the safest place in the city. Its thick walls protected him and the other civilian internees from bombs and snipers’ gunshots.

Although the book is about war, it exudes love, friendship, caring, and a great deal of positive outlook, much more than fear, hatred, pessimism, and other negative emotions normally expected of people during war. Curtis Tong and everyone in the internment camps in Baguio and Manila experienced hunger. They were uncomfortable in their crowded cubicles. Couples led unnatural lives because husbands were separated from their wives and were allowed to commingle only at a designated hour or so in the evenings. Most were ill, Curtis’s own mother suffering from swollen feet due to beriberi. In Camp Holmes, unlike in Camp John Hay, Curtis was not allowed to stay in the men’s barracks, but was made to stay with her mother and sisters. This was disconcerting for him, especially when he had to use the women’s toilet. But to his mother, this was a better arrangement, rather than for her son to stay in the men’s barracks and face the risk of being sexually abused by Japanese guards. Such risk nearly happened to Curtis in Camp John Hay. Curtis narrates all this and other untoward incidents and miserable conditions during his internment, but he does it in a matter-of-fact manner and his words do not show resentment or grudge.

Tong indeed writes about personalities in the camp that he feared or disliked. For example, he diligently records the detestable actions, words, and mood of Maj. Mukaibo Nagahide, a commandant in Camp Holmes, much feared by Tong. He writes of “haunting memories” being “reawakened” (143) when, perhaps in his archival research and interviews in connection with this book, he found out that Mukaibo obtained his PhD in theology from Boston University School of Theology in 1938; became a certified pastor in 1949; served as president of Aoyama Gakuin Women’s Junior College in the 1950s; and was awarded the Emperor’s prestigious Order of the Sacred Treasure. Tong, refusing to judge harshly the circumstances, simply describes Mukaibo’s wartime record and his postwar achievements a “paradox.”

But he also writes about two Japanese he loved and respected. On one of the pages of the book is a photo of him with his mother and two sisters taken by Matsumoto Katsuji in Camp Holmes in April 1943. This photo is also a souvenir of the day they first heard about their father since they left for Baguio in 1941. Matsumoto Katsuji should be familiar to scholars who have done research on the Japanese in Davao in the 1930s. But while they may have known that he was the head of the Ohta Plantation...