Prisoners Of Santo Tomas (ePub)

There have been countless books about the sub-human brutality of the Japanese to their prisoners-of-war, nearly all of which have been written by Soldiers. There have been few, if any, books which describe what it is like for a woman and her teenage daughter to find themselves suddenly swept in the holocaust of the war in the Pacific. For this reason the story if Isla Corfield is of exceptional interest. Captured by the japanese when the evacuee ship from Shanghai was diverted to the Philippines, Mrs Corfield and her daughter Gill found themselves interned with 3,500 other men, women and children at Santo Tomas, Manila's erstwhile University. The extraordinary way of life which evolved within the camp becomes gradually understandable as each person's character is related to the situation in which they find themselves: and gradually, as the entrepreneurs get into their stride, there emerge in microcosm all the 'amenities' of life 'outside the wire'- from restaurants to brothels. In 1944 the Corfields are moved to Los Baanos, a new camp in the country, where conditions are appalling and many die of starvation. But at last rescue comes at the hands of the U.S 11th Airborne Division in the form of a combined air/sea/land rescue operation of split-second efficiency, and the 2000 survivors are literally snatched from the jaws of death. This is the first time that a detailed account of this remarkable operation has been published. Celia Lucas has used the 36 exercise books which Isla Corfield risked death to keep to tell this very remarkable story of a mother and daughter who managed to preserve their sanity, their standards and their sense of humour when the world around them suddenly went mad.