Recollections of LT Dorothy Still Danner, NC, USN, captured by the Japanese in Manila and imprisoned at Santo Thomas and Los Banos in the Philippines.
Adapted from:
"Dorothy Still Danner: Reminiscences of a Nurse POW."
Navy Medicine 83, no. 3 (May-June 1992): 36-40
I never had any childhood dreams of being a nurse. I thought I
wanted to be a dress designer, but along came the depression.
I became a nurse because my mother liked nursing and the LA County
General Hospital paid the nurses a little stipend. She took me
there and the next thing I knew I was a student nurse. I really
loved nursing and found it a very satisfying profession. That
was in 1932 and I was 18 years old.
After graduating from nursing school I worked in two hospitals
before joining the Navy in 1937. At that time, there were only
400 nurses in the Navy. I really didn't expect to be hired so
I was really surprised when I got my orders to go to the San Diego
Naval Hospital for a physical. The next thing I knew I was in
the Navy.
My first assignment was at Balboa Hospital in San Diego. Oh, it
was beautiful! From the pink building sitting up on the hill,
you could look down over the harbor and see all those Navy ships
out there and feel very important as part of Uncle Sam's Navy.
I spent 1938 and 1939 in San Diego.
In 1939 I was sent to the Canacao Naval Hospital in the Philippines.
I traveled across the Pacific on the [transport USS] Henderson
[AP-1]. It was a festive trip. We first stopped at Honolulu.
I can still see the people on the dock there with their lais and
the hula dancers. Then we spent 2 or 3 days going around the islands.
Although the Philippines was not quite as spectacular as Hawaii
I became very fond of the base there anyway. The Navy Yard was
just across Manila Bay about a half mile away. It was a very active
social life. There were always parties and, of course, the nurses
got involved along with everybody else.
Our social concerns were put on the back burner when the dependents
were sent home around the first of 1941. While we heard about
the rape of Nanking, nobody thought the Japs would be silly enough
to try and do anything to Uncle Sam.
War
Pearl Harbor shocked me as it did everyone else. I and the other
nurses were awakened in the middle of the night and told that
Pearl Harbor had been hit. We were sent to the hospital as soon
as we got dressed. Since the hospital was right in the target
zone, we sent all the ambulatory patients back to duty and the
rest to Manila. Arrangements were made to admit the patients to
what had been a dependents ward at the Sternberg Army Hospital.
On Wednesday the 10th, the Navy Yard was bombed. It was wiped
out. This raid lasted about an hour. After the raid, we rushed
to the hospital, and patients were all over the place. There were
Filipino women, children, and men and our own people from the
Navy Yard. It was really a shocking scene. The power to the hospital
was knocked out. It was a pretty hectic afternoon. Triage was
impossible. You just tried to find out which were the worst ones
to go to surgery and so on.
Sternberg Hospital too was quickly swamped. The only place that
was available was Estado Mayor, an old Army base; we used the
barracks as a temporary hospital. In the meantime, they decided
to set up joint surgical teams (with Army and Navy Medical Corps)
throughout the city. I was with the group assigned to the Jai
Alai Club. Our purpose was to care for anyone that was hit - civilian
or military - that would come into these emergency centers. We
set up a little receiving station near the front of the building,
but didn't get any patients.
After spending a few weeks there, we were told to move to the
Santa Scholastica school, also in Manila. The Army had already
converted it into a hospital. Actually, we had more hospital personnel
than patients. On December 31, the Army evacuated al the Army
patients on a hospital ship and took them to Australia.
Meanwhile, the Army was retreating toward Bataan to make a stand
there. The military declared Manila an open city and retreated,
but the medical personnel remained.
On 2 January, the Japanese came into Manila, but didn't come to
Santa Scholastica until a few days later. At first the Japanese
were not hostile and mostly left us alone. But then they started
taking quinine from us. Then they took our beds and mattresses.
They also began to slap around and beat up the men. But they ignored
us - the nurses.
Internment
When the Japanese came they rounded up all the Allied civilians
and sent them to the University of Santo Tomas. Although there
were some 66 classrooms in the main building, there were still
too many people. It was just a mess. The toilet facilities were
overwhelmed and sickness began almost overnight. With Japanese
permission, the civilians formed an administration committee and
appointed a leader. Soon the civilians set up a school for the
children, entertainment, and a newsletter, among other things.
Santo Tomas was used as a model by the Japanese. They allowed
the Swiss delegates to see Santo Tomas, not the POW camps or the
other civilian camps.
I was sent to Santo Tomas on March 8, 1942. However, the medical
facilities there were still lacking. There was a little hospital
set up in what had been a mechanical engineering building. The
doctors brought in medicine from their offices. A lot of lab technicians
and pharmacists apparently had their own means of bringing drugs
in then through Red Cross funds. By the time we got there, they
had revamped the rest rooms and had put in showers.
Soon Santo Tomas became too crowded as the Japanese kept bringing
people in. They decided to move part of the camp out of Manila.
Therefore. they selected a site near the town of Los Banos to
house some of the overflow.
"The Country Club"
In May 1943, the Japanese sent 800 men to Los Banos to set up
the camp. Two doctors who were going asked our chief nurse if
we would go down and help them set up the little hospital. Los
Banos was about 60 or 70 kilometers south of Manila. We weren't
needed at Santo Tomas anymore due to the influx of Army nurses
after the fall of Corregidor.
We went to the agricultural college outside Los Banos which had
been a part of the University of the Philippines. The Japanese
took a plot of about 55 or 60 acres and put a barbed wire fence
around it. Our hospital was a small 25-bed unit. The nurses lived
in a dormitory that had plenty of space - two or three nurses
in a room.
At Los Banos our first order of business was to get our 25-bed
hospital functioning. We initially had two American civilian doctors,
but they were repatriated in August 1943. In their place we got
another American doctor, Dr. Dana Nance. He was a young fellow,
one of those charismatic characters who got out there with the
baseball teams and was very concerned about his patients. He was
a surgeon and brought his own instruments. Patients who had been
sent back to Manila for surgery were now handled in our hospital.
We also had a dentist.
Initially, there were only the men and nurses at Los Banos. The
dependents were supposed to come in July, but did not arrive until
December. When they did, they changed the whole outlook of the
camp. They brought touches of civilization with them - tablecloths
and salt and pepper shakers, etc. Life itself was not that bad.
People had the opportunity to exercise, to go out and cut wood,
and do chores that needed to be done to keep the community going.
People had recordings they played at the bandstand. And they had
baseball games. It was really country club living compared to
the other camps.
While food was not plentiful, at least at this time, starvation
was not a problem. Since we lived in an old agricultural college
we had limited access to meat. We had carabao mainly, and some
pigs. We also had a garden in which we grew mostly eggplants and
camotes, a sort of sweet potato. Of course, there was rice as
usual and mongo beans. Duck eggs were occasionally available.
A Change in Lifestyle
Life began to change in late 1943. when the Japanese military
took over the camps. Before, the camps had been run by Japanese
civilian administrators. But now there was a supply officer, LT
[Sakaadi] Konishi. who had made life miserable for the internees
in Santo Tomas - he apparently wanted to starve the internees.
He came to Los Banos in 1944 to make life miserable for us too.
Moreover, our lifestyle worsened appreciably in early 1944 because
the Japanese brought many more civilians into Los Banos. Many
of the new civilians - the sick and the elderly - had previously
been allowed to stay in their homes in Manila. There were few
able-bodied men to take care of this load. Life had really become
hard in Santo Tomas.
By March 1944, the whole spirit at Los Banos changed. There was
no more country club living. The camp just kind of fell apart
and the food situation began to deteriorate. The nurses were moved
into a much smaller apartment in tight quarters. However, Eldene
Paige and I moved into the barracks across the street from the
hospital which gave a little more space.
Living conditions for the others also worsened. The Japanese cut
off the south end of the camp and crowded the internees into the
remaining portion. By this time, the Americans had invaded the
Philippines, so as life got worse for the Japanese, they made
life worse for us. We were only getting two meals a day, skimpy
meals at that. We mainly had rice, diluted to a pasty lugao. There
was practically no meat in the stew; it was very watery. And,
of course. we used to have coconut milk, but the coconuts had
gotten so expensive they were no longer available. We began to
lose weight.
It looked like Christmas 1944 would be very gloomy, but a songfest
by the priests and sisters livened things up On Christmas Eve
they had a midnight mass and practically the whole camp turned
out. It was the most spectacular: mass I've ever seen. There were
no gifts involved on Christmas Day, just spirit of friendliness
between people. I had more meaning then ever before. It was a
beautiful Christmas!
Camp Freedom
On January 9, 1945, American troops landed at Lingayen Gulf. The
Japanese awakened us in the middle of the night and told us they
were leaving. They turned the camp over to the administrative
committee and advised us not to go outside.
The administrative committee then called us to attention: "Today
at this time we're announcing you are free. This is Camp Freedom."
An American flag was sent up the flagpole and we sang the national
anthem. Tears were running down everyone's face. It was a very
emotional moment.
Unfortunately, our freedom only lasted a week. Then the Japanese
came back. However, MacArthur's troops came down toward Manila
and on February 3rd liberated Santo Tomas. After learning about
Los Banos, MacArthur assigned the 11th Airborne Division to rescue
the in ternees. [MacArthur had good evidence the Japanese would
soon execute the Los Banos prisoners.]
Liberation
The rescue plan was complicated because it was out of the ordinary.
Thus far, the Americans had only liberated prisoners in their
line of advance. But a Los Banos rescue meant going far behind
enemy lines to rescue a little over 3,000 people. Paratroopers
themselves were to be dropped over Los Banos and attack in conjunction
with infantry who would come ashore in amtracs (amphibious vehicles)
from a nearby lake. These amtracs would then evacuate many of
the civilians. The raiders already had a map of what the camp
was like given to them by an escapee, Pete Miles. Miles and the
Filipino guerrillas would act as scouts and guides for the troops.
The plan was to sneak up behind all the guard houses in the camp
and at the specific moment everything would happen at once.
We didn't know the rescue was going to happen, so we were all
feeling pretty low. I was on duty that night. There was a newborn
baby and I was trying to feed her with what little powdered milk
was left. The mother could hardly nurse the baby. She hadn't had
enough nourishment herself. It was just about 7 in the morning
[23 Feb. 1945]. 1 had the baby in my arms when I noticed smoke
signals going up. Nobody paid any attention to them. Then, all
of a sudden we saw a formation of aircraft coming over. As the
paratroopers started jumping out, the guerrillas and soldiers
around the guard houses began killing the Japanese there. Then
the amtracs came in, crashing through the swali-covered fence
near the front gate.
I was holding the baby and covering her ears so that the noise
wouldn't affect her. An amtrac pulled up in front of the hospital
and the American troops jumped out. Oh, we never saw anything
so handsome in our lives. These fellows were in camouflage uniforms
wearing a new kind of helmet, not those little tin pan things
we were used to seeing. And they looked so healthy and so lively.
They were to take the internees out and any that could walk were
to go back with troops in the trucks that came overland with the
diversionary force. The internees were not military-minded and
they just went in all directions. They didn't want to leave anything.
The firing was mostly over in about 15 minutes but it took awhile
to evacuate the internees. In fact, the American troops actually
had to set fire to the barracks to get the internees moving.
Eventually, the troops were able to get about 1,500 people on
the amtracs and the rest overland, I left on an amtrac in the
second wave. Remarkably, I think there were only two soldiers
killed and one internee injured. This whole thing went off with
just the most amazing precision that you could imagine. [In retaliation
for the raid, the Japanese murdered 1,500 inhabitants of the nearby
town of Los Banos. For this and other crimes, LT Konishi was later
tried as a war criminal and executed.]
Homecoming
After being liberated from Los Banos, we were flown to Leyte.
We were taken to Admiral Kinkaid's [VADM Thomas C. Kinkaid was
Commander, 7th Fleet and Southwest Pacific Force] headquarters,
where we ate dinner with the Admiral. They served us beautiful
steaks, which of course we couldn't eat because our stomachs had
shrunk so much.
It was surprising to see how much publicity we got. On Leyte we
began to see the flashbulbs going off and then as we got closer
to home, more flashbulbs. When we landed in Oakland there was
quite a reception for us, including a lot of photographers and
media. Then they gave dinners for us. It was quite an affair.
We also had a very thorough examination in Oakland and went on
90-day recuperative leave. My health had been good, but while
I was in Los Banos I developed the dry type of beriberi, as had
many others. It was very uncomfortable because I ached all over
and my knees buckled. There was nothing I could do for it because
it was caused by malnutrition. Our diet was not very good, especially
during the last few months before our rescue. But I quickly recovered
once I was able to eat good food again.
5 June 2000