MacArthur's Spies

by Peter Eisner

  Every morning, just after dawn, they would march under the eyes of rifle-toting guards from the Park Avenue School in Pasay, from jails around Manila, hundreds of prisoners, a ragged, defeated army of hungry men. A pitiful sight, men tied together by rope, under guard, marching along with the look of those who were humiliated and had little hope. Yet many were the hardier survivors of the death march in Bataan during April. During the day they shifted around the city to repair bridges and roads, to replace runways at army air bases, to do anything a prisoner could do at the whim of the Japanese Army.

  While about four thousand POWs were held at Cabanatuan to the north, there were about two thousand others in and around Manila. Some were under interrogation at Fort Santiago; several hundred of them were at Old Bilibid Prison close to downtown—and some of those men were ill and had been brought to the prison hospital. And Claire heard there were about seven hundred Americans living in squalid conditions at the Park Avenue School in the Pasay district, four or five miles from the club. Most of the able-bodied prisoners in Manila were pressed into work details, essentially as slaves. Some of them would be seen in small groups working on the street, others waiting for rare opportunities to find a little gasoline at gas stations, fuel being always reserved for official purposes, and then driving around other prisoners under Japanese guard. At night she would see them come from the opposite direction, heading back to prison, where they had no comfort and little rest.

  It was dangerous to talk to the prisoners—many of the Japanese soldiers guarding them were apt to be violent when Filipinos on the street expressed sympathy for the Americans. In one case three Filipina women tried to hand over the groceries they were carrying when they saw a prisoners’ detail working on a bridge. A guard ordered them to stop and began to slap them, screaming, “Don’t you know that Americans are your enemies? Americans are bad people.” He continued the tirade as the prisoners watched, unable to intercede. Some “were in tears but there was nothing they could do about it.” All that Claire could do was search the faces from the window. Then she met Steve the Greek.

  Stephen Handras was actually a Philippine national who, with an American father and a Filipina mother, was not subject to detention. He was an affable fellow who had figured out a way to game the system. Steve ran an open-air soda shop on Nebraska Street, the Acacia, named for the acacia tree that cast a cool shadow on the sweltering street, a few blocks from Tsubaki Club. Claire hadn’t known much about anyone else working to help them. But ever since those days in the mountains, when villagers had looked to her for help, she wanted to aid the sick and wounded wherever they were. Many people in Manila also were drawn naturally to fill the need. Claire had started out looking for John Phillips; then she had come back to Manila to support the guerrillas in the hills. Now she saw that there was more to be done.

  Steve the Greek was as disturbed as Claire was as he watched the POWs trudge by every day. He had the gumption to try to challenge the system, even if it was by doing what he always did: offering a cool drink on a hot day. He watched carefully—these Japanese guards didn’t want trouble; they were supposed to keep the soldiers well enough to do their work. If he could find a way to make the soldiers happy, maybe he could break through the system. He offered free drinks but was beaten back more than once when he tried to approach the POWs. Finally he tried tossing little packages of cigarettes, a bit of food, some clothing small enough for the men to pick up and carry.

  Sometimes the guards stopped him. But not always. “American prisoners who were driving Jap trucks used to stop in front of Acacia Soda Fountain, operated by me, and picked up bundles of clothes and food stuff which I was collecting for them. If the boys were unable to stop because of their being guarded, they would drop me notes, and I used to pile supplies for them under the acacia tree which were carried away as soon as they had the opportunity. Twice I was slapped by Jap sentries for doing this.”

  Twice slapped, but not every time. Not all guards were the same. One morning a group of Americans came marching along.

  “There were several civilians among the watching crowd, waiting for an opportunity to help the prisoners. My chance came when I saw one prisoner [fall] down exhausted at the very corner of San Luis and Nebraska Streets. I ran towards him with a bottle of soft drinks mixed with a few drops of whiskey, purposely prepared for the occasion, and I offered it. He was able to recover and continued the march.”

  No one slapped Steve this time. After the Japanese guards allowed this to happen, Steve tried it again. The next time some prisoners came along in a truck and stopped in front of the soda stand. The guards did not seem to mind. Steve had broken through, whether because the guards got better work out of the prisoners or because some of the guards were more lenient than others. He learned that the Japanese occupation force was not a monolith. Prison guards and detention camp guards were not all the same. These were not frontline soldiers fighting the Americans. Most were thrilled that they were not at the front, and many were more interested in avoiding trouble and having an easy time than in kicking and beating the people around them. Even the children at Santo Tomas could see this. The guards were sometimes friendly; they seemed to love children and they innately respected old people. Steve and other Filipinos were learning about how to deal with the Japanese.

  Steve the Greek lived upstairs from his soda stand under the acacia tree. One day he was sitting at the window. “I saw a truck with six American prisoners slowing down near my door. I shouted to the boys: ‘come closer, I will throw you something.’ I looked around my room and grabbed two cartons each containing 25 packs of cigarettes and a few cans of food stuff, but when I returned to the window I noticed the boys were already standing at my doorstep accompanied by a Japanese officer, who had a saber at his side, knocking at my door.”

  “You are the Greek?” the officer asked.

  “Yes,” Steve replied. Steve was frightened, but the POWs motioned to him that everything was okay. The officer pushed his way into the room and the six prisoners entered after him. Steve had hoped for such an opening. The Japanese officer said he had a Russian girlfriend who lived nearby; he wanted Steve to take charge, as long as the prisoners promised not to run away and Steve took responsibility for the consequences. It was a deal. The officer ran off to do whatever he could do in an hour. The prisoners relaxed in the apartment, and Steve gave them food and cigarettes to take with them. The officer came back as planned, thanked Steve, and left with the men.

  Steve alerted others in the neighborhood that he had managed to set up his shop as an odd sort of safe haven for POWs. Claire put together a care package with some of the clothing John Phillips had left behind. Five or six times the Japanese officer brought the men back for visits. Each time, Steve was ready to give them supplies. Years later he could still remember some of their names: Gene Whitaker, Jack Ferguson, Picket, and Herbert.

  Claire and Steve the Greek became friends and decided to seek out other sympathetic Japanese guards. They got another chance when an American POW driving a truck with about a dozen POWs on board stopped at the gas station across from Tsubaki Club on Mabini Street. Steve approached the Japanese soldier guarding the men, bowed, and asked if he and the prisoners would like to have some lunch. He said yes and Claire brought over some food. The next day Steve was able to persuade the guards to come have lunch at Tsubaki Club with the prisoners. The club was closed to customers during the day.

  Emboldened by their experience, Claire and Steve went out separately to Luneta Park. Steve was selling snacks and cigarettes; Claire was walking with Dian, since experience had shown that lonely young Japanese soldiers liked seeing children. She walked close to one group of POWs, crossed the street, and approached some guards. The guards warmed up when they saw Dian. Claire bowed, looked toward Steve, and addressed one of the Japanese soldiers: “Could I buy cigarettes for the Americans?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  Cla
ire wanted to proceed deliberately and assumed nothing. She bought the cigarettes from Steve and started to hand them to the guard, who she assumed would in turn give them to the prisoners. But the guard was relaxed about it and indicated that she could do it herself. So she approached the nearest American POW with some cigarettes and matches.

  She had written a little note ahead of time and stuffed it into a matchbox. It read: “You can trust the man that sells cigarettes here because I know him.”

  That simple act established a long-standing supply and lunch operation, thanks to that guard who had been kind enough to allow her to give cigarettes to the men—she came to know him as Yamada. He treated the prisoners with respect. She recalled later, “I almost insulted him once by asking if I could give him some money to spend. I found out then I didn’t have to bribe him.” If she wanted to give money to the POWs, he said to do it openly. “Anything you want to do, do it in front of Yamada. You don’t have to do it behind his back.”

  Yamada began to bring men regularly to the club; Claire fed them all, including Yamada and the soldiers with him. He only took money when it was to deliver the funds to prisoners who couldn’t get out. One case Claire remembered involved William Bruce, a mechanic who had broken his arm and lost some teeth when a tire rim fell off a truck he was repairing and hit him in the face. Claire said she put together a package with a splint, surgical tape, and antiseptics, then gave it all to Yamada for Bruce. Yamada brought Bruce to the club one afternoon a few weeks later and Bruce thanked her for helping treat him.

  Claire then faced the tricky business of feeding the men, Yamada, and the guards under him, while at the same time trying to keep Yamada at a distance. As Madame Tsubaki, she found that men were always looking for special privileges and attention she was not willing to provide. He wanted to spend time with her during off-hours and she gently pushed him away. Finally she had to give in by at least agreeing to go to the movies with him. She tried to keep the relationship friendly but limited. Still, though, people saw her in the company of a Japanese soldier. That was a potential problem.

  Through Steve, Claire began to meet others who already were helping the POWs. One new contact was Nancy Belle Norton, an American woman who dared to carry supplies directly to the POWs. Norton, a frail-looking, seventy-year-old retired schoolteacher, had been in Manila for twenty years. She appeared to be immune to Japanese rules. Out of respect for older people, the Japanese had decided she was too old to go to Santo Tomas. Mrs. Norton was allowed to travel freely around the city; she gathered clothing and food and marched right in to deliver the supplies. Her daily rounds included visiting Bilibid Prison, where the Japanese warden approved her visits.

  Bilibid had been a civilian prison before the war but now also was housing POWs who needed hospital care. The warden was a doctor named Nogi. Mrs. Norton visited Nogi and asked if she could provide help to the hospitalized men. “Unlike some of the other arrogant Japanese commanders, he was most helpful and gave me permission. I was told, however, that I must not speak to any of the boys, and they must not speak to me, or permission would be withdrawn and I would be punished.”

  Working with Nancy Belle Norton, Claire was able to assemble a list of prisoners in Manila and determine which needed the most help, and what kind of help. She noted which prisoners she had been in touch with and what kind of help had been or might be provided. The list was also useful intelligence to send out to Boone and onward to his superiors. The list would not only be confirmation for family back home that the men were alive; it could also be used as a logistical aid when eventually the United States could plan a rescue on MacArthur’s promised return to the Philippines.

  Claire began to send supplies regularly to Mrs. Norton, all the while working with Steve and helping Louise and friends at Santo Tomas. She learned that many people around Manila were interested in doing exactly the same thing, gathering supplies for prisoners and finding a variety of routes to deliver the material on a regular basis. Contact with Steve the Greek and Mrs. Norton in turn brought a meeting for Claire with a woman who would become her friend and rival, trusted ally and antagonist. Her name was Peggy Utinsky, an American nurse who also wanted to do whatever possible to help the prisoners.

  Peggy’s Orders

  Manila, 1942

  AS THE THREAT of war had grown in the summer and fall of 1941, Peggy Utinsky, a registered nurse, had defied her husband’s insistence that she leave the Philippines along with other women and children being sent back to the United States.

  “Orders were orders,” Jack Utinsky had told his wife, but she was not buying that argument. “I told him that I had not disobeyed an order, that nobody had told me to go home, that they had just told me to get on the boat, that they didn’t tell me to stay there.”

  Jack was a reserve U.S. Army captain and a civil engineer with the army. He had now been called to active status and was to report for duty in Bataan. Peggy and Jack had come to the Port of Manila to act out a familiar scene in those last weeks of 1941 before the war. Taxis and private cars, horse carts and trucks had jammed the docks. Hundreds of women and children had stood forlorn on the deck of the SS Washington, bidding tearful farewell to their husbands and fathers. The Washington, a luxury liner of the United States Lines with a capacity of about one thousand passengers, bound for California, was one of the last ships carrying Americans out of a possible battle zone in the South China Sea. President Roosevelt had ordered American dependents to leave the Philippines months earlier. Many top U.S. military brass in Manila had come out for the send-off, including Major General Jonathan M. Wainwright (second in command under General MacArthur), who was dispatching his family back to the States.

  Despite Peggy’s protests, they had packed up their furniture, gathered her clothing, and moved out of their apartment; Jack had booked her a one-way ticket. But Peggy kept complaining. She reckoned that orders did not apply to her. And what was she going back to? On her return to the States earlier in the year for the first time in more than a decade, she had not felt at home.

  Margaret Doolin Utinsky, forty-one, had been born in St. Louis on August 28, 1900. Her first husband, John Martin Rowley, died in 1919 after three years of marriage. They had a son, Charles Grant Rowley. Peggy became a registered nurse in 1922 but decided not to make the easy choice of getting a job somewhere in the Midwest. She wanted instead to try something exotic; she and her nine-year-old son sailed for Manila in 1929. Peggy liked what she saw and decided to pursue a nursing career in the Philippines. Jack and Peggy were married in Manila in 1934.

  After vacationing for a few months in the United States in 1941, Peggy could see no good reason for staying away. Charles now was in his twenties and lived on his own in the United States. She came back to Manila, certain that nurses would be in demand should war break out. Jack kept insisting that the departure order was mandatory. However, she countered that since she was not in the army, she had no orders to obey. Peggy did not stop arguing.

  Now, on the dock, Jack was trying to comfort her, but she was having none of it.

  It was for her own safety, he said. “It won’t be long. We’ll make short work of the Japs if they do come. You’ll be back before you know it.”

  “Before you know it?” she asked. “I won’t be one of those thousands of women back in the States who have to sit and wonder every minute what is happening here in the islands. What can I do over there? Here at least I could help if anything happened.”

  They continued to bicker as the minutes ticked away until bells sounded and a steward circulated calling out the dread words: “All ashore!” There was one last kiss and embrace, and then Jack took the gangway, went to a car, and drove away. Peggy, “all dressed for traveling and plastered with orchids,” watched him leave.

  When the bell and announcement sounded once more, Peggy took the chance she had been waiting for. General Wainwright, who had lingered long on board, “was the l
ast one to leave the ship, at least he thought he was. When General Wainwright walked down the gangplank, I walked right close behind him. I knew that I was so close behind him that no sergeant or MP would ever dare stop me. So he turned to the left, walked to the other end of the pier where General Willoughby [Charles A. Willoughby, MacArthur’s chief of intelligence, then a colonel, later promoted to major general] and many other men were, and, of course, there were a lot of Spanish and Filipino people there and they were all waving ‘Good-bye’ to their friends.”

  Peggy had planned ahead. Jack had paid five pesos to a porter to load her luggage onto the ship; Peggy had slipped ten pesos more to the porter to hold it back onshore.

  “The boat backed out, turned, went through breakwater. My heart ached for the men standing on the pier, taking a last look at their wives through field glasses.” Jack Utinsky had already left for town. He boiled over when she caught up with him at the hotel where they had been living since moving out of their apartment.

  “My husband was just coming out of the hotel, he had checked out, and the trucks were there ready to take the men all back to Bataan.” He hustled her back into the hotel and yelled “loud and long.”

  “It was an order,” he said.

  She replied once more that she was not subject to military orders.

  “Stay in the hotel,” he snapped. Nothing was going to happen, he told her, but stay inside. “He would be back in a few weeks. . . . Nothing was going to happen. . . . There wasn’t going to be any war right in Manila.”