Earleen Allen Francis Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

Farleen Allen E'rancis 32
sign far twnty of us to get aut of that tunnel and wlk duwn to the
docks. There =re tw planes, ten nurses in each plane. Ox plane made
it to Australia, but my plane did not. % all got up and then docked in
Mlndanao, the biggest. island of the Philippine archipeligo. I& flew at
night. k got out of the planes and ere taken to a Philippino army post
and w stayed there all day. The Japs hadn't gotten there yet. So at
night rn FoRnt back to the t w planes, loaded up and one plane backed up
and took off. My plane backed up and hit a rock, and the mter rushed
up. 'h plane taxied back to shore. FJe crawled out the wind- and a
m lifted us d m £ran the plane to the ground. And that's as far as w
got, va ten nurses. So w ere stranded. I cannot rder how long *
ere there, but e stayed in that Phfilippino army base for a long tim.
Finally the Japs put us on a ship, an old ship that wasn't very good, and
took us back to Mila. It took us ten days to get fran Mhdanao--it ms
such a rice-racky ---to W a . And that's where w had lots of
trauble. At night tine, yau knuw it ws hot, and the Japanese ere
milling all azaund. We slept on the deck and--I don't mt to talk about
that.
So T~R finally landed in Manila and they put us in a bus and took us to
Santo Tams Lhiversity. That's w e rn found the rest of our people,
the rest of the Army nurses, the Navy nurses, and the 3,000 internees,
civilians that they had gathered up. There wxe gold mines, banks, oil
caqmnbs-in fact Denny Williams, the nurse that wrote the book, her
husband was with the CalTex Oil Cqary. Before the war started he ms
aver there in -a, a single man, and she met him, got out of the Amy
Nurse Corps, and got married. She ms living there as a civilian when
the war came dong. He #joined the services and she cane back to the
Army-for safety, as nu& as anything else. The Japs went around and
rang door bells and told all foreigners to go to Santo Tanas University,
and take clothing for three days. So they got there and it lasted three
years. 'hat ' s how w? got to Santo Tanas. ere in there thirty-three
rmnths, until the Auerican forces cam in, the 7th of January, 1945. Boy
that was a bloody night--that ws the bloodiest battle I was ever in.
Dam in Bataan, I was back behind the lines, but in Santo Tams I was
right in the middle, as everybody else ws . Many people ere killed when
the Aumicans cz- in and began to fire and the Japs began to fire back.
And those Jap -& told us--= had tvm guards in Santo Tamas who said
they w e kst Point graduates, and they spoke Eslglish just like you and
I do. They told us they d d never give up the Philippines unless it be
in shauibles. They muld bluw it up. The first thing they did was cut
off our water supply. k did have mter the whole the w mre there.
In the early days w got a little bit of stew, a little bit of radishes
codced (it ws awful), and w skimrrred down to a cup of rice every day.
M had four chaw lines every day, once a day, which served the 3,000
people in there. We had £om chow lines--you lined up with a cup to get
your cup of rice. And everybody got thin and thin and thin and thin and
starving and stanring. I mighed 96 pounds when I got off that plane in
San Rancisco. We Ere the first people who ere taken out. First they
sent a couple nurses £ran San Francisco to W a to take our masurementsm
had m uniform you knw. Then they mt back, packed up all these
uniforms, brought them, dressed us up, and put us in a big plane down on
Deuey Boulevard. Prettiest plane I ever saw. Then they flew us d m to