Events
Captured by Japanese forces early in World War II and crowded into what were essentially concentration camps in the Philippine Islands, 5,000 American internees were part of the largest group of American civilians incarcerated by any enemy nation. Their grit, patriotism and ultimate liberation by U.S. troops returning to the islands at the end of the war is a little-know yet important story from America’s recent past.
Bringing this dramatic chapter in the American experience to life, this historical narrative provides the human, military and political context of how these American civilians were initially abandoned by their government but finally rescued through the direct efforts of Gen. Douglas MacArthur and several remarkable U.S. military operations.
Humanizing these war-time events, this work follows the struggles of teenage U.S.-expatriate Patty Croft and her family. Torn from their home in Manila, they were incarcerated in the two largest Japanese-ran internment camps. Patty and her family survived this frightening ordeal, and now at the age of 99 she shares her secret diary and memories from those years of captivity.
Significantly, this factual account follows Gen. MacArthur’s troops as they roll back the Japanese invasion of the western Pacific and home in on a liberation of the Philippines. The general’s direct role in the liberation of the islands and rescue of these American civilians is highlighted in this story, a humanitarian effort largely ignored by most historians. Personally ordered by MacArthur, the dramatic liberations of the two civilian internment camps at Los Baños and Santo Tomás are military epics still celebrated and studied to this day.