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Page 5

The text says:

1945
Jan. 6 Japanese staff ordered to leave, spend all night packing and burning papers.
7 Committee members held as hostages all day pending planned departure of the Commandant's staff.
9 Commandant issues statement that owing to change of plan he and his staff are not leaving. He expresses concern over food situation.
10 Leaflet: ....The Battle of the Philippines is in it's final phase....."
11 We all saw the Stars on their wings!
14 War Prisoners' Bureau moves from Far Eastern University into Ed. Building.
17 One man escapes from Gym.
31 Chairman of Camp Medical Staff jailed by Japanese for refusal to exclude the words "malnutrition" and "starvation" from Death Certificates.
Average daily per capita calories issued by Japanese Army to Camp: 723.7 during January.
Feb. 3rd 10 U. S. Planes parade to Santo Tomas, drop goggles* and message of good tidings into East Patio. About 6.00 P.M. continuous machine-gun fire can be heard to the North. Fires break out all around, especially to the North.

9.00 P.M. THE TANK ARRIVES.

4th Third Anniversary of the Inauguration of Santo Tomas Internment Camp..plus one month....37 long months.
The Camp Industries on the 4th Floor of the Main Building produced for general sanitation purposes the following articles:

Coconut Oil 1,589.2 kilos
Caustic Soda 1,385.7 kilos
Soap 7,632.0 kilos
Calcium Hypochlorite 2,253.0 kilos
Alcohol 82.45 litres

Deaths up to January 31st. 1944 (25 mo.) 185
From feb. 1st 1944 to Sept. 30th (8 mo.) 54
from Oct. 1st to Dec. 31st (3 mo.) 43
in January 1945 (one month) 32

*Chuck Jones, a visitor to my website who was interned at Santo Tomás together with his parents and sister says that the camp was broken up into various sectors..."we lived in 'Froggy Bottom'. Although I don't remember it myself, my mother told me the story of the American plane dropping a pair of goggles with a note attached and that it fell into the north patio. There were a number of patios in the camp and they were named for organizational purposes". (The note and the goggles are also mentioned in an eye witness account which has been added to my page about Ravnaas - see the link below).

Chuck adds: "I saw a recent segment on the History channel entitled "Torture devices" or something like that.........It showed a newsreel clip of the liberation of Santo Thomas. The internees were milling around in front of what must have been the education building (?). There was an American flag draped from the balcony of the building. Since my birthday was Feb 5th, my dad told me that the GI's had come for my birthday and he somehow got that flag which I treasure to this day....

We were actually captured in Mindanao, where we hid out in the hills with the guerilla forces until my mother, who was pregnant with my sister, couldn't stay on the run. My sister was born on a coffee table on a Del Monte pineapple plantation somewhere near Davao. We were incarcerated in the "Happy Life Blues" facility, which had actually been a brothel before the war. We were eventually transported up to Manila in one of those "prisoner ships" or "hell ships" as you are probably familiar with.

Chuck's father, Charles C. Jones was employed by Standard Vacuum Oil Company, and he has an advertisement on the previous page of the liberation bulletin.

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