Blood Brothers | Page 6

hand and said, "Arigato vely much!" as he bowed deeply and departed for his bed.
Some gold-mining engineers, friends of Col. Horan, built an "entrance to a mine" some thirty feet back into a hillside in the center of camp for an air-raid shelter. It proved to be very good, but we nearly broke a leg each time we raced a bomb down the hill to the entrance.
That night our radio told us that the Japs had made landings
at Aparri, on the north coast of Luzon, and had actually landed two thousand soldiers at Vigan on the northwest coast. It sounded like they had landed without any resistance. These two cities were only two or three marching days from Baguio. Was the Rainbow war plan not working?
News was received that Hong Kong and Wake Island had been captured. Also, that the British battleships, HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales, had been easily sunk off the Malayan coast by Japanese planes.
We heard many unusual noises about camp, especially at night, and saw strange lights that we thought might be signals. We became suspicious of everything that moved in camp, especially any moving troops, until we were sure that they were ours.
I couldn't sleep! As I lay in bed, I recalled how I'd been assigned to Camp Hay from the Medical Regiment at Fort McKinley, near Manila. Col. Wibb Cooper, the Philippine Dept. Surgeon, picked me out of some one hundred medical officers because I had just enough time to do on my tour in the Philippines, not too little, not too much medical training and experience, just enough responsibility, personality, sociability, etc. I was to be the only U.S. medical officer north of Fort Stotsenberg one hundred miles to the southwest. I was to be the nearest U.S. doctor to Japan.
Camp Hay met all my expectations: delightful wooded areas, friendly people, a fine, well-equipped station hospital and a well-trained staff. I was invited to the Rotary Club for dinner with the American operators of the nearby gold mines and lumber companies in the valleys below. They all seemed anxious to know the only U.S. doctor. Retired Major Emil Speth, the mayor of Baguio, took me in tow and saw that I met everyone who was important.
During three months prior to the war, General MacArthur, the Commanding General of USAFFE, conducted a "War School' for his general officers at Camp Hay. During the school period, I got to meet and visit with most of the generals and their aides-either at the hospital or the Officers' Mess. I was their "Medic!"
Several weeks prior to the war, some British officers' wives from Hong Kong arrived in Baguio, a supposedly safe place to sit out the war. Our student generals seemed to think the "lady limeys" had been sent over for their dining and dancing pleasure
at the Pines Hotel. Camp Hay was almost a perfect setting almost too good to be true except for one thing. In May, 1941, President Roosevelt suddenly ended our honeymoon, sending all of the Army wives back to the States.
It was two very unhappy people standing on Pier Seven in Manila, wondering if they would ever see each other again, if the U.S.A.T. Washington could outmaneuver the subs in the Pacific, and if our U.S. Army could survive a frontal attack by the Japanese.
Roosevelt must have known the war was coming. In 1937 he branded the Japanese as "aggressors" in their undeclared war in China and called for quarantine against her. The Japanese answered him by sinking the U.S.S. Panay and machine-gunning her crew.
In the late '30s, with the world situation becoming increasingly dangerous, Germany and Italy both arming in Europe, and Japan increasing its manpower, Roosevelt wanted to cut the Regular Army by 51 %, the National Guard by 35% and the Reserves by 33% in order to balance his budget. It seems he was rather naive, 'or possibly just the politician worrying about reelection.
Gen. MacArthur, who was Chief of Staff of the Army at the time, told Roosevelt, "Mr. President, when the next war is lost, it will be Roosevelt's War, not MacArthur's." Fortunately, MacArthur was able to save the Army from the cuts.
In Sept, 1940, Germany, Italy and Japan signed the Tripartite Pact. In July, 1941, Roosevelt told Gen. Marshall to draw up war plans. With his assistants, Gen. Wedemeyer and Gen. Gerow; they concluded that Hitler was the enemy to be stopped Japan and Italy could come later.
It was Roosevelt who said, "In politics, nothing happens by accident! You can bet it was planned!"
In July, 1941, Roosevelt again placed sanctions against Japan to keep U. S. oil, scrap iron and raw materials from reaching her shores. He issued several executive directives which made war between the U.S. and Japan inevitable. He froze all assets in the