Minnie Vautrin: American Hero at the Nanking Massacre

"Minnie spent most of her time running from one end of the campus to another, trying to stay one step ahead of the raping, looting soldiers. Her commanding presence was enough to make some of them quit, but others, she wrote, would look at her “with a dagger in their eyes and some times a dagger in their hands.” One Japanese soldier became so angry with Minnie when she tried to prevent a looting, he pointed a gun at her. Another slapped her.

Meanwhile, the refugees continued to flood into Ginling, “with horror written on their faces,” wrote Minnie, and relating “stories of tragedies such as I have never heard before.”

Minnie was desperate. She decided to visit the Japanese embassy in Nanking to see if anyone there would help her.

A sympathetic embassy clerk wrote two official letters ordering the soldiers to leave the women of Ginling alone. He also gave Minnie some official “proclamations” to post on the outside of Ginling’s walls, declaring the campus off-limits to Japanese soldiers.

He even arranged for Minnie to be driven home in the embassy car. The driver told Minnie, “the only thing that had saved the Chinese people from utter destruction” were the “handful of foreigners” running Nanking’s safety zone. Minnie was glad to be making a difference, of course, but the driver’s words filled her with a certain despair: “What would it be like,” she wrote, “if there were no check on this terrible devastation and cruelty?”

On the following day, she tested the power of the letters..."


From "Minnie Vautrin: American Hero at the Nanking Massacre" from Women Heroes of World War II: The Pacific Theater. 

Claire Phillips learns of Phil's death at Cabanatuan

Claire Phillips

On October 17, 1942, Claire opened a nightclub located near Manila’s busy harbor. She named it the Tsubaki Club after a rare Japanese flower. Her opening night was a huge success, and she looked forward to earning more Japanese money to fund resistance efforts. But her mind was always on Phil.

The following day, Claire felt the time was right to get an update on him. She called on Father Theodore Buttenbruch, a fellow resister and German priest who the Japanese were allowing to visit Cabanatuan under careful supervision. She asked Father Buttenbruch if he would carry a message to Phil.

Two weeks later, the priest called Claire to his office. He had lists of POWs who had died at Cabanatuan. Phil had died, he said, on July 26, 1942.

Sketch made by a survivor of Cabanatuan

Library of Congress

A few days later, she received a sympathy note from Chaplain Frank Tiffany, who lived at Cabanatuan. Although Phil’s death certificate stated that he had died of malaria, Chaplain Tiffany told Claire the underlying reason for Phil’s death was malnutrition.

'But I beg of you,' he continued, 'not to forget the ones that are left. They are dying by the hundreds.'

Cabanatuan survivors, 1945

National Archives

Claire was heartbroken. It took her several days to recover enough to return to work. But when she did, the circumstances of Phil’s death gave her an additional motivation to keep the Tsubaki Club successful. She also became more motivated to engage in her own form of espionage.

The Tsubaki Club regularly entertained powerful Japanese civilians and military men who passed through Manila..."

From "Claire Phillips: Manila Agent" from Women Heroes of World War II: The Pacific Theater. 

Vivian Bullwinkel and Private Kinsley: Surrender at Muntok

Vivian Bullwinkel shortly before she left for Singapore

"Vivian decided they should take a chance and surrender to the Japanese at Muntok headquarters, a few miles away. Kinsley immediately agreed, saying 'If it comes to the worst I hope the Japs do a better job of it this time.'

"They began the long, exhausting trip to Muntok, Kinsley dividing his weight between Vivian and a cane.

When they reached the headquarters, they had a few moments to say good-bye.
'I want you to know that I admire you very much,' Vivian whispered to Kinsley, 'and I feel a great pride in having had you as a companion.'

'I would never have made it thus far,” Kinsley replied, 'if it hadn’t been for you. I used to look at you and wonder, what with everything that happened to you, where you got your strength from to go on. You set the example, you made me determined to be like you.'

A car pulled up to take Kinsley away..."


From "Vivian Bullwinkel: Sole Survivor" from Women Heroes of World War II: The Pacific Theater. 

Vivian Bullwinkel: Banka Island

Vivian Bullwinkel shortly before she left Australia for Singapore

National Library of Australia

Copyright: Bruce Howard

"The Japanese soldiers came back, each of them cleaning his bayonet with a cloth. The British servicemen were not with them.

“Bully,” one nurse said, addressing Vivian, “They’ve murdered them all!”

Vivian was silent.

“It’s true then, they aren’t taking prisoners,” said another nurse.

The Japanese officer said something to his soldiers. They surrounded the 22 Australian nurses. They prodded the nurses with their bayonets until the women had formed a line into the water. Two wounded nurses had to be half carried there by their companions.

It seemed impossible to Vivian that a mass slaughter was about to occur in this beautiful setting. She kept asking herself why. And what right did the Japanese have to kill them?

But she said nothing aloud. None of the nurses did. Except for the sound of the water hitting their thighs, the beach was silent. Vivian, sad to think her mother would never learn what happened to her, suddenly felt peaceful when she realized she would soon see her deceased father. She wanted to communicate her new emotion to the other nurses. She turned and smiled at them. They returned her smile 'in a strange and beautiful way.'

They had obviously found their own ways to cope during these last terrible moments.
Then Vivian heard the whispered voice of their matron, Irene Drummond, 'Chin up girls, I’m proud of you and I love you all.'

Irene Drummond

From "Vivian Bullwinkel: Sole Survivor" from Women Heroes of World War II: The Pacific Theater. 

The Kempeitai visit Elizabeth Choy

"The Kempeitai mistakenly suspected that this successful sabotage—code-named Operation Jaywick by the special forces—was somehow connected to the British prisoners in the Changi prison. They made a thorough search and discovered multiple radio sets hidden carefully under prison chairs. The British prisoners had not only been physically hungry but were also starved for news outside of Japanese-controlled propaganda.

Fifty-seven civilians were taken into Kempeitai custody, interrogated, and brutally tortured. Fifteen were tortured to death. These arrests and interrogations would forever be remembered in Singapore as the Double Tenth Incident, so named because they began on October 10, an important date in the founding of China’s Republic.

Where had the prisoners obtained their radio sets? The Kempeitai were determined to find out. During one particularly brutal interrogation, one of the internees who had been found with a radio admitted he had obtained its parts from the Choys. While passing notes and food, Elizabeth and her husband had also passed radio parts. They rarely knew exactly what was in each package. And they never asked.

On the following day, a car stopped outside the tuck shop. A Kempeitai officer asked Elizabeth’s husband, Khun Heng, if he would get into the car: he wasn’t familiar with the area, the officer said, and needed help with directions.

Khun Heng agreed to help. He didn’t return.

Alarmed, Elizabeth traveled to Kempeitai headquarters with a blanket and extra clothing, pleading with the officers to give the items to her husband.

The officers told Elizabeth they didn’t know where he was.

But three weeks later, some Kempeitai officers unexpectedly visited the tuck shop and offered to take Elizabeth to see Khun Heng..."


From "Elizabeth Choy: Justice Will Triumph" from Women Heroes of World War II: The Pacific Theater. 

Maria Rosa Henson: Guerrilla Courier

"One day Pinatubo asked Maria Rosa if she wanted to join the Huk. She was glad to be offered a chance to fight back against the Japanese. After joining, she was assigned to carry messages and collect food, medicine, and clothing from people sympathetic to the Huk guerrillas.

Once, while on her way to collect medicine and deliver a message, Maria Rosa saw some Japanese soldiers a long way off. She quickly ate the message. The soldiers suspected nothing and let her pass. But Maria Rosa knew she’d had a close call. Those suspected of working with the Huk were always taken to the local Japanese garrison, where they were tortured for information before being killed. So the Huk held their meetings in different neighborhoods in order to avoid detection. And as Maria Rosa went from village to village for the Huk, she was careful to never disclose her real identity: her code name was Bayang.

Maria Rosa’s work gave her a deep sense of purpose. Yet she was continually haunted by the memory of the rapes, especially when she sang the following lines of a song with her comrades:

They should be vanquished, the fascist Japanese,
The scourge of our race.
They seized our possessions and raped our women.

After singing those words, Maria Rosa would always whisper to herself, 'I am one of those women.'"


Excerpt from "Maria Rosa Henson: Rape Survivor" from Women Heroes of World War II: The Pacific Theater. 

Denny Williams: The Surrender at Corregidor

A portion of the bedsheet signed by the nurses at Corregidor on May 6, 1942. 

Denny Williams’s name is in the middle of the third column.

AMEDD Center of History and Heritage, Archival Repository

"IT WAS THE MORNING of May 6, 1942. In a few hours, the US Army stationed on the Philippine island of Corregidor would surrender to the army of Imperial Japan.

But the fighting men would not be the only ones involved in this surrender. Along with them were female nurses, some of them civilians but most of them official members of the US Army. None of these women had been trained in combat nursing and yet they had endured months of just that. Now they awaited their fate. They were all too aware of the horrors the Japanese army inflicted on Chinese women four and a half years earlier during the Nanking Massacre. Tomorrow they would be facing the same enemy. Were they now living their last hours? If so, would anyone ever know what they had endured during the past grueling months?

They wanted to leave proof that they had been alive before meeting the Japanese face-to-face. One of them tore a large square from a bedsheet. Another wrote the following words at the top: “Members of the Army Nurse Corps and Civilian women who were in the Malinta Tunnel when Corregidor fell.” Then 69 women signed their names. One of them was Denny Williams."

Opening paragraphs from "Denny Williams: Nurse under Fire" from Women Heroes of World War II: The Pacific Theater. 

Bataan/Corregidor nurses leaving Santo Tomas prison in 1945

AMEDD Center of History and Heritage, Archival Repository

Gladys Aylward: A Price on Her Head

Gladys Aylward

"Soon 100 children were on their way with one of Gladys’s trusted friends. But before a month had passed, 100 more orphans had found their way to the mission.

One day, a Chinese general sent Gladys a message: the Japanese were approaching Yangcheng in large numbers. The Chinese army was retreating. He wanted Gladys to come with them. They would care for the children on the way.

Although Gladys was concerned for the children’s safety, she rarely feared for her own. The children left with the general and his men. Gladys remained at Yangcheng.

Two nights after their departure, a Chinese soldier knocked on her door, telling Gladys he had been sent back to once more persuade her to leave.

“Whether you leave with us nor not, you must leave. We have received certain information.”

“What information?” Gladys asked.

“The Japanese have put a price on your head.”

“You are just saying this to make me leave,” Gladys replied.

He wasn’t. The soldier pulled a paper out of his pocket, one of many, he said, that had been found posted on a nearby city wall. The paper listed three names and stated the following: “Any person giving information which will lead to the capture, alive or dead, of the above mentioned, will receive [a large sum of money] from the Japanese High Command.” One of the names listed on the poster was “Ai-weh-deh,” Gladys’s official Chinese name.

Why did this missionary have a price on her head?"


From "Gladys Aylward: All China is a Battlefield" from Women Heroes of World War II: The Pacific Theater

Sybil Kathigasu and the Guerrilla Fighters

Photo credit: Media Masters Publishing, Malaya

"The occupying Japanese administration forced the Malayans to abandon Western culture and replace it with Japanese. Malayans had their homes searched regularly to ensure no one still owned pictures of the British royal family, the flags of any Allied nations, or even American record albums.

The Japanese were also obsessed with persecuting Papan’s large Chinese population. They would randomly round them up and make them stand for hours—sometimes days—in the hot sun without food or water. Many collapsed, and some died.

A guerrilla movement was born out of this persecution. The Chinese guerrillas near Papan fought the Japanese occupation by assassinating Malayan collaborators who were betraying their fellow Malayans to the Japanese. Large Japanese offensives would then be launched against the guerrillas. But when collaborators continued to meet their doom from hidden assassins, everyone knew the guerrillas were, in the main, alive and well.

One day, they asked Sybil for help.

“It’s the guerillas, Mrs. K,” said Moru, a young Chinese man acquainted with her. “Some of them are sick and wounded, and need medicines. They knew you don’t like the Japs. Will you help?”

Sybil knew the Japanese penalty for helping a guerrilla was severe..."


Excerpt from "Sybil Kathigasu: 'This Was War'" from Women Heroes of World War II: The Pacific Theater. 

Minnie Vautrin

Minnie Vautrin as a young woman

(www.discipleshistory.org)

"IN DECEMBER 1937, Nanking was a city in flight. Its streets were jammed with the last major flood of civilians who had the means to leave the war-torn city. Half the original population was now gone. Most of the remaining 500,000 civilians were there only because they couldn’t afford transportation or had nowhere else to go.

But there was one small group of foreigners in Nanking—Americans and Europeans—who had stayed deliberately. They were the members of the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone, which referred to an approximate three-mile area in the city designed to be a wartime refuge for civilians. Women and children were to be housed within the safety zone at Ginling Women’s College. Its president was an American woman named Minnie Vautrin."


Opening paragraphs of Minnie Vautrin: American Hero at the Nanking Massacre from Women Heroes of World War II: The Pacific Theater

Margaret Utinsky: Hiding From the Japanese

Margaret Utinsky

"MARGARET UTINSKY PEERED out the window of her second-floor apartment. On the street below, Japanese officers questioned everyone who passed by. They were rounding up “enemy aliens”: British and American citizens. Margaret had no intention of being among them. She could afford to wait a long time; her apartment was stocked with food and medical supplies provided by personnel working at the US military bases in Manila...

Margaret, a Red Cross nurse by day and the operator of a servicemen’s canteen by night, had taken taxi-loads of those supplies, hoping to open her canteen again when the fighting was over. She wanted to be of help, especially to her husband, Jack, a civil engineer with the US military in Manila who had urged Margaret to evacuate with the other military wives when the Japanese first attacked. Margaret had refused. Later, when Manila was declared an open city and Jack was ordered to pull back to the Bataan Peninsula with the rest of the military, Margaret refused his urgent suggestion to stay at the local hotel with the other American and British civilians; she assumed—correctly—that the Japanese would round them up and force them into an internment camp. And Margaret didn’t see how she could be of any use to Jack in an internment camp.

After the Japanese searched through the first floor of the apartment building and found all the apartments vacated, they didn’t bother checking the second floor..."

Opening paragraphs of "Margaret Utinsky: The Miss U Network" from Women Heroes of World War II: The Pacific Theater 

Claire Phillips and the Tsubaki Club's Opening Night

Claire Phillips, aka Dorothy Fuentes

"A GLITTERING PARADE of Japanese elite crowded into the Tsubaki Club on its opening night: film stars, famous musicians, military officers, and civilian officials. None of them wanted to miss the first night of Manila’s new, most exclusive nightclub.

The guests were treated to one dazzling dance production after another. For the finale, the elegant owner appeared alone on the dance floor. Dressed in a long, glittering white evening gown, Dorothy Fuentes sang beautifully for her guests. When she was finished, the crowd jumped to their feet in a thunderous standing ovation.

When the last guests had left, Dorothy checked the overflowing cash box. She knew that the Tsubaki Club was now the most popular spot for the Japanese in Manila. Her plan would work. She wrote the following note: 'Our new show was a sell out. You can count on regular backing. Standing by for orders and assignments.'

She was about to sign it, then stopped. She couldn’t use her name; it was too risky. But what could she use as an alias? She thought for a moment about how she always stashed money in her bra. She signed the note, 'High Pockets.'"


Opening paragraphs of "Claire Phillips: Manila Agent" from Women Heroes of World War II: The Pacific Theater.