Margaret Utinsky learns of Jack's death

"Margaret wondered if Jack was receiving any of these supplies. She hadn’t heard anything from or about him yet. But she was willing to do anything just in case her actions might be helping him. “Risks did not seem too dangerous,” she wrote later, “when I thought of him inside those fences.”

In December, Margaret heard that the surviving men were being moved to a new prison complex, consisting of three camps, located near Cabanatuan City. By way of two Filipino contacts in the Miss U Network, Margaret started communicating with an American officer in the prison named Colonel Mack. She sent him a note, asking if he knew anything about the fate of a Jack Utinsky. A note came back:

Dear Miss U:

You have many friends in this place. . . . I am deeply sorry that I have to tell you what I found out. Your husband died here on August 6, 1942. He is buried here in the prison graveyard. . . .

You will be told that he died of tuberculosis. That is not true. The men say that he actually died of starvation. A little more food and medicine, which they would not give him here, might have saved him.

This is terrible news for you, who have, with your unselfish work, been able to save so many others. All of us will always owe you a debt that we can never pay for what you have done.

I do want to say to you that this place is far more dangerous for your work than Camp O’Donnell was. Do not take risks that you took there. If you never do another thing you already have done more than any living person to help our men. My sympathy goes out to you in your grief. God bless you in all you do.

Sincerely yours, Edward Mack,
Lt. Colonel, U.S. Army

Jack had starved to death. Margaret blamed herself. “If he could have received just a little of the food I had given to others,” she wrote later, “he might be alive. If I had found him four months sooner, he might be alive..."

Camp O'Donnell burial detail

Excerpt from "Margaret Utinsky: The Miss U Network" from Women Heroes of World War II: The Pacific Theater: 15 Stories of Resistance, Rescue, Sabotage, and Survival.