Santo Tomas Internment Camp, also known as the Manila Internment Camp, was the largest of several camps in the Philippines in which the Japanese interned enemy civilians, mostly Americans, in World War II. The campus of the University of Santo Tomas in Manila was utilized for the camp, which housed more than 3,000 internees from January 1942 until February 1945. Conditions for the internees deteriorated during the war, and by the time of the liberation of the camp by the U.S. Army, many of the internees were near death from lack of food.
Background Japan attacked the Philippines on December 8, 1941, the same day as its raid on Pearl Harbor (on the Asian side of the International Date Line). American fighter aircraft were on patrol to meet an expected attack, but ground fog delayed the Japanese aircraft on Formosa. When the attack finally came, most of the American air force was caught on the ground, and destroyed by Japanese bombers. On the same day, the Japanese invaded several locations in northern Luzon and advanced rapidly southward toward Manila, capital and largest city of the Philippines. The U.S. army, consisting of about 20,000 Americans and 80,000 Filipinos, retreated onto the Bataan Peninsula. On December 26, 1941, Manila was declared an open city and all American military forces abandoned the city leaving civilians behind. On January 2, 1942, Japanese forces entered and occupied Manila. They ordered all Americans and British citizens to remain in their homes until they could be registered. On January 5, the Japanese published a warning in the Manila newspapers. "Any one who inflicts, or attempts to inflict, an injury upon Japanese soldiers or individuals shall be shot to death." But if the assailant could not be found the Japanese "would hold ten influential persons as hostages."Morton, pp.237–238
On May 6, 1942, Gen. Jonathan Wainwright who took over the United States Army Forces in the Far East (USAFFE) after Gen. Douglas MacArthur's departure, surrendered the remaining forces on Corregidor to the Japanese. This was followed a few days later by the USAFFE units in Visayas and Mindanao. There were a few exceptions who took to the forests and mountains to initiate guerrilla warfare against the Japanese occupiers. It was the worst defeat of the United States in World War II.Bell, Walter F. Philippines in World War Two, 1941–1945. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1999, p. 1.
Establishment of the internment camp Over a period of several days, the Japanese occupiers of Manila collected all enemy aliens in Manila and transported them to the University of Santo Tomas, a walled compound in size. Thousands of people, mostly Americans and British, staked out living and sleeping quarters for themselves and their families in the buildings of the university. The Japanese mostly let the foreigners fend for themselves except for appointing room monitors and ordering a 7:30 p.m. roll call every night. The Japanese selected a business executive named Earl Carroll as head of the internee government and he selected five, later nine, men he knew to serve as an executive committee.Hartendorp, A.V.H. The Japanese Occupation of the Philippines. Manila: Bookmark, 1967, pp. 10, 14 They appointed a British missionary who had lived in Japan, Ernest Stanley, as interpreter. Santo Tomas quickly became a "miniature city". The internees created several committees to manage affairs, including a police force, set up a hospital with the abundant medical personnel available, and began providing morning and evening meals to more than 1,000 internees who did not have food or money to buy it.Pratt, Caroline Bailey, ed. Only a Matter of Days: The World War II Prison Camp Diary of Fay Cook Bailey. Bennington, VT: Merriam Press, 2006, pp. 32–33
Thousands of Filipinos and non-interned foreigners from neutral countries gathered around the fenced compound every day and passed food, money, letters, and other goods across the fence to the internees. The Japanese put a stop to that by ordering the fence to be shielded by bamboo mats but they permitted parcels to enter the compound after being searched. However, the loose Japanese control of the camp had teeth. Two young Englishmen and an Australian who escaped from the camp were captured, beaten, tortured, and executed on February 15, 1942. Carroll, Stanley, and the monitors of the two rooms where the men had been accommodated were forced to watch.Hartendorp, p. 90 Thereafter, no escapes from Santo Tomas, which would have been relatively easy given the small size of the Japanese guard force, were recorded.
Carroll and the executive committee reported to the Japanese commandant of the camp. In the early days of STIC, as it was called by internees, the Japanese did not provide food so it was purchased with loans from the Red Cross and donations from individuals.Hartendorp, p. 24–25 The Committee did a delicate dance with the Japanese attempting to moderate Japanese orders while following a "policy of close and voluntary cooperation … to secure liberties" and "to retain the greatest degree of self government possible."Ward, James Mace. "Legitimate Collaboration: the Administration of Santo Tomas Internment Camp and its Histories, 1942–2003". Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 77, No 2, 2008, p. 166 The cooperation of the internees permitted the Japanese to control the camp with a minimum of resources and personnel, amounting at times to only 17 administrators and 8 guards.Ward, 192
Internees The number of internees in February 1942 amounted to 3,200 Americans, 900 British (including Canadian, Australian, and other Commonwealth people), 40 Poles, 30 Dutch, and individuals from Spain, Mexico, Nicaragua, Cuba, Russia, Belgium, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, China, and Burma. About 100 of the total were Filipino or part-Filipino,For example, Roy Anthony Cutaran Bennett, who had an American father and a Filipina mother. principally the spouses and children of Americans. Of the Americans, 2,000 were males and 1,200 females, including 450 married couples. Children numbered 400. At least one Japanese was interned, Yurie Hori Riley, married to American Henry D. Riley, along with their children. Seventy African-Americans were among the internees as were two American Indians, a Mohawk and a Cherokee. The British were divided about equally between male and female. The imbalance in gender among the Americans was primarily due to the fact that, anticipating the war, many wives and children of American men employed in the Philippines had returned to the US before December 8, 1941.Hartendorp, 11 A few people had been sent to the Philippines from China to escape the war in that country.Van Sickle, Emily. The Iron Gates of Santo Tomas. Chicago: Academy Chicago Publishers, 1992, p. 21 Some had arrived only days before the Japanese attack.
The internees were diverse: business executives, mining engineers, bankers, plantation owners, seamen, shoemakers, waiters, beachcombers, prostitutes, retired soldiers from the Spanish–American War, 40 years earlier, missionaries, and others. Some came into the camp with their pockets full of money and numerous friends on the outside; others had only the clothes on their backs.Van Sickle, p. 22
During the war, a total of about 7,000 people were resident in Santo Tomas. There was a regular flow of people in and out of the camp, as some missionaries, elderly, and sick people were initially allowed to live outside the camp and more than 2,000 were transferred to Los Baños internment camp. About 150 internees were repatriated to their home countries as part of prisoner exchange agreements between Japan and the United States and the United Kingdom. Most internees, however, served a full 37 months in captivity.Hartendorp, xiii, ff.
The Japanese segregated the internees by sex. Thirty to 50 people were crowded into small classrooms in university buildings. The allotment of space for each individual was between 1.5 and 2 square metres (16 to 22 square feet). Bathrooms were scarce. Twelve hundred men living in the main building had 13 toilets and 12 showers.Hartendorp, 50 Lines were normal for toilets and meals. Internees with money were able to buy food and built huts, "shanties", of bamboo and palm fronds in open ground where they could take refuge during the day, although the Japanese insisted that all internees sleep in their assigned rooms at night. Soon there were several hundred shanties and their owners constituted a "camp aristocracy". The Japanese attempted to enforce a ban on sex, marriage, and displays of affection among the internees. They often complained to the executive committee about "inappropriate" relations between men and women in the shanties.Hartendorp, p. 359–361
The biggest problem for the internees was sanitation. The Sanitation and Health Committee had more than 600 internee men working for it. Their tasks included building more toilets and showers, laundry, dishwashing, and cooking facilities, disposal of garbage, and controlling the flies, mosquitoes, and rats that infested the compound.Hartendorp, p. 26–27 During the first two years of imprisonment conditions for the internees were tolerable with no serious outbreaks of disease, malnutrition, or other symptoms of poor conditions.
At first, most internees believed that their imprisonment would only last a few weeks, anticipating that the United States would quickly defeat Japan. As news of the surrender of American forces at Bataan and Corregidor seeped into the camp, the internees settled in for a long stay.Van Sickle, pp 39–40
Internee government The internees petitioned the Japanese for the right to elect their leadership and on July 27, 1942, an election was held. Earl Carroll declined to be a candidate. After the votes were counted, the Japanese exercised their prerogative by announcing that Carroll C. Grinnell, who had placed sixth in the election, was appointed as the chairman of a seven-person executive committee.Hartendorp, p. 162 Grinnell, a business executive, would be the leader of the internees for the duration of the war. Grinnell's leadership was controversial. He appeared to many of the internees to be too authoritative in ruling them and too acquiescent to the Japanese, banning community dances, building a recreational shack for the Japanese guards, and setting up an internee court and jail for offenders.Ward, 168 Dave Harvey, the most popular entertainer in the camp, satirized the Grinnell government by saying he was going to write a book titled "Mine Camp" and dedicate it to Grinnell.Ward, 174. The reference is to Adolf Hitler's book, Mein Kampf
Transfer to Los Baños