Cassie DePeckel
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
Some elements, including dialogue, may be invented, but everything is based on research.
United States Navy nurse Dorothy Still mends a torn mosquito net in her lap.
It's July 1942.
She's sitting on a rickety bench in a courtyard at Santo Tomas College in Manila, Philippines.
The school has been converted into a prisoner of war camp by the occupying Japanese army.
A drop of Dorothy's sweat rolls down her neck.
Even though the bench sits in the shade of a tree, it's searing hot.
Other prisoners huddle nearby.
Most live in a cluster of shanties 100 yards away.
There aren't enough classrooms at Santo Tomas to house all the prisoners, so hundreds of captives have had to build these shelters using scraps of wood and tin.
Suddenly, a commotion makes Dorothy look up from her sewing.
She sees a barefoot Filipino man sprinting toward the camp's gate.
Five Japanese soldiers are close on his tail.
They tackle him right as he reaches the gate.
The man thrashes and kicks at the dirt, but he can't free himself.
A moment later, Dorothy sees the camp's commandant, Sadaki Kanishi, strut up.
It's not even noon, but he's already sipping from a bottle of sake.
Kanishi screams in Japanese and points at the tree Dorothy is sitting under.
The guards pick up the man and drag him toward her.
As they approach, Dorothy recognizes the man as a vendor who enters the camp every day to sell mangoes.