Almost fifty Arcadia Historical Society members and guests came together on Saturday, March 9, 2013, at the Arcadia Association of Realtors’ multi-purpose room to enjoy delicious bagels supplied by Leena Sankary of Wells Fargo Home Mortgage Services before settling in to hear ninety-two year old Wanda Damburg tell her story of how she — along with her mother and father — were arrested and incarcerated for thirty six months in two different internment camps during the 1941-1945 Japanese occupation of the Philippines.
Damburg was a civilian Dutch expatriate and only 20 years old when Japanese soldiers swept her and her mother and father from their Manila residence; interning them first at Camp Santo Tomas, then later at Los Banos- two of seventy such Japanese Internment/POW camps that dotted the Philippine archipelago.
It was at Los Banos where Wanda and her parents were finally liberated by McArthur’s forces in his final push to free Manila and restore the Commonwealth of the Philippines in 1945. Electing to stand during her hour long presentation, Society members sat transfixed while Wanda related her story of courage as the anguish of paltry food and medical supplies took its toll on her and fellow internees.
She spoke of diseases such as beriberi from malnutrition and scarce medicines, that when available, would be smuggled and stashed under hibiscus bushes by clever and resourceful Franciscan priests at Camp Santo Tomas, the Philippine’s oldest university turned prison camp by the Japanese Imperial Army. The audience sat awestruck as Damburg related atrocious war crimes of merciless punishment dealt fellow internees, citing one instance where an unsuccessful attempt at escape by two young men resulted in recapture, torture and execution, an ordeal which all internees including Wanda and her mother and father were forced to witness. Wanda told of her deliverance to freedom on Feburary 23, 1945 by members of the US Army’s 11th Airborne Division and her indebted gratitude she has for a nameless American GI who threw her over his shoulder “like a sack of potatoes” and carried her away to safety during a fierce but brief firefight between unyielding Japanese guards and her American liberators at Los Banos.
At the war’s conclusion, Wanda was the only female to testify at the Tokyo war trials that began on May 3, 1946 and lasted for two years.
With help from her daughter Alice Damburg Ewing, Wanda wrote a book entitled “Courage and Deliverance: Our Mother’s Story” where these and more fascinating stories are detailed.
Information on price and availability of this book can be had by contacting the Arcadia Historical Society.
