n on February 1946. It was a complicated delivery. My mother was hospitalized a While after my birth. My father was supposed to be transferred to Mindanao in late November and so he brought my mother home from the hospital, but she was still very week. My father told me that he expected for a war to brake out by March. Before he left to Mindanao, around December, my father was promoted to first lieutenant.
I was in Pisig, Rizal for my High School preliminaries [exams]. When we heard a voice That interrupted the music we were listening to as it said that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. My first thought was that Fort McKinnley would be attacked. Together With my friends I took the first streetcar I could. It was overflowing with people who Were in a hurry like I was to get home. I got off the streetcar when it ran as close as the Track did and ran the rest of the way home.
Ernest Hemingway in Milan, 1918
"French mutilé fitted with a mask by Mrs. Anna Co...
"French mutilé before being fitted with a mask by...The MPs were on alert and I saw cannons that I never seen before, manned with soldiers who were looking into the sky. I had never seen the cannons any place other than the two that were positioned next to the flag pole for reveille. Some of the cannons were being loaded with shells.
My mother was still ill when I got home. She didn't know about the war. Of course she Was shocked, and suggested that we pray. Before night-time fell, we were told to keep The lights out, and keep quiet. During night we heard sirens and planes. All at once there Was a flashing of lights and the sound of bombs exploding. We slept in one army bed.
The planes came and went throughout the night. The air was filled with their droning Noises, sirens, cannons, guns and explosions. During the daylight hours the skies would Darken with Japanese planes and the sirens would sound again warning us to hide, so They told us to hide under the house. After a while we were told that it was not safe to hide under the house because the Japanese might parachute to the ground. Then, we slept Outside with other families on the grass away from houses and buildings. The Red Cross Came to evacuate us. We were soldier's families. So they wouldn't tell us where we were going. They only allowed us to take a certain amount of items. We were taken to the station in Pagis. They told us to pull down our blinds so the Japanese wouldn't see us I peeked out the window anyways, I saw parachutes falling from the sky, I hoped that None of them landed by the station. We stopped in Calamba the next morning, and we were given biscuits and coffee. We arrived in Los Banos after Christmas , it had been bombed and the streets had been strafed with guns. We heard that the Koreanos, who were said to be stronger than the Japanese. I heard that they were going to kill us.
An ambulance owned by the Mexican Red Cross
Entry to the International Red Cross and Red Cresc...
Retouched versions of this picture from the german...