THE CRUCIBLE: An Autobiography

This is Yay Panlilio's story of the war in the Philippines and the part she played in it, from the fall of the Philippines to the return of the American forces in 1945- a story of intense courage and great hardship. When the war began she was a newspaper reporter and for a time pretended to collaborate with the Japanese, while at the same time she worked against them. Then she escaped to the hills and joined up with the guerrilla forces of General Marking (Marcos V. Agustin) who had once been a bus driver and became one of the outstanding guerrilla leaders. Yay and Marking fell in love and worked together leading the guerrillas. This also tells of other leaders and fighters, the people in the towns who helped them at the risk of their own lives, the traitors, Japanese cruelty and tortures, sickness and suffering through the years of unremitting struggle.... The story of the Philippins resistance, impressive as it was, is already such a familiar one that one questions if even a feminine version will carry it to today's readers.