RESCUE RAIDS OF LUZON!

Huber gives a detailed account of his American family’s captivity in the Philippines when he was a boy, from mid-1942 until their rescue in early 1945.

The author’s father managed a Goodyear rubber plantation in the Philippine jungle. The family lived privileged lives that allowed them to employ servants, including amahs for the three kids, and enjoy late-afternoon drinks on the veranda. Then the Japanese military invaded, and the family decided to surrender as internees rather than risk fleeing. They were moved to a series of camps, one of which—the Happy Life Blues camp—was a repurposed roadhouse. They wound up at Santo Tomas, a camp outside Manila. Life for the family during this time was marked by a continual reduction of rations, and they faced the possibility of death by starvation or by execution if they dared try to escape. There were heroes in the camps, however, and the author gratefully praises the courage of Filipino guerillas, who constantly harassed Japanese soldiers and then faded into the jungle. The family’s rescue was a miracle of timing; unbeknownst to the prisoners, their captors had orders to kill them all if they discovered that an attack on the camp seemed imminent. The author describes his joy as he saw an American soldier who “loped down the road, huge and strange…and he had come for us!” There’s a great deal of scaffolding to this book, including a curious apologia for their treatment and a meticulous timeline of their experience. For military buffs, there are detailed descriptions of conflict, such as of the Battle of Leyte Gulf. There are also many illustrations, including family photographs and sketches and maps of various camps.What’s really striking, however, is the book’s account of how Huber’s parents put their children first when starvation loomed and always showed resourcefulness and optimism that kept the family’s hope alive. Surprisingly, after postwar rest and relaxation in Ohio, they returned to the plantation, kids and all. All three Huber kids experienced stunted growth, due to their ordeal, but they were very successful in later life.

A gripping remembrance and a testament to a family’s resilience.