The Honorable John and Film Developing (64)

The 92nd Evacuation Hospital is once again close to the front lines.


14 March '45
Dear Folks [Beth's sister and brother-in-law, Mary X and John],
     Now I'm at a new place.  We are something like the old gambling houses (and such) of frontier days - following the crowd.  Our set of school buildings isn't as large this time, but good enough.  We aren't busy as yet, but no doubt will be.

Headquarters for the 92nd Evacuation Hospital in Agoo, Philippines

     The knife you sent me certainly takes a fine edge.  I spent about an hour on it, and it is very nearly razor sharp.  But I hope I won't have to use it on a Jap.  I did "spill" Jap blood you know - technically that is!  On our first campaign I amputated a Jap's leg.
     John, I've discovered that I can use regular 35 mm film in my camera by covering the "window" on the back and winding the film on a bare spool.  The resulting negative is 2 mm less wide, is the only difference.  My film is perforated only at intervals, and along only one side.  Buy counting "clicks" I can space the frames properly.  And the best of it is my tent mate has several hundred feet of the film!  I've started developing my own film, too.  Beth is sending me some DK20 [a high contrast film developer for black and white film].  I can use x-ray hypo [hypo sulfate, used as a fixer in film processing] .  Thanks a lot for the booklet!  It looks good.
     Love, Eugene

14 March '45
Dear Folks [Mary X and John],
     This is a continuation - I didn't get to tell you all I wanted!
     Beth may have written you that I went to see the sights in a city [Manila, but the censors wouldn't let him write that].  It was something to see large modern buildings burned and blasted to pieces.  We went thru a hotel [see post #63] where I'm certain Uncle John must have stayed at one time (or its predecessor) ["Uncle John" was the paternal uncle of Gene's brother-in-law John, the Honorable John W. Barrett, a larger-than-life diplomat and Dartmouth grad, who was the Minister to Siam under President Cleveland (when the little prince, Chulalongkorn, in The King and I was king), and a war correspondent and advisor to Admiral Dewey during the Spanish-American War in the Philippines; he later was involved in South American relations under President Theodore Roosevelt and served as the first Director-General of the Pan-American Union; he attended Beth and Gene's wedding in 1937 and died a year later].  The Japs had used it as a strong point, so you can imagine what it looked like.  I took 3 rolls of color.  Hope they turn out well.  ...

Gene on an overturned tank on the road to Manila

    Jack [the son of Mary X and John], in a box I'm sending Beth, there is a large numeral "3" on fabric from the tail of a Jap 2 motor fighter-bomber.  Also, a large thin metal plate [from an anti aircraft gun] with some ack-ack projectile plotting data on it, that I picked up along the waterfront.
     They were still gathering Jap bodies!  What a mess.  ...
     Love, Eugene

March 15, 1945  No wards assigned to me.  Little work.

March 16, 1945 
     Not busy as yet.  When the push up the coast for San Fernando starts, we will be.  Planes of all sorts go over every day.  Later we may move there.
     I'm developing my own [black and white] film now.

March 17, 1945  To Aringay, 10 km up the coast to see the sights.  The troops are 2 miles beyond.

What was happening just beyond Aringay:

YANKS WITHIN GUN RANGE OF BAGUIO, LUZON: 33rd Division Tightens Squeeze on Former Summer Capitol
     Manila, March 17 - (A.P.) - The Thirty-third division has rolled its heavy artillery to within eight miles of Baguio and can drop shells into the former Philippine commonwealth's summer capitol.
     The Thirty-third - a former Illinois national guard division - has tightened its nutcracker by pushing toward the famed mountain city from both west and south.
     Gen. Douglas MacArthur's communiqué reports that the Thirty-second division is probing the mountains from the southeast.
    ...  Installations around Baguio, Lieut. Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita's headquarters, have been bombed and shelled heavily.  As yet the city has been spared.
     The advance of the Thirty-third has been slow - thirteen miles in a month - but the methodical gain has been made thru difficult mountain terrain filled with Japanese ambush parties.  The going has been made more difficult by the systematic blowing up of bridges although the 300-foot steel and concrete Aringay span was captured by a surprise night move.  ...
  

Manila (63)

Post card with bullet holes and an old registration card
picked up by Gene in the Manila Hotel

     Capt. Eugene Pfile barely squeaked in a trip to Manila before the 92nd Evacuation Hospital was moved from Guimba to Agoo, which was closer to the fighting.  During the move he didn't have much time to write letters.

March 6, 1945
     To Manila.  Stayed overnight at the 5th Field [Hospital] (Fawcett, in my class at N.W.[Northwestern University Medical School]),in the Ed. Bldg. at Santo Thomas University [a private, Roman Catholic university used as an internment camp by the Japanese until the Americans liberated the prisoners in February, 1945].  The oldest U. on U.S. soil [the Philippines was considered a U.S. protectorate until 1946], established about 1611.
     Saw the burned out city and other sights.  Went thru the Manila Hotel [considered the most luxurious hotel in the Philippines from its opening in 1912 until the Japanese occupation].
     I bought 3 sleeping mats (Buri palm fiber). P 5.00 [$2.50], 3 straw purses P 3.50 [$1.75], 3 Chinese embroidered handkerchiefs P 2.50 [$1.25], wooden shoes p 3.00 [$1.50].
     At the church of Quiapo, I bought 2 votary candles for 60 centavos [$0.30].  The Quiapo Church district was established in 1586 and the church built of bamboo and nipa palm.
     Saw the Malacaňan - the president's official house.  I took 3 rolls of Kodachrome, in all.

Street scene in unbombed section of Manila

Bombed out section of Manila

March 8, 1945  To move.  Stopped receiving.  Admitted [released?] about 1000 patients.

March 9, 1945 Closed hospital at Guimba [in his records, Gene states the 92nd Evac admitted 2,520 patients while in Guimba].

March 10, 1945  Packing up. 

March 11, 1945  Moved into bldg.  Tents down.

March 12, 1945 
     Moved 70 miles N along the coast to Agoo.  North of where we landed at San Fabian.  In a small school house at the east edge of town.  Rice paddies behind us for a half mile, then the hills, Mt. Santo Thomas [sic Tomas], on the other side [of the mountain] is Baguio.  There are barbed wire entanglements around town, and the street corner strong points that the Japs had to put up to defend themselves from the guerrillas.  The 33rd Div. captured this without trouble, a week ago.  The 33rd is moving up the coast, and from Rosario towards Baguio where the main Jap force is entrenched.

Modified Rand McNally map showing location of Guimba, San Fabian and Agoo