THE DAILY IBERIAN

The call rang out over a rain of bullets: “The Yanks are coming!”

That’s what the 3,700 prisoners at Santo Tomas internment camp in the Philippines shouted on Feb. 3, 1945 — the day they were freed after being held captive for more than three years.

(Use arrows above to view more photos) Advertisement

Now, 64 years later, the lives of a former prisoner and one of the men who freed her have intersected once again. Rosemarie Weber, 78, was a prisoner of the Japanese at the camp from age 10 to 13. Chelly P. Mendoza, a resident of Baldwin, served as a member of the medical squad attached to the 1st Calvary Division of the Army, which helped liberate the camp.

Weber, Mendoza and his wife, Anna Bell, are in touch almost daily, the result of a recent piece Weber wrote in SABER, the newspaper of the 1st Calvary Division. In March, the three met in Houston.

Weber said she has written in the newspaper before, but this is the first time she has gotten so close to anyone with whom she corresponded. Much of the reason is Anna Bell, who has been “so wonderful” about keeping in touch, said Weber.

Anna Bell keeps records of everything from the Western Union telegram she received when her husband was wounded to his commendations, the crinkly brown paper pressed safely behind the plastic.

During the second World War, however, the events of which those papers brought news were anything but safe.

When U.S. forces arrived in Santo Tomas, the 3,700 prisoners held at the internment camp were starving. They had been there for three years and had seen their daily rations limited to about 600 calories toward the end of the war. Many died from diseases like wet and dry beri-beri and dysentery. Weber’s mother, Eve, was in the hospital and weighed only 65 pounds.

“When they came, I was sitting upstairs in the room, but I was the only one there,” said Weber. “I thought it was raindrops. I was eating my half bowl of gruel ... I looked outside, and there was no rain. I realized later it was bullets.”

Aided by Filipino guerillas, tanks from the 44th Tank Battalion rammed through the walls and soldiers with the 1st Calvary Division poured in.

Rosemarie ran downstairs and heard all the prisoners screaming, “The Yanks are here!”

“Can you imagine, after 37 months of only seeing Japanese?” she asked. “It was just the greatest sight in the world. Everybody was crying. They were crying, sharing food with us. They gave us K-rations, candy bars, bread ... I hadn’t seen bread in 37 months. It was just tremendous.”

In the time since he was drafted in August 1942, Mendoza had fought in New Guinea, Admiralty Islands, Leyte and Luzon. He carried stretchers and drove the ambulance, earning a Bronze Star for ignoring personal danger, devotion to duty and evacuating casualties with “cheerfulness and efficiency,” according to the letter that accompanied the award. 

Mendoza said he still thinks and dreams about the time he spent helping to clear the islands, clearing caves, taking over the islands bit by bit, stepping over dead Japanese soldiers and stepping over American soldiers, some of whose bodies had been mutilated either intentionally or because of injuries they had received from weapons like mines.

“I seen too many of my buddies ... I still think about that. That was so awful,” he said quietly.

Mendoza did not have even one day of leave in his time in the service. His combat, however, came to an end the day the prisoners at Santo Tomas were freed.

It was then that he was hit in the hand with shrapnel, an injury that earned him a Purple Heart. He still does not have full mobility in his hand.

There was fighting after that for about a month on the island, Rosemarie said. Soldiers had to go house to house in Manila to clear the area entirely, and there was a hostage standoff in one of Santo Tomas’ buildings.

“The fires flooded the sky, like what you would see at a sunset,” she said.

Mendoza remained in Santo Tomas recuperating from his injury.

“The boys left to go to Japan. I was still in Santo Tomas,” he said. “Before they got even halfway, it was over with. Japan had surrendered.”

Both went on to live full lives.

Weber has nine children and lives in Wisconsin. Chelly and Anna Bell Mendoza have four children and a home filled with pictures of loved ones and American flags.

Weber said she plans on continuing to write in SABER.

“Every year I get fewer answers because they’re getting older too, but I’ll never stop writing,” Weber said.

“Maybe (the soldiers) from others wars — even though they weren’t in the Philippines, they’ll realize what a difference these men made in our lives. They gave us life.”