In 1939, Tanigawa found himself in the crucible of Khalkhin Gol, where disaster struck as they reinforced the beleaguered IJA 23rd Division that was fighting Soviet troops in Mongolia. The battle’s grim toll still resulted in a Japanese setback. By August of that year, Tanigawa had been called back to the heartland, tasked with joining the Central District Army, the guardians of Japan’s very shores. It was not a prestigious position compared to conquering or occupying Japanese territories. The message seemed to be that Tanigawa had been found lacking as a battlefield officer.
However, destiny’s wheel had not turned its last for Tanigawa. He found himself reassigned to the Philippines, eventually overseeing the prisoners in Manila when civilian administrators were found lacking. Lacking in the Japanese view meant being too lenient with their Western prisoners.
But Tanigawa was no pencil pusher or paper tiger. In his youth, he had enjoyed hunting and marksmanship and had worked to hone his skill with a rifle. He had often helped train troops personally in the use of their Arisaka rifles. Personally, he favored a beautiful example of a Rigby double rifle that he had hunted with in his youth during trips to Korea. The powerful rifle was more suited to hunting big game, but he had brought it with him to the Philippines.
His position in Manila was not without its perks. He had taken a Filipino mistress, a girl half his age, who seemed willing enough in exchange for money and favors for her family. She was a frequent visitor to his quarters at the university, where he had moved once the Americans landed on Leyte.
Located in the heart of Manila, the University of Santo Tomas was a Catholic university founded in 1611. It was unlikely that the founding Dominican friars could ever have conceived that their university would someday become a prison camp. The university’s motto was Veritas in Caritate. The Latin translated as “Truth in Charity.” There was little evidence of that motto now. The Japanese had taken over the campus and herded in civilian prisoners, so that some of the more educated prisoners joked that the motto should have been “Truly Suffering.”
Several of the university buildings were substantial structures built of a pleasant light-colored stone, three and four stories tall. They had once been grand, as befitted a place of higher learning for several hundred young scholars — all men, of course — but since the Japanese occupation the campus buildings and grounds had fallen into decay and disrepair. Clay tiles had gone missing from the rooftops, letting the rain in. Pigeons nested in the window ledges. Weeds and small trees had grown up in what had once been well-tended gardens where students and professors could spend a pleasant hour discussing matters of faith or simply reading.
The university buildings were now bursting at the seams with up to four thousand prisoners, many of them Americans. Through no fault of their own, conditions had become increasingly squalid. The old plumbing of the university was nearly overwhelmed, meaning that a sewage smell permeated the buildings whenever the breeze wasn’t blowing, which happened a bit too often on the hottest afternoons.
Water flowed from taps in a rusty trickle. Showering was out of the question, so that the prisoners had to make do with a damp rag to wash themselves down. There was no longer any electricity to power the ceiling fans, which resulted in hot, sweltering days and nights.
In a sense, the lucky inmates were the ones living in huts erected in the university courtyards. At least they had more access to fresh air and felt less confined, although they baked in the midday sun that reached them and slogged through the mud generated by the monsoon rains.
But even being quartered in the courtyard was disconcerting, considering that they were ringed by the high walls, where a few Japanese machine guns were positioned. The guns were a constant reminder that, make no mistake, they were all prisoners. Although the original university had been limited to men, the Japanese captors believed in equal opportunity. Both men and women were held prisoner within these walls. They could mingle during the day but were segregated at night. The grim conditions weren’t exactly conducive to any sort of pleasant courtship. Nonetheless, there had been a few pregnancies as the captivity dragged on, proving the adage that love would find a way.
Back at his office, Tanigawa sat awaiting the arrival of this so-called delegation. He had little patience for such things, but he knew that, as the prison administrator, he had to keep up appearances by hearing them out. Making small concessions helped keep the prisoners in line even better than Inaba’s cudgel.
Finally, the delegation of prisoners was brought before him. He wrinkled his nose at the smell that arrived with them, filling his office with the funk of body odor. The poor water supply meant that the prisoners had a hard time bathing. Maybe next time he could have Sergeant Inaba throw them into a fountain or hose them down before they were brought to his office.
Tanigawa sat at his desk, wearing an impeccable uniform that only brought the shabby clothes of the prisoners into sharp contrast. A black lacquered stand held his samurai sword, both a symbol of office and a deadly object of beauty. Adding to the martial appearance of his office was the heavy double rifle in a wall-mounted rack. Presiding over it all was a portrait of the Emperor, standard decoration for any Japanese military office.
The delegation consisted of a very tall man with red hair; a balding and worried-looking middle-aged man named Littleton, who always looked as if he’d rather be somewhere else; and one of the Red Cross nurses, a fortysomething woman with the very Irish-sounding name of Catherine Rooney. Tanigawa sometimes found the various heritages of Americans to be confusing. Unlike the Japanese, they were not all one thing — a mixture of Irish, German, Italian, Greek, and a dozen others — and yet they stood united.
He studied the woman, her dark hair contained under a white nurse’s cap that had lost most of its starch. Her uniform could not hide her trim figure. She even wore a touch of lipstick in an effort at keeping up appearances.
Perhaps if she had been ten years younger, Tanigawa might have found her appealing. But no, he would stick with his Filipino mistress, who was prettier and much less troublesome. These nurses had volunteered to become prisoners in order to care for the thousands of civilians being held on the university campus. The other prisoners called them “Angels” for what they were doing. Tanigawa called them annoying do-gooders, always complaining about “conditions.” Conditions this, conditions that. Apparently the conditions were never good enough.
He studied the tall prisoner with an indifferent gaze. It was not the first time that he and this prisoner had crossed paths, but Tanigawa wasn’t about to show the prisoner that he was worthy of recognition or that Tanigawa knew his name, which he did. MacGregor. The major remained seated, which was partly a snub showing that the prisoner had no honor and therefore wasn’t worthy of Tanigawa standing to greet him. There was also the egotistical reason that although Tanigawa was tall for a Japanese, the prisoner would have towered over him by several inches. Tanigawa was too proud to allow that.
What the major didn’t know about the prisoner — not that he would have cared — was that the man had a Filipino wife from an upper-class family and three boys who had been born in Manila. Before the war, the tall man had been quite a successful businessman and was well known in the city’s wealthiest circles. He didn’t care for taking orders from the Japanese — or anyone else, for that matter. The arrival of war had meant his status as an American citizen made him an enemy. As Filipinos, a subjected people rather than outright enemies, MacGregor’s wife and sons still dwelled at home.
Nearby, Sergeant Inaba made no effort to hide his sneer. He kept one hand on his cudgel, as if eager to use it and cut the tall prisoner down to size.
“Speak!” Inaba ordered.
“Hello, Major,” the tall man said in a Texas drawl. Although Tanigawa spoke English, he found the man difficult to understand, with all those vowels stretched out. “You remember me, don’t you? Mike MacGregor.”
Tanigawa did indeed remember him, this Texan with the Scottish name. He also remembered his previous complaints, which the major found tiresome. Again, he didn’t want to give the prisoner the satisfaction of knowing he was recognized, so he asked curtly, “What is it?”
MacGregor’s jaw muscles worked as if he was biting back what he really wanted to say. The lack of food had reduced him to bone and sinew, but he was still a strong-looking man. “It’s about the food, Major. You see, we don’t have enough.”
“You have all the food we can spare,” Tanigawa snapped.
Nurse Rooney spoke up. “If you don’t feed us more, people are going to start dying. They’re in very poor health, you see. These are terrible conditions.”
There was that word again. Tanigawa just stared at her until she cleared her throat officiously and looked away.
He wasn’t quite telling the truth regarding the food supplies. Tanigawa had sold at least half the food allotted to the prisoners. He had to pay for his mistress somehow.
Then again, the situation at Santo Tomas had been steadily worsening even before Tanigawa came on as the prison camp administrator.
For the first couple of years, there had been barely enough to eat. In the last months of 1944 and now early in 1945, conditions had gone from barely tolerable to miserable because administration of the internment camp had moved from civilian Japanese authorities to the military.