Editor-at-Large
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The following was excerpted from an email sent by Betty Little, a niece of the late Brig. Gen. Royal Reynolds, the founding president of the Philippine Scouts Heritage Society. Editor
The female character, Margaret Utinsky, has been tweaked, presumably for dramatic purposes, in "The Great Raid." I have a copy of the 1948 book, "Miss U.," written by the actual Margaret Utinsky, if anyone is interested in knowing more about her. (The Naylor Company, San Antonio, Texas.)
I haven't seem the movie yet, but our local paper says it portrays her as a nurse, which is accurate, and as a Lithuanian refugee, which she was not. She is described in the picture caption of the article as smuggling quinine into the camp for her lover.
In fact, she was married to John Utinsky, an American engineer; thus Utinsky was her married name. She decided that she did not want to leave the P. I. with the other evacuating families until she could find out what had happened to her husband. According to my uncle, BG Royal Reynolds, she was able to convince the Japanese that she was Lithuanian because of her husband's name and told them that Lithuania was an ally of Germany. She developed an extensive smuggling network to bring food and medicine into the POW camps, thereby keeping many Americans allive. She continued her effort even after she found out that her husband had died of starvation in August 1942..
The forward to the book was written by J. M. Wainwright, General, USA (Retired); the following is the last paragraph:
"Miss U" took every chance, ran every risk, and underwent torture in order to help the poor men behind barbed wire, and finally had to go to the hills and join the guerrillas. Her gallantry and intrepidity were worthy of the best traditions of our country."
Betty
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