2349RH
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Hi, Tom!
Gee! I didn't think to examine wheither those internees executed by Japanese were among those buried there. I think that only one or two Santo Tomas internees were executed.
I also do not know if this plot came into existance after the war, or if that's the way they were originally buried under Japanese supervision. I do remember that some of the marker death dates were after the liberation of Santo Tomas, which perplexed me at first, until I found out that the Japanese shelled UST from the south side of the Pasig River, for a couple of weeks, after the camp was liberated, which resulted in a number of additional deaths. If I had thought to take note of the location of these later graves within the plot, that certainly would have provided a clue as to when the plot was organized. If it were set up during the war by the Japanese, then the only place availble for the U.S. to bury those later dead, would have been in an outside row. They could not have been place in the middle of the plot.
I know that there were some missing civilians, presumed or rumored to have been executed by the Japanese. Attempting to match up the names of these with some of those in that plot could also have been informative.
Within a circle 50 meters of there are the graves of some of the original "Thomasites", the early school teachers, who came to the Philippines after 1902, or so. With no vaccines, or antibiodics, their dead rate, and those of their families were quite high. Viewing some of these gravesites is very emotional, because of the very loving tributes inscribed upon their headstones by their now long gone, loving students.
Within this same 50 meters are numerous, stacked concrete vaults containing the remains of many other Americans from those early years, a good porportion of them, former U.S. Volunteer Soldiers, who elected to be discharged in Manila, and stay on to make their fortune there. Thanks, Ron Mandell Ronmandell@hotmail.com
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