Dottie Stone (center) with sisters Elizabeth Waaler (left) and Gloria Rose.

LOS ANGELES—Dottie Stone’s recollection of Manila is littered with cold isolation, atrocious hunger, and unmitigated fear in harrowing details—memories of war and grim reminders of the dark side of the human heart.

Along with 2,000 other passengers, Dottie and her family were aboard a ship bound from China, where her British father worked, when Japanese forces attacked a U.S. naval base in the Philippines in 1942. The captain of Stone’s ship decided to anchor into Manila where American forces were still stationed. But when Japanese troops occupied the city, Dottie, with her father, American mother, five brothers and sisters were rounded up and brought to an internment camp at the University of Santo Tomas in Sampaloc district.
Stone was barely 18 years old at that time. That was more than 62 years ago today.

The wounds of war still cut through Stone’s faltering memory but her persistent hopes of healing and closure make her defy time and space to seek the world’s attention towards the past. She believes that not enough attention is given the thousands of American, British, and Filipino nationals who were held captive by the Japanese in Manila for more than three years—as well as the heroism of the soldiers who rescued the UST internees.

“We truly want to dedicate our life to the memory of the so many Filipinos who fought so bravely in those dangerous missions to save our lives. Gen. MacArthur had knowledge that our camp was dynamited and ready to blow us all up. He ordered the troops to head for us at high speed and forgetting anything else,” Stone recalled in an interview with Philippine News. “These Filipino guerrillas did the great job needed to save our lives.”

Although Dottie and husband Salvador Jiron live in Glendale, where 16 percent of the city’s Asian population are mostly Filipinos, nobody seemed interested to talk about the past. “When it came to Santo Tomas, people didn’t talk about it, they didn’t want to get involved,” said Stone. “There were some Filipinos who were more interested with attending a party or wedding in Las Vegas than to support an event where a group of their fellow Filipinos who suffered during the war are present.”

Late last year, an article about Stone and her sisters Elizabeth Waaler and Gloria Rose, that was published in the Glendale News-Press, caught the attention of a Northern California-based network of UST internment camp survivors (both Americans and Filipinos), and invited the sisters to a “reunion.”
“It was like a brick was lifted. We wish we could have all met sooner,” Stone said.

That reunion proved to be a significant step towards healing. Last March, the City Council of Glendale gave a proclamation of recognition to Stone and her sisters and former Army Sgt. Carl Salonites, 89, as representative of the 37th Infantry Division, a combined force of Americans and Filipinos, that helped liberate the UST internees when Gen. Douglas MacArthur stormed Manila in February 1945.

“It’s my honor that the Filipinos and the POWs want the American people to know about what happened so long ago,” Salonites told Glendale News-Press. This recognition apparently fired up Stone to carry on and get involved in the Filipino community’s quest for recognition of the war exploits of its WW II veterans.

With sisters Elizabeth and Gloria, Dottie helped organize the 67th anniversary observance of the founding of the United States Army Forces in the Far East (USAFFE) July 25 “Celebration of Survival” gathering at Sheraton Hotel in Universal City here. Three of USAFFE leaders—Col. Edwin Ramsey, Commodore Ramon Alcaraz and Gen. Tagumpay Nanadiego—were presented “Awards for Legacy” at the event that again cited the courage of Stone and her sisters.

“I believe that events like this could help bring the veterans together as one,” Stone, who took time to visit Filipino enclaves in Eagle Rock and Panorama City, aside from her Glendale neighborhood, to hand out flyers for the USAFFE event. Dottie believes that WW II veterans, especially Filipinos, should be amply rewarded for the good of the past.

That “medal” comes in the form of the passage of the Veterans Benefits Enhancement Act of 2007 (or S-1315). It was approved by the Senate, by a landslide vote of 96-1, few months ago but the House has yet to schedule the bill for floor debate.
Dottie’s face lightened up as she told the story of at least two Filipinos who helped the internees at UST. While she couldn’t recall the first name of a certain Mr. Dahlen, who helped her family during those years of torment, Dottie could vividly remember pediatrician Fe del Mundo, the first woman admitted as a student at Harvard Medical School in 1936, who tended to the needs of the UST internees.
Del Mundo returned to the Philippines in 1941, shortly before the Japanese invasion of the country later that year. She joined the Red Cross and volunteered to care for children-internees, which included Elizabeth and Gloria, then detained at UST internment camp for foreign nationals. The Filipino doctor set up a makeshift hospice within the camp, and her activities led her to be known as “The Angel of Santo Tomas.”

“Dr. del Mundo is 97 years old right now. We are going to the Philippines in February so that my sister Gloria, who was in my mother’s womb when we were taken to UST, will meet the doctor,” Dottie said.
Dottie Stone, and her sisters Elizabeth Waaler and Gloria Rose, along with what’s left of the Filipino and American World War II veterans, dedicate what remains of their physical energy to let the world know that war is not kind, thereby believing that the human heart has a bright side to it, as well—and that one light radiates with forgiveness and reconciliation.

Dottie Stone’s spirit, like the sweet song of summer, becomes the gift of healing and closure.