Preamble.
Despite how this story begins, it is a very poignant love story that ends well, and happily.
After the many decades since the end of WWII, this difficult and shocking story can now be told in all of its major details. The surnames of those involved and some place names, have been changed to protect those family members still living.
These actions took place in the closing stages of the Second World War, following MacArthur’s re-taking of the Philippines in 1944, leading up to the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan on the sixth and ninth of August 1945. This brought an end to the war, when Japan was forced into unconditional surrender.
This manuscript was written three years after the end of the war and with the cooperation of those few living participants from that time, but has remained unpublished until now.
The account is taken from the memoirs of the survivors, and from the notebooks of Colonel Mashito and Doctor Namura in the prison camp, as well as from accounts and photographs taken by the marines who landed on Uwe after the assault to free the prisoners.
Colonel Mashito’s notebook is in possession of the Army Archives, and the second; that of Doctor Namura, is in the possession of Rebecca Asher (not her real name) and her family. Most of the photographs taken at that time are in the hands of the Asher family, along with a collection of Samurai swords.
Both nurse Rebecca Asher, and nurse Madison (surname redacted), along with many other nurses and medical personnel in the theater of war, were awarded significant military decorations for their ‘non-combat’ roles that were, in truth, more combative and challenging than those faced by many soldiers. Most of those involved, discussed none of it with their families. They just wanted to forget everything.
