Evening star., 1945-04-15
By Carter Brooke Jones.

MacArthur's 1st Cavalry (mechanizeO
is hard outfit. At least the Japs
think so. These boys were the first to
enter Manila when the general re-
turned recently. AS they rumbled in
the Japs opened up from the old walled
city with everything they had.
Some people call these free e-slugging
GIs killers. They are-when its neces-
sary. They killed most of the Japs who
persisted in blasting and sniping at
them from all the dark crannies of
Manila Some well-meaning organiza-
tions in this country have worried about
those of our lads who have had to kill
a lot of Japs and Germans. We're
making killers out of them," speakers
have warned. "They won't get over it,"
Those worried souls might talk to
Mrs. William Burke, jr., of Washington,
who, with her husband and young son,
was liberated from the Santo Tomas in
ternment camp in Manila by that tough
outfit, the 1st Cavalry. The Burkes are
back here visiting Mrs. Burkes parents,
Mr.. and Mrs. George E. Fleming of
1901 Idaho avenue NV. And this is
what Mrs. Burke says about the
killers:
D.o,.o f>- n,,.. Co1l:
"Those GIs were the finest, gentlest,
sweetest men I've ever known
When they'd cleaned up on the enemy
and had a little time on their hands.
she explained, they took charge of her
9-year-old Billy.
II didn't see him for hours at time. t"
she said They took him to the movies,
to church, everywhere. They just
wouldn't let him go, the lucky ones who
got hold of him. And did he enjoy it!'
Il sure did Billy admitted
Il never saw bunch of men as crazy
about children" the mother went on.
They almost fought to see which ones
would get chance to take the children
in our camp around, get them candy
and other things they hadn't had for
three years. They couldn't do enough
for the kids-or for us, for that matter
1t was deep in the night when the
troops crashed into the bla cked-out city
AS it happened, they came straight
into the internment camp and set up
headquarters This meant the Japa-
nese began shelling the area For a day
and half the camp was the perimeter
of fierce fighting which ranged all over
the city.
Met Peril Bravely
But the internees. facing liberty after
three years, some of them never to sec
it, met this peril bravely as they'd gone
through innumerable air raids from tho
Americans and the enemy in times past
More than 20 were killed during the
bombardment and many others wound
ed Yet there was no panic, the couple
recalled, and the people even remainc>
calm.
The GIs," Mrs Burke rcmembere"
almost scared US by their robust a.,
pearance We'd almost forgotten VIVA
strong, fully nourished people lookei
like"
Mr. Burke explained that only hand
full of the men in camp weighed above
l25 pounds, although many had been
strapping O-pounders at the start
The women, of course, weighed lot
less on the average Mr. Burke dropped
from $50 to 1o9 and Mrs. Burke from
lis to 80.
Among the men, Mr.. Burke estimated
the average loss of weight was 50 pounds
Final Months We're Toughest
Those last four months were the
worst. though their rationS dropped
steadily in quality and quantity when,
after two years under Japanese civilian
control, the camp was taken over by the
enemy's army. Those final months they
got only rice and corn and a mere TOO
calories day of that. The army was
in control for almost year, and the
rations got worse and worse.
There is white radish called daicon
which is standard article of diet in
Japan, along with rice. The japanese
soldiers would feed daicon to the pigs
they kept to slaughter for their own