Bread and Rice: An American Woman's Fight to Survive in the Jungles and Prison Camps of the Wwii Philippines

by Doris Macauley

Shortly after the war in the Pacific broke out in December of 1941, the author and her husband crammed enough clothes, foodstuffs, and supplies to last them six months into three suitcases, and headed into the choking bamboo jungles of Luzon. Unfortunately, the war was to last another four years.

For a year and a half, they lived from day to day, hiding among the little-known mountain people who sheltered and helped them in their grim struggle for existence. Always just a step ahead of the Japanese army, they were forced to move constantly, a week here, a month there. The refugees faced monsoon rains and the fear of malaria; they lived on dwindling stores of food; traded even their most precious possessions with Filipino villagers who wouldn't betray their hideout-and a few who were not so trustworthy-and assisted the bands of young guerrillas whenever possible.

Macauley's narrative is rich in Spalding, the American weakling who shared a part of the journey before surrendering to the Japanese; Placido, the always-opportunistic head of his tribe, who nonetheless protected the refugees and provided them with a home; and especially Fabian, the simple and courageous tao, who time and again risked his own life to help the Americans, until finally they were faced with the choice to surrender to the Japanese or see all of Fabian's family killed. What followed were the horrifying weeks in primitive Japanese prisons until they were finally taken to the internment camp at Santo Tomas, and, later, Los Banos.

Written with profound depth and immediacy, BREAD AND RICE is a young woman's stirring account of those grueling, terrifying days on the run.

Genres: History

239 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1947

Reviews

[Catherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is an autobiographical account of the author and her husband as they try to evade the Japanese in the Phillipines during the occupation. It is based on her journals from that time and her memory of the events. With the belief that the occupation would only last a short while, she and her husband head into the mountains, where they rely on local tribal people to assist them. The title of the book refers to their western diet of wheat and bread when they were living in Manila, and the local diet of rice while they were in hiding. Although the author is genuinely grateful to those who helped them, her western bias toward them is apparent throughout. For example, rather than dig in and help with the rice planting and harvest, they relied on paying the locals for supplies and different kinds of help. Even though they purchased things, those were still things the locals would have to do with less of. The couple was eventually betrayed by another westerner and ended up in the hands of the Japanese until they were liberated with the rest of the American and European prisoners of war. An interesting read.

[John Monaghan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Testament to her strength

Mrs. Macaulay few finds her experiences in China and the Philippines during the Second World War. Hiding in the mou finalising capture and eventual capture and imprisonment by the Japanese. I have a better understanding of what life on Luzon was like in that time. Doris describes conditions clearly and effectivly
. A well written book.

[Audrey Haugen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imprisoned

Hard to believe the Japanese could be so cruel. Makes one say they got every thing they deserved when the bomb was dropped.

[Ibu Alvarado · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enlightening

I found the story to be straight forward and factual, making me want to continue reading, to the point that I want to research that theater of the Pacific war more.

[April · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is in the same vein of non-fiction books I've been reading on the subject of Japanese Internment in the Philippines during WWII. The author and her husband were in Manila when the Japanese invaded, and though you would never know it from the first chapter, the author was a reporter and radio commentator at the time. I say that you would never know it because the book starts out pretty dramatically, written like a novel in a very subjective point of view and focusing almost entirely on the fear, making it seem as if the author were nothing more than a spineless housewife who was frightened at every turn. I actually started off not liking the book because it seemed overdramatized, and the narrator didn't seem like the sort of person I would like or admire. It starts off in the middle of the story somehow, in an almost sing-songy scared and literary way that was annoying as hell.

It wasn't until the author went back to the beginning of the story, AFTER the "beginning" of the story, that she started to have a little bit of credibility for me. The real beginning, where she goes into her background and the set up of the situation, provided the context and anchoring that I needed to even care about the "character" of the author. I found that she had good reason to be especially scared for herself — she had been politically outspoken about the Japanese and was afraid they would retaliate somehow by treating her worse than they would the average prisoner. Before I was given that and other bits of information, I couldn't care about her and about how scared she was that she was being imprisoned by the Japanese, but after I finally got to know more about the author, the story began to matter to me.

And it is quite a story. She and her husband didn't spend most of their time at the Santo Tomas Internment Camp as the other prisoners that I read about did. In fact, for a while, she and her husband actually managed to keep from getting caught by the Japanese for a very long time. They hid in the jungles of Luzon with the natives and struggled to live on a day-to-day basis, relying on their Filipino friends to take care of them. This is partly where her seemingly irrational fear starts to make sense to me. Living with Filipino natives the way that she did, in handmade huts, away from civilization and at the mercy of nature's whims, can make a person as fearful and superstitious as the natives. I began to understand then why she was so frightened in the first chapter.

Most remarkable to me about the book, though, is just how kind and generous their Filipino friends were. They were treated even worse by the Japanese and were often just as hungry, but they gave what they could to their American and European friends in food and aid, sometimes sacrificing their own safety. Of course, it was sometimes motivated by the promise of payment later, but there was no assurance that "later" would ever come. It made me feel really good about the Philippines.

All in all, it was a pretty good book. The only thing I would change is how it starts — if it simply started from the true beginning, where the author was from and how she found herself moving to the Philippines, I think I would have liked it better.

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm actually waiting for InterLibrary Loan to bring me the book for a more careful reading, but I've found a digital copy online. Still, the five-star rating is mostly anticipatory. In case other readers aren't aware of the book or author's history, I thought I'd post a note here to point out that the book was originally published under the same title in 1947, when the author was known as Doris Rubens or Doris R. Johnston.

She later married Thurston Macauley, a former New York Times correspondent, and the book is dedicated to "T.M." and was originally published by "Thurston Macauley Associates." According to her 2007 obituary in the Washington Times and his in the New York Times a decade earlier, they were married for 50 years and each lived to be 95. (Why does the book not say what happened to Ron Johnston?)

In any case, I'm happy to see that someone is getting her book back into print after a half-century, even if it's too late for her to enjoy the proceeds, or hear from her readers.

Some of the incidents in this book were dramatized by the United Press radio series, "Soldiers of the Press" during World War II. MP3 versions are available for free at the Internet Archive and through many old-time-radio websites, including my http://jheroes.com/2012/06/09/dangero... -- but most online sources incorrectly identify her as "Doris Johnstone."

If anyone reading this has information about Ron Johnston, I'd love to hear the story.