Saoi holds a recovered silver peso. In 1941, to prevent it from falling into enemy hands, Philippine government authorities with the help of U.S. naval unit dumbed bullions of Philippine silver peso into Manila Bay. These were salvaged after the war, five years later, off the depths near the island fortress Corregidor.
(I interviewed and wrote this article for the newspaper.)
December 7, 1941, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, 11 hours later they invaded the island of Luzon, Philippines, a United States Commonwealth.
Nick Saoi was in high school attending class when a Japanese plane bombed an oil refinery outside of San Fernando, La Union, Philippines. “We could see smoke rising not too far from the high school,” Saoi said. The Japanese also bombed Clark Air Field Force base and U.S. naval bases.
The Principal made an announcement, “Class is dismissed for good because the war has started.”
Nick and his sister, who was teaching in San Fernando, traveled eighty miles back to their hometown of Aguilar.
The family lived in a Spanish-style home, and Nick’s father was Mayor of the town and well known. Born and raised in this village 200 miles north Manila, population of about 5,000, Nick remembers before the war, Aguilar, a peaceful town.
Twenty-three miles from Aguilar, Lingayen Pangasinan became one of the Japanese invasion points. Nick, then thirteen, along with his family knew war had come to the Philippines.
His family, at the time of the Japanese invasion, lived near a main highway that led to Manila. For their safety, Nick’s father moved the family two miles away, toward the mountains, into a forested area. “We built a hut and lived there for three months,” Saoi remembers.
In that area were three families, approximately 14 people. A dugout the size of a double bed and about five feet deep sheltered the group in times of trouble. One night dogs began barking. Someone yelled, “The Japanese are coming.” They ran for the dugout then jumped in. Someone yelled, “Snake.” They scrambled out of the dugout as fast as they jumped in. Saoi laughed as he told the story.
Rumors spread that the war would last only a week as America was far superior in arms than the Japanese. But history records the Japanese occupation would last until October 1944.
The family, because of Malaria, had to leave their hut to seek medical care. They traveled back to Aguilar. “We were all sick, except for my oldest sister,” Saoi said. Nick’s father died of Malaria. “We couldn’t attend my dad’s funeral.”
The rest of the family survived and lived under Japanese occupation. “When we first arrived back in Aguilar, some Japanese soldiers came and searched our house,” Saoi said. The Japanese made it clear that weapons and radios were banned. “Mom had already surrendered my dad’s pistol.” If anyone was caught with a gun, they would be tried and punished. The guilty would be killed.
During the occupation, the children weren’t harmed by the soldiers. Yet the kids feared the Japanese from the cruelty they witnessed. “Anyone suspected of being a Guerrilla fighter was taken away, never to be seen again. Soldiers slapped people, hit them in the face with the butt of their guns and mutilated Filipinos,” Saoi said.
The Bataan Death March is personal to Nick. Defenders of Bataan, 80,000 American and Filipino soldiers, surrendered on 9 April 1942. They were forced to endure the infamous Bataan Death March in which 8,000 Filipinos and 600 Americans died or were murdered. Of those thousands, Saoi’s brother-in-law was there and survived. When asked how, Onofre Mina said, “I put a container (tincture of iodine) in my socks. When I took a drink, I’d put a pinch into the water as it was not safe. The Japanese soldiers didn’t confiscate it from me.”
Mina also related to Saoi that while in the concentration camp, he (Mina) and three other able Filipinos, using bamboo poles and blankets, would daily carry the dead outside the camp for burial.
After the fall of Bataan many American and Filipino soldiers not captured went underground as Guerrilla fighters. They supplied intelligence to General McArthur’s headquarters in Australia.
The night of March 11, 1942, General Douglas MacArthur was ordered out of the Philippines. Before he left, he uttered the famous words, “I shall return.” He fulfilled those words on October 20, 1944, when he liberated the southern Philippine island of Leyte. Although Saoi didn’t know the Americans had landed, he did see many Japanese planes leave the air base in Luzon, in the morning. Only a few returned in the evening. “We knew something was happening.”
During the liberation of Luzon Island, Saoi witnessed American and Japanese planes having “dog fights,” in the sky, along with anti-aircraft gun firing at Japanese planes. Sometimes parachutes would float down. (The Japanese killed and raped more than 100,000 Filipino civilians, during the liberation of Manila.)
When the Americans liberated the Philippine island of Luzon, supplies of medicine and food flooded in. “The GI’s gave us kids a lot of candy,” he said. (Under the Japanese occupation they didn’t get much food.)
“During the liberations of Luzon, my brother and myself were walking on the highway to join my mother and two sisters already in a remote village out of town when suddenly a Japanese patrol truck with a machine gun start approaching us. We had just two options, to run to the rice fields on the side of the road or just keep walking towards the patrol. We decided to walk straight toward the patrol. When they recognized we were civilians, they did not fire. If we took cover in the rice fields, I would not be here today,” Saoi says.
After surviving the Japanese invasion, Saoi graduated from high school, then enrolled in medical school at the University of Santo Tomas, Manila, founded in 1611 by the Spaniards, older than Harvard. From there he traveled to America, the Twin Cities, to continue his medical study, specializing in Urology, under Urologist Doctor Fredereck Foley, inventor of the foley catheter. Foley pioneered several urological surgical procedures. In 1963, Saoi began his medical practice and was an Associate Professor at the Sanford School of Medicine, University of South Dakota until his retirement in 1998.
After retirement, Saoi went back to the Philippines to do medical missionary work.
His hobbies include gardening, especially raising orchids, traveling, carpentry, fixing anything in the house including electrical, plumbing, and servicing small engine repair.
Saoi’s motto is: “I’m like a car that doesn’t like to idle but keep moving.”
Of the Japanese, Nick says, “I’ve forgiven them, but I can’t forget the cruelty. Hate is just a wasted emotion. I’ve had many nightmares after the war.”
Randy Tramp
Amazon Review:
It's a military thriller with a heart. Commander Mark Steele has an exciting job in Special Forces. Though it's dangerous, he knows his work is critically important. But that job separates him from his wife and child. When an injury brings him home, his wife is glad to have him back. But other issues cause struggles within the family, leading to distrust and hurt. Steele takes dangerous risks in his new work. The thriller plot thickens, as he seeks to save a life. But can he save his family?
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