Gladys Becker Slaughter, Madame Savary (2 Jun 1893-14 Sep 1985), was an American woman of Manila who labored long and hard to help the starving, neglected, abused, and threatened "internees" at
Santo Tomas Internment Camp, supplying them with food every day and performing various other services, such as laundry, communication and monetary assistance, to help ease their hardship. At the same time, she also worked hard to help her servants and friends outside of Santo Tomas
[including Mary M. Leadbetter Berry (1885-1953), wife of STIC internee Fred N. Berry. Gladys Savary had petitioned the Japanese to allow Mary to stay outside STIC.] survive the
Japanese occupation of the Philippines
The Japanese occupation of the Philippines (Filipino: ''Pananakop ng mga Japones sa Filipinas''; ja, 日本のフィリピン占領, Nihon no Firipin Senryō) occurred between 1942 and 1945, when Imperial Japan occupied the Commonwealth of the ...
and the
1945 Battle of Manila. Gladys was not incarcerated by the Japanese because, being married to a Frenchman, she was regarded as a citizen of France which by that time had a puppet government aligned with Japan's ally Germany. Gladys also sent help to a POW camp. Several of her activities could have resulted in torture and execution had she been caught. She maintained a diary throughout the Japanese occupation, and made this the basis of her book
Outside the Walls'.
Living in
Pasay
Pasay, officially the City of Pasay ( fil, Lungsod ng Pasay; ), is a 1st class Cities of the Philippines#Legal classification, highly urbanized city in the Metro Manila, National Capital Region of the Philippines. According to the 2020 census, i ...
, Gladys escaped – barely and unknowingly at the time – the massive, systematic
massacre
A massacre is the killing of a large number of people or animals, especially those who are not involved in any fighting or have no way of defending themselves. A massacre is generally considered to be morally unacceptable, especially when per ...
of non-Japanese men, women, and children conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy
31st Special Base Force (marines), as well as deaths caused by U.S. artillery during the Battle of Manila, especially in
Ermita and
Malate, just next to Pasay. The estimated toll is around 100,000 killed. Even Germans and French were not spared.
The exploits of Gladys Savary,
Yay Panlilio,
Claire Phillips,
Margaret Utinsky, and
Naomi Flores
Naomi Flores (1921-2013) (code name Looter) was active in the resistance to the Japanese occupation of the Philippines in World War II. Flores was a member of the "Miss U Spy Ring." Working clandestinely and at great risk to herself, she delivered ...
are recounted in ''Angels of the Underground'' by Theresa Kaminski.
Notes
Bibliography
Kaminski, Theresa 2016,
Angels of the Underground the American women who resisted the Japanese in the Philippines in World War II'', New York:
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
, 2016.
* Kaminski, Theresa, 2000,
Prisoners in Paradise American women in the wartime South Pacific'',
Lawrence, Kansas
Lawrence is the county seat of Douglas County, Kansas, Douglas County, Kansas, United States, and the sixth-largest city in the state. It is in the northeastern sector of the state, astride Interstate 70, between the Kansas River, Kansas and Waka ...
:
University Press of Kansas. {{ISBN, 0-7006-1003-0
* Savary, Gladys, "I Go Now" in ''
Manila Daily Bulletin'', March 17, 1949.
* Savary, Gladys, 1954,
Outside the Walls', New York:
Vantage Press
Vantage Press was a self-publishing company based in the United States. The company was founded in 1949 and ceased operations in late 2012.
Vantage was the largest vanity press in the United States. By 1956, they were publishing hundreds of title ...
.
American expatriates in the Philippines
People of American colonial Philippines