Liberator and POW fast friends 75 years later

Other items in today’s column include:
*Political bytes
*Coming our way
*Recommended reading

By Donald H. Harrison

SAN DIEGO –The liberation of a prisoner-of-war camp in Manila, Philippines, in 1945 forged a bond many years later between a Jewish band leader and a Coronado civil servant.

Lou Berger, a drummer and leader of the “Berger Kings,” was playing a Saturday night gig at the Town & Country Hotel in San Diego about 15 years ago for an ex-prisoners of war organization when he was introduced to Tom Crosby, a longtime purchasing agent and risk manager for the City of Coronado, who also was known as a  successful volunteer springboard diving coach.

Between sets of 1940s-style big band music, the two men chatted about the rescue of 3,800 civilians who had been imprisoned by the Japanese occupiers at Manila’s historic Catholic University of Santo Tomas, which had been built in 1611 by the Spaniards.  Along with four other members of his family, Crosby had been imprisoned there since the end of 1941 when he was 8 years old.  He was just 11 when the tanks and foot soldiers of the 1^st Cavalry and 37^th Infantry Division smashed through Japanese lines to liberate the camp.  There was a very real fear that if the American forces had not intervened, the Japanese soldiers would have killed as many prisoners as possible to prevent them from testifying at a war crimes trial.

Berger, then 21, was a member of the 37^th Infantry Division.  Advancing behind tanks, he fought the Japanese at Manila’s big Rizal Memorial Stadium and at the outskirts of the university, but did not enter it.  His unit was ordered to advance on another position.

“We fought in a monastery, the post office, and even in the Manila Hotel,” Berger recalled.  “They were hiding in the building and we actually had to go into the building.”

Nevertheless, Crosby considers Berger and all the American GIs who fought in Manila that day to be his personal heroes.  “I’m alive today because they sacrificed so much, and gave their lives to save innocent civilians from their forced confinement during the war,” Crosby says.

When he arrived at the camp, Crosby and his younger brother were placed in a dormitory in the administration building – the same building where the enemy’s commandant and 65 Japanese soldiers also slept.  Crosby’s parents and grandmother were separated by gender into other barracks, but the family was permitted to create a daytime shelter behind the administration building.  During the early parts of the war, when the Japanese were winning, prisoners were served three meals a day of watery rice, called Lugao, which prisoners augmented with any vegetables they could grow.

There were roll calls every day, at which prisoners and guards—in Japanese fashion—would exchange bows.  The Crosby boys used to bow, accept the return bow, then bow again, forcing another return bow, then again and again, until they were reprimanded for failing to show proper respect.  Crosby remembers that adult prisoners also decided to play the game, much to the consternation of the Japanese guards.

Toward the end of the war, when the Japanese were losing, things became much worse at the camp.  Meal rations were cut from three times daily, to twice a day with portions being far more meager.  Crosby said his grandmother boiled leather shoes and belts to create a type of bullion to supplement the diet.  The boys also rooted through garbage for remains from the guards’ meals, his grandmother also boiled. Roll calls were increased so that prisoners had to stand at attention in the hot sun for hours.  Crosby became so weak, he was unable to perform his job of carrying buckets of water up to the third floor of the administration building.  On the day he was liberated, he weighed just 48 pounds, and his younger brother weighed less.

On the day the American troops arrived, the Crosby brothers were among approximately 250 boys held hostage by the Japanese in the administration building.  There were tense negotiations between the Japanese camp guards and the American army, eventually ending with the Americans giving the Japanese permission to pass through their lines to join the rest of the Japanese army in return for sparing the lives of the hostages.

A few days later, the Japanese counter-attacked, shelling the camp for four days, causing many casualties before American forces could chase the Japanese far from the camp.

Today in his 90s, Berger gets together with Crosby regularly on social occasions and also at events honoring military veterans and ex-prisoners of war.

Although they didn’t meet back then, “we were breathing the same air,” Berger said.

After they met, “he thought it was appropriate that since I was a liberator that I speak at meetings and attend the events of the ex-POWs,” Berger recalled.  “As the years went on and on, I got more involved with them – interviews and so forth – and we got very friendly. He and his friend Carol were up here (at the Ocean Hills assisted living facility) in Oceanside just the other day.”

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Political bytes

In the 53rd Congressional District, San Diego City Council President Georgette Gomez’s campaign strategist Dan Rottenstreich accuses rival candidate Sara Jacobs of having her grandparents, Qualcomm co-founder Irwin Jacobs and Joan Jacobs pour $1.5 million into Forward California, an independent political action committee that is friendly to her candidacy. He also criticized a Jacobs’ campaign ad that drew a contrast between Jacobs’ position and Republican Chris Stoddard’s pro-Trump positions.  According to Rottenstreich it’s all a plot to boost Stoddard’s name ID  over that of Gomez, who he said would be a tougher general election opponent than Stoddard for Jacobs.  Will Rodriguez-Kennedy, chair of the San Diego Democratic party, takes the Gomez campaign’s side, saying. “This latest underhanded move by Sara Jacobs is the kind of deception you’d expect from Donald Trump and the Republicans.”

*Meanwhile, The Voice of San Diego, reports that Georgette Gomez and the San Diego County Democratic Party have taken opposite stands on countywide Measure A, which would require a countywide vote on land use proposals that would exceed by five structures that which is permissible under the county’s General Plan.  Gomez said the measure is necessary to rein in sprawling growth, whereas the Democratic party opposes it, with some members arguing that its effect is to keep white neighborhoods segregated.

*Run Women Run, an organization created to encourage women to run for office, has endorsed the following Jewish candidates: Sara Jacobs in the 53^rd Congressional District;  Kate Schwartz in the 75^th Assembly District; Sarah Davis in the 77^th Assembly District; Barbara Bry for mayor of San Diego, and Roberta Winston for Judge of the Superior Court.

*In the 50^th Congressional District race, a poll by the Remington Research Survey indicates that Ammar Campa-Najar, a Democrat, is leading the field with 44 percent; followed by the Republican candidates, Carl DeMaio with 22 percent, Darrell Issa with 17 percent, Brian Jones with 13 percent, and 3 percent undecided.  The poll was released by the campaign of DeMaio, whose campaign spokesman Dave McCulloch said the poll indicates that DeMaio’s “base of support is firm and energized while Darrell Issa’s support is plummeting.”   As we see it, the DeMaio and Issa camps have been running very negative commercials about each other, putting into prospect enough Republican defections to put Campa-Najjar over the top in November.

*Chris Jennewein, editor of Times of San Diego, says if you add up all the people who have voted so far in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada, it comes out to no more than the population of three San Diego County cities: Oceanside, Chula Vista, and El Cajon.  “This isn’t to argue whether [Bernie] Sanders is the right candidate or the wrong one, but we shouldn’t be unduly influenced by a tiny minority — and a not very diverse one at that — in choosing our presidential candidates,” he writes.

*State Sen Ben Hueso has scheduled an informal coffee get-together with constituents at 5:30 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 27, at Babycakes Imperial Beach, 874 Seacoast Drive, Imperial Beach.

*
Coming our way
*Rabbi Ralph Dalin, the San Diego community chaplain, will discuss his role in the community as well as the Mercaz slate in the upcoming election for delegates to the World Zionist Congress, at a membership dinner of the Tifereth Israel Synagogue Men’s Club, beginning at 6 p.m., Sunday, March 1.
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East County Dining
A pair of East County restaurant recommendations for those who prefer pareve meals and for those who don’t:  The California Fish Grill in El Cajon has a nice variety of grilled fish plates, moderately priced.  It is at the corner of Fletcher Parkway and Magnolia.  Farther east, in the Viejas Casino, the Grove is an expensive, but excellent, steak house.
*
Recommended reading

Mark Mletkiewicz of Canadian Jewish News has a tribute to the late Israeli singer Ofra Haza on Jewish Websight.

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Donald H. Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World.  He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com.