Valor Tours Ghost Soldiers of Bataan Day 2 University of Santo Tomas and Corregidor

DAY TWO

On day two we started at the University of Santo Tomas.   Maita of the UST museum staff gave us a tour, paying special attention to Katherine, whose father was a UST internee of the Japanese for about three years during WWII.

There were abundant reminders that Pope Francis had made an appearance at UST in January.

UST's main building is old but majestic.  The statues are post-war.

Katherine's most distinct memory was the gate where she could occasionally visit her father, an American citizen of German extraction.  She and her Filipina mother were never allowed inside the campus compound.

Before we could get on the Sun Cruises ferry we had to have our bags sniffed.

We reach Corregidor.  The annual ceremony honoring Filipino veterans explains the presence of the Philippine Navy vessels.

First stop, the Japanese Memorial Gardens.

Then onto Malinta Tunnel for the world-famous "Light and Sound Show."  John, 91, is the man in the wheelchair, used more as an excuse to get him to the front of the line.  His brother died in the Philippines in WWII, while John served in Europe.  More about the brother on another day.

No visit to Corregidor is complete without a stop at the MacArthur statue.

Some of you know Edit from the MacArthur Cafe.  You may not know Christie and Donna.

A couple of tranvia shots.

Some shots from Kindley Field.  The first shows low tide between the tip of the tail and Hooker Point, which we talked about last week.

Some porcelain from the house that General MacArthur used while he and his family lived on Corregidor.

Marcia somehow got this great peekaboo monkey shot.

Battery Way.

"1912" in the arch above the old Fort Mills Hospital, presumably the year that construction began.

Monkeys at an old trolley station on Topside.

A nice shot of the giant gun at Battery Hearn.

An Asian glossy starling on Topside Barracks.

The late afternoon sun nicely lit the front of the Fort Mills Post Headquarters.  Notice Marcia's shadow as she is taking the picture.

Battery Geary, which was destroyed days before the Japanese landing.  These photos show the two guns thrown right through a meter-thick concrete wall.

 

On Battery Crockett.

And finally, inside the "nurses lateral" in Malinta Tunnel.

Several more days to come.

Steve and Marcia on the Rock

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