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DELILAH B. ENDICOTT (January 18, 1911 – July 1979)

            In 1987, a move called “Empire of the Sun” came out concerning the coming of age of a young boy living with many other civilians as prisoners in a WWII Japanese internment camp.  Well, it turns out that an Endicott woman, Delilah Endicott, lived through something quite similar.  A friend of Delilah’s, Emily Van Sickle (1911- 2005), who lived through the experience with her, chronicled it in a 1992 book called “Iron Gates of Santo Tomas” which mentions Delilah several times.

 

Overview

            

            After the Japanese captured Manila on January 2, 1942, they used the main campus of Santo Tomas University to hold some civilian prisoners, and used classrooms for sleeping quarters from January 4, 1942 - February 3, 1945.  But many others had to live in separate shacks that were built later by those with enough money to construct them.  Internees could only use them in the daytime, though.   Also, two sides had to be open to prevent intimacy.

 

            In total there were 4,852 prisoners: 3,792 Americans, 733 British, 200 Australians, 61 Canadians, 51 Dutch, 8 French, 1 Swiss, 2 Egyptians, 2 Spanish, 1 German, 1 Slovak.  Santo Tomas University served as an internment camp for 37 months, and 466 died in captivity. Many internees, like missionaries, came in later.  Three internees attempted to escape on February 15, 1942 and were shot.  One successfully escaped in January 1945. 

 

            In the final year of imprisonment food rations dropped below 700 calories a day.  Weight loss was severe.  Most males lost nearly 60 pounds, some over 100 pounds.  Women fared only slightly better.  Deaths from malnutrition-related diseases and from actual starvation were occurring almost every day in the final months before liberation of the camp.

 

            On February 3, the university was liberated by the U.S. Army’s 1st Cavalry Division (8th Regiment, 1st Brigade).  They were backed by five tanks from the 44th Tank Battalion and were assisted by Filipino guerrillas.

 

            The tanks entered through the gate at Calle Espana after a brief skirmish and freed most the internees as soon as the troops entered the campus.  But the Japanese, commanded by Lt. Col. Toshio Hayashi, gathered the remaining internees, men and teenaged boys inhabiting the second and third floors of the Education building together in the Education Building as hostages, and exchanged shots with the Americans. 

 

            On February 4th, the Japanese negotiated with the Americans to allow them to rejoin Japanese troops to the south of the city.  The Americans allowed this to save the hostages, allowing the Japanese to carry only their rifles, pistols and swords. 

            

            On the morning of February 5, 47 Japanese were escorted out of the university to the spot they requested.  Each group saluted the other and departed.  

 

The Japanese were unaware that the area they requested was near the American-occupied Malacanang, and soon afterwards the Japanese were fired upon and several killed including Hayashi.   Later in the afternoon, some of the same Japanese were returned to Santo Tomas, now as prisoners of war themselves. 

 

Delilah’s story

 

            Delilah Endicott was born in Myrtle Point, Oregon.  She was the daughter of Solomon C. Endicott (1883-1947) and Audrey Bridges (1889–1947) of Eugene, Oregon and had a sister named Dorothy Belle Endicott who married into the very wealthy Spreckels family.  Delilah’s father was a dentist in Eugene for 26 years. 

 

            Her grandfather, Solomon Samuel Endicott (1848 -1933) was born in Indiana and served with Company F of the Missouri Volunteers during the Civil War (see his entry in Civil War section).  He was a Coos County pioneer and owned several ranches in Coos County. His wife, Delilah’s grandmother, was also named Delilah (as was Delilah’s sister’s daughter, Delilah’s niece). 

 

            Here is Delilah’s descent from Governor John Endecott:

 

*   Governor John

·       Zerbubbabel

·       Joseph

·       Joseph

·       Thomas 

·       Moses

·       James

·       Jacob

·       Solomon Samuel 

·       Solomon C. 

·       Delilah

 

 

Delilah graduated in the class of 1932 from the University of Oregon, in Eugene, Oregon, where she majored in history and English.  Ancestry.com records show her as residing in Eugene at 531 East Broadway in 1930 and 1931.     

 

Then, the August 31, 1932 issue of The Eugene Guard, a Eugene, Oregon newspaper, reported that she would be the assistant teacher at the Thurston High School, teaching history and English. 

 

She must have done pretty well at that because on September 15, 1935, The Guard said that she had been named principle of the school. 

 

But the next year we have a story in The Guard for August 1936 saying that she had resigned from the Thurston school and was doing a “tour of the Orient”–– Hawaii, Japan, and China––before taking a teaching job at the University of the Philippines.

 

The May 15, 1937 Capital Journal of Salem, Oregon stated that Delilah had traveled from Manila to London, England on April 4 “to attend coronation events” of King George VI that were in May of that year, and then was planning to tour England, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, France before returning to India and from there going back to the Philippines.  The story said that she was now a professor of English at the University of the Philippines, but was taking a year’s leave of absence. 

 

The January 27, 1938 issue of The World, the Coos Bay newspaper, reported that she was teaching in the Philippines and had received “the first Christmas tree ever shipped aboard a China clipper” sent by her sister from Oregon. 

 

Then on April 12, 1939, records show her traveling again, to visit her parents in Eugene.  U.S. Immigration documents show she left Kobe on March 29 aboard M.S. Maru, arrived at Yokohama, and departed Yokohama on April 1, arriving in Vancouver, British Columbia on April 12.  

 

            After that she must have gone back to the Philippines because there is a Guard story of April 22, 1939, describing Delilah’s teaching duties as teaching English to students from various countries.  Among her students, it says, was a daughter of the king of Siam.  Only in the English department at the school were there any American teachers: the wives of three Army officers, two American women who married Filipinos, and one other American woman besides Delilah, seven in all.

 

            The Guard story says the school was considered to be the best of its kind in the Orient, being quite similar to an American college. 

 

Interned

 

Just a few days after Pearl Harbor, on January 3, 1942, Delilah was interned at the Santo Tomas prison camp in Manila, Philippines for the rest of the war.  

Delilah’s University of Oregon Alumni magazine of November 7, 1942 is the first report we have about her capture: 

 

Miss Delilah B. Endicott ’32 is now in a Japanese concentration camp in Manila.  This is the first news of Miss Endicott, who was an English instructor in the University of the Philippines for several years prior to the Japanese invasion.  The good news was sent by Mrs. Elizalde, wife of the representative of the Philippine commonwealth’s government in Washington, who was a former acquaintance of Miss Endicott.  She stated that friends of hers who had just arrived on the Gripsholm had seen Miss Endicott in the concentration camp and reported her to be in good health.

 

Word of capture comes from Red Cross

 

            The March 9, 1943 edition of The Guard reported that Delilah’s parents had just received word from her.  An airmail letter from Washington, D.C. was received by the Red Cross it said, “containing the following March 3 cable message sent via the Japanese Red Cross: 

 

            ‘Safe–well–– anxious about your welfare. Reply.  Love Delilah” ‘

 

            But Delilah obviously did not stay in good health because there is an online statement by someone who knew her saying: “She barely survived.  She scratched out a small patch and made a vegetable garden.  She was so malnourished that she lost all of her teeth.” 

 

On February 20, 1944, there was a Guard story about a Ray Cronin, a former Associated Press manger, who had been held temporarily by the Japanese in Manila before being let go. He had actually seen Delilah in the Santo Tomas internment camp and said that she was teaching in the camp’s school, and teaching students of all ages, from kindergarten to college and that he himself had taken a journalism course there. 

 

 

Delilah was freed on February 3, 1945, three years, one month to the day after she was captured and on May 2, 1945 she arrived in San Pedro, California from Manila aboard the S.S. John Lykes, a C-1 class cargo ship.  

 

Eugene Guard account of her imprisonment

 

            On May 13, 1945 The Eugene Guard published a long story about what life had been like for Delilah in the Japanese camp.  It said the following: 

 

How they were housed

 

            They were housed in shanties, which were 8 x 10 ½ feet, built to house 4 persons.  They had no furniture except what the prisoners could make.  But finding something to make fires for cooking was a problem, so the prisoners ended up burning the wood from the shanties.  “By the time the American troops arrived, I had started on the walls of the shanty where I lived,” Delilah said. 

 

Waking to music

 

            Each morning the prisoners were aroused at 6 am by music played by one of the internees.  Through this music the other internees were able to pick up clues about the approach of the Americans and other happenings.

 

            For example, “I’m Watching the Waterfront” was played just after the American forces had landed at Leyte on October 20, 1944.  “Pennies from Heaven” sounded after the Americans had bombed Japan itself.  “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf” played the day after a big cut in the supply of rice to the camp. “The Wicked Wolf is Dead” came following the execution as a war criminal of Japanese general Homma, who had perpetrated the Bataan Death March.  

 

Daily schedule

 

            Delilah’s daily routine consisted of working in her tiny garden, peeling vegetables, working in the isolation hospital, teaching classes, giving lectures, and other things.

 

Food a constant problem

 

            Calories averaged about 610 daily and went even lower toward the end of imprisonment.  By the end when the American troops arrived, the rice ration had been cut to 60 grams a day–– for two people.  That was about one inch of raw rice in a glass for three meals a day for two people. 

 

            “The greatest hardship,” Delilah said, “came with the Japanese cutting out all sugar and limiting salt and of course we had no fresh fruits.”

 

The prisoners supplemented this with a few vegetables they could grow around the shanties they lived in.  These gardens were 5 by 7 feet and were cultivated with whatever came in handy, such as Delilah’s spoon–– the same one she ate all her food with.

 

            Another source of food was stealing bits of the feed put out for Japanese horses, a mixture of coconut meal, corn meal, and some rice, all mixed up in a wet mash. Yet another source was rotten food thrown out by the Japanese that was cooked to make it safe to eat.

 

            Delilah said she would never forget the cries from the hungry children.

 

Deaths mounted

 

            During the last eight months in the camp, the death rate at Santo Tomas mounted with at least 10 people dying a day from starvation and 95% of the prisoners had beriberi. Lice and bedbugs were a big problem, too.  Delilah said the first bath she had since January of 1942 was in 1945. 

 

Clothing scarce

 

            As dresses wore out, the women made the pieces into shorts, and they made pieces of worn out sheets into shorts.  They also ripped up knitted garments, making socks and underwear out of them.

 

            “There were some very weird outfits I can assure you,” Delilah explained, “and shoes practically disappeared.  Most of the internees went barefoot all of the time. 

 

Strictly guarded

 

            The Japanese had machine guns trained on the internees to use in the case of an uprising or other infractions. And they had placed dynamite in strategic places to ignite if need be.

 

Filipinos extremely supportive

 

            Delilah described the Filipino internees this way: “The Filipinos knew the Americans would be back.  They never lost faith for a minute.  They would tell us the Americans would be back next week.  When the next came, they would cheer us on and say the Yanks would be there next week. The people risked their lives at times to do everything they could for us.”  

 

            She told of a Filipino mother of nine sons, eight of whom were killed and the ninth who lost both legs in a Japanese prison camp.  “The mother told me: ‘If I had 24 sons I would give them all to help America.’ "

 

Being freed

 

Delilah was freed from Santo Tomas on February 6, 1945.  The February 25 edition of The Guard reported that “lots of water and tons of food as only my dear mother can cook it!” were what Delilah asked for when she wrote her parents after having been freed.  Of the US soldiers who freed her she said: “I never thought a uniform could look so good as that worn by the first soldier that I saw.”

 

She added: 

 

The Army food will have me fat and healthy when you see me…The Army is lending us clothing to wear and I can’t tell you the joy of being free again!  We are still under fire, but have a good air-raid shelter.  Soon I shall be telling you all about it myself.

 

Home after the war

 

            When she first got back to the United States, it was doctor’s orders that she not have a lot of company for a while in order to give her time to get over the shock and strain of her ordeal. Just before American troops freed her, she was down to 75 pounds, having lost 63 pounds.  Once back home, by May 13, she was up to 110 pounds.   

 

            Not surprisingly, she concentrated on blocking out the horrors and privations she had seen, and tried to remember only the spirit that had kept her and the other internees alive. 

 

Got married

 

            An October edition of The Guard says that Delilah got married to George Kallman (1883 – 1968) in Montevideo, Uruguay when she flew there in October, 1945.  The two had met in the Santo Tomas concentration camp.  George, who resided in South America, had gone to Manila as a foreign representative of RKO Radio Pictures.  After he was freed, he returned to New York but was then assigned to Buenos Aires to be RKO’s manager there. 

 

Then in November, Delilah wrote her parents that she was enjoying being in Buenos Aires, Argentina (126 miles as the crow flies across the La Plata river from Montevideo) and that they were little affected so far by the revolution there! (This must mean when Juan Peron was temporarily ousted from power in a military coup but was reinstated by a workers’ revolt and he then married Evita “Don’t cry for me, Argentina” Duarte.) 

 

            Born in New York, George was a veteran of WWI and a motion picture distributor for 50 years before his retirement.  His obituary says he came to California from Peru where he and Delilah had been living, nine years before his death, or in 1958. They had no children.

 

Father shoots himself

 

            The January 15, 1947 edition of The Guard reported some really awful news: Delilah’s father, Dr. Solomon C. Endicott, 63, had shot himself because of despair over his wife’s death just days earlier.  The account says Delilah was living in Buenos Aires then.  A May 22 edition of Guard reported that the estate of Dr. Endicott consisted of $48,994.30 in cash and bonds, which would be about $571,763 in 2020, plus “sports equipment” that he willed to his daughters.

 

Returns to Oregon

 

            On January 5, 1954, there was a Coos Bay World newspaper account of Delilah returning to Eugene in Coos Bay to visit her sister and other friends and relatives.  The story says she was then residing in Panama and it was the first time in about 20 years that she had been in the area.

 

Puerto Rico

 

            The June 16, 1957 issue of The Guard reported that Delilah’s sister along with two daughters, one also named Delilah, had been staying with Delilah and her husband in Lima, Peru for almost two years studying Spanish, but were now returning home. The account says Delilah and George had recently moved to Puerto Rico.

            

Another trip to Eugene

 

            A December 14, 1958 account in The Guard says that Delilah and George visited Eugene because George had now retired and the couple was going to be living in Vista, California permanently.