MARGARET UTINSKY PEERED out the window of her second-floor apartment. On the street below, Japanese officers questioned everyone who passed by. They were rounding up “enemy aliens”: British and American citizens. Margaret had no intention of being among them. She could afford to wait a long time; her apartment was stocked with food and medical supplies provided by personnel working at the US military bases in Manila who had been anxious to prevent their supplies from assisting the invading enemy.
Margaret, a Red Cross nurse by day and the operator of a servicemen’s canteen by night, had taken taxi-loads of those supplies, hoping to open her canteen again when the fighting was over. She wanted to be of help, especially to her husband, Jack, a civil engineer with the US military in Manila who had urged Margaret to evacuate with the other military wives when the Japanese first attacked. Margaret had refused. Later, when Manila was declared an open city and Jack was ordered to pull back to the Bataan Peninsula with the rest of the military, Margaret refused his urgent suggestion to stay at the local hotel with the other American and British civilians; she assumed—correctly—that the Japanese would round them up and force them into an internment camp. And Margaret didn’t see how she could be of any use to Jack in an internment camp.
Margaret Utinsky. Miss U by Margaret Utinsky (Naylor, 1948)
After the Japanese searched through the first floor of the apartment building and found all the apartments vacated, they didn’t bother checking the second floor. So Margaret remained hidden there for 10 weeks, watching and waiting in near silence while quietly listening to the official radio station of the USAFFE (the United States Army Forces in the Far East), called The Voice of Freedom, airing from the Malinta Tunnel on the island of Corregidor. The broadcasts were at first upbeat and confident: the United States would certainly send help to rescue the outnumbered American and Filipino men fighting on Bataan.
But as time went on and no help came, the optimism of the broadcasts sounded forced and empty. One day in May, Margaret heard the last transmission: “The men of Corregidor have fought a gallant fight…. They fought on and on, expecting the help which never came. Now they must surrender, leaving their dead.”
Margaret was determined to find Jack. But she first needed a new identity that would enable her to avoid arrest. Since the name Utinsky was Lithuanian, Margaret decided to become Rosena Utinsky, a citizen of Lithuania who couldn’t speak the language because she had been orphaned and raised by a Canadian aunt.
Then she joined a small team of Red Cross Filipino doctors and nurses traveling to war-torn Bataan in order to create emergency clinics for Filipino civilians desperately in need of medical attention. The war had caused shortages of food and medicine, and Bataan was now raging with epidemics of malaria and dysentery.
The Bataan civilians who visited the clinic had a shocking tale: after the surrender of the Americans and Filipinos at Bataan, Japanese soldiers had forced the emaciated soldiers along the road. If Filipino civilians, watching by the side of the road, were caught offering them food or water, they were killed. Many prisoners collapsed. When they did, the Japanese soldiers would bayonet or shoot them or leave them where they were to be run over by oncoming trucks. Sometimes the Japanese would deliberately stop the march in front of a natural water spring by the side of the road and then shoot any desperately thirsty man who tried to steal a drink. One witness told Margaret they’d seen a group of men being pushed into a latrine; their comrades had been forced to bury them alive.
The most infamous war crime to befall US servicemen during World War II wasn’t preplanned. The Japanese had estimated transportation needs for approximately 25,000 prisoners. When they were faced with more than 70,000, the prisoners were marched instead. Approximately 60,000 Filipinos and 10,000 Americans, who had together defended Bataan on half rations for four months, were now forced to walk 65 miles in the hot sun with little food, water, or rest. The increasing cruelty exhibited by the Japanese guards toward the exhausted men along the way was the result of (1) the brutality they had each experienced during their military training and (2) their deep lack of respect for anyone who chose surrender over death. Approximately 700 Americans and 10,000 Filipinos died during what the survivors would always grimly refer to as “the hike.” Sixteen thousand more desperately weakened Filipinos and Americans would die during their first week at their destination, Camp O’Donnell.
As Margaret worked with the Red Cross team, she became obsessed with a single thought: “I knew that I could not stop,” she wrote later, “until I had given every ounce of my strength to help the men who still lived. After what [they] had endured, nothing seemed too hard or too dangerous.” And she felt certain that Jack was among the survivors.
On a second Red Cross trip to the area, Margaret applied for the position of field nurse, someone who would visit local civilians in their homes. Traveling from place to place would enable her, she hoped, to gain information about the American prisoners.
She discovered that the Japanese granted the prisoners one privilege: every few days they were allowed to leave the camp and forage for themselves. The guards didn’t think they would try to escape: they were too starved to get very far.
One day, on her way to one of the Red Cross tents, Margaret met two gaunt American officers. She fed them and quietly filled their pockets with drugs and food from the Red Cross’s supplies. She had to be careful: the Japanese did not allow the Filipino Red Cross to help Americans.
Then she asked them to provide her with two lists: the names of American prisoners who had died in the death march and those who still lived. A few days later, three US soldiers came to the clinic and handed Margaret the lists. Jack’s name wasn’t on either one. They didn’t know where he was. They also told her that they were being sent to a place called Camp O’Donnell, where the death march survivors were imprisoned.
Margaret kept in contact with the men and finally learned that Jack had been in the Bilibid prison in Manila for a few days. No one knew where he was now. But he was alive, Margaret was sure of that.
How could she help him? Margaret received her answer to that question in the form of a letter from a Filipino Red Cross doctor, Dr. Romeo Y. Atienza, with whom she had worked during one of her relief expeditions on Bataan. The Japanese were allowing him to visit the Filipino prisoners inside Camp O’Donnell. While forbidden to help the Americans, he did observe them. They were clearly starving to death. The Japanese were making a show of allowing them to survive: they paid them a small amount of money in exchange for working in the prison garden, tending crops that provided food only for the Japanese guards. However, the wages couldn’t purchase nearly enough food to keep the prisoners healthy. And if the starving men didn’t work, they received no pay.
Dr. Atenzia had an idea. The Japanese, in a show of racial unity, were releasing Filipino soldiers, who had fought with the Americans, in stages from Camp O’Donnell. Filipino men too weak to leave on foot were transported out in a truck or ambulance. The vehicles were always searched carefully on their way out—but never on the way back in. If Margaret could get supplies to Dr. Atenzia, he could smuggle them into the camp inside the returning ambulances and secretly distribute them to the Americans.
Margaret took the supplies stashed in her Manila apartment, loaded them into bags, bundles, and a trunk, and transported them via multiple train rides. She told curious fellow travelers each time that they were for newly released Filipino prisoners.
At Dr. Atienza’s suggestion, Margaret sent a note in with the first “shipment” of supplies, requesting a receipt to make sure the Americans received them. She signed the note “Miss U.” The same day, she received a receipt. The men had received the supplies! And those involved in smuggling these supplies to the Americans in the camp—a number that was constantly growing—were given a new name: the Miss U Network.
Margaret wondered if Jack was receiving any of these supplies. She hadn’t heard anything from or about him yet. But she was willing to do anything just in case her actions might be helping him. “Risks did not seem too dangerous,” she wrote later, “when I thought of him inside those fences.”
In December, Margaret heard that the surviving men were being moved to a new prison complex, consisting of three camps, located near Cabanatuan City. By way of two Filipino contacts in the Miss U Network, Margaret started communicating with an American officer in the prison named Colonel Mack. She sent him a note, asking if he knew anything about the fate of a Jack Utinsky. A note came back:
Dear Miss U:
You have many friends in this place…. I am deeply sorry that I have to tell you what I found out. Your husband died here on August 6, 1942. He is buried here in the prison graveyard….
You will be told that he died of tuberculosis. That is not true. The men say that he actually died of starvation. A little more food and medicine, which they would not give him here, might have saved him.
This is terrible news for you, who have, with your unselfish work, been able to save so many others. All of us will always owe you a debt that we can never pay for what you have done.
I do want to say to you that this place is far more dangerous for your work than Camp O’Donnell was. Do not take risks that you took there. If you never do another thing you already have done more than any living person to help our men. My sympathy goes out to you in your grief. God bless you in all you do.
Sincerely yours, Edward Mack,
Lt. Colonel, U.S. Army
Jack had starved to death. Margaret blamed herself. “If he could have received just a little of the food I had given to others,” she wrote later, “he might be alive. If I had found him four months sooner, he might be alive.”
She became overwhelmed with grief. While she remained involved in the Miss U Network, its leadership gradually shifted to others: Claire Phillips, an American resister (chapter 8), and Ramon Amusategui, a Spanish businessman. Their operation ran smoothly, in part because there were so many resisters involved. But the sheer numbers were what made the work so dangerous for all of them.
Margaret knew she would soon come under suspicion; it was only a matter of time. One day she was visited by someone claiming to be a Filipino guerrilla who needed her help. He showed her the latest edition of an American magazine as proof he was working with the Americans. Then he promised to provide her with money to help the guerrillas. The man’s odd presentation and Margaret’s sharp intuition made her realize this was a trap.
She told him she didn’t need any money.
After he was gone, she found a gun under her typewriter. The visitor must have placed it there. She quickly disposed of it. But she knew what was coming next.
Her phone rang at midnight. When she answered it, the caller hung up. Someone was checking to see if she was still there. Then, at 4:00 am, 50 Japanese soldiers and officers pounded on the door of her apartment, demanding entry. One of them walked directly to the typewriter and looked under it.
“Where is your gun?” he asked, clearly surprised.
While her apartment was ransacked, Margaret was questioned for hours. Her interrogator was especially interested in her many trips to the prison camps. Before they finally left, they ordered Margaret to stay in Manila. This wasn’t over.
A short time later, Margaret was visiting Claire Phillips, who had been hospitalized for a serious infection. Suddenly, a nurse shouted from the hallway, pointing to Margaret, “There are four Japanese soldiers asking for you!” Claire grabbed some incriminating letters from Margaret and stuffed them into her bandages before the soldiers barged in and searched the room. They pointed their bayonets at Margaret. “You will come,” they demanded.
She was brought to Fort Santiago, where she was interrogated and tortured for two weeks, before being released and ordered to stay in Manila.
Afraid she might talk if interrogated a second time, Margaret left Manila as soon as possible, fleeing to the mountains to join the guerrillas. As they moved from place to place, always one step ahead of the Japanese, Margaret nursed them as best she could with the supplies at her disposal.
When the American military finally returned to the Philippines, Margaret handed them the POW lists she had collected. These lists helped the military account for the many Americans who had died while imprisoned by the Japanese.
In 1946, Margaret was awarded the Medal of Freedom. She wrote her memoirs in 1948. She died in California in 1970 at the age of 70.
LEARN MORE
Angels of the Underground: The American Women who Resisted the Japanese in the Philippines in World War II by Theresa Kaminski (New York: Oxford, 2016).
Miss U: Angel of the Underground by Margaret Utinsky (Naylor, 1948; e-book, Uncommon Valor, 2014).
POW Angel on Call: The True Story of an American Guerrilla Nurse in the Philippines During WWII by Nancy Polette. A young adult version of Miss U (Blessinks, 2013).
