Caroline Bailey Pratt was born in June 1932 in Manila, the Philippines. Her father worked for the National Bank and moved his family all over the world. Pratt was an only child and was raised by an “ama” [Annotator’s Note: presumably a nanny]. She attended kindergarten at an American school. Her living situation was very comfortable. As the threat of Japanese tensions began to rise, her father began stocking food and supplies. Her mother attended classes that taught her how to store food, especially in clay pots. Pratt’s family also volunteered in the war efforts to help the British, gathering or making items to send in care packages. The Philippines was overall a beautiful country and she lived in a house that had a garage on the bottom with servants’ quarters. The main living quarters were above with open areas for the breeze to move through the house. She attended school in the mornings and then had Brownies [Annotator’s Note: Girl Scouts, a youth organization for girls], ballet, or piano in the afternoons. Pratt was in fourth grade and attending class when parents began showing up to pick up their children. She was surprised when her mother showed up and took her out of school. Her mother then told her that the United States was at war with Japan. Her mother told her about Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. Her father’s bank manager told all the employees to head to Calamba [Annotator’s Note: Calamba, the Philippines]. Pratt’s family stayed with some friends that owned a sugar plantation. The property had a club house, a small golf course, a bowling alley, and other recreational activities. Eventually, Pratt and her family moved into the club house. As Christmas came near, she heard that the Japanese bombed the sugar factories. Many of the women were trying to reach Manila to learn the status of their husbands. Her father took the family back to Manila and had an air raid shelter built. The Japanese came to Manila in January [Annotator’s Note: of 1942]. Two families, the Hamiltons and the Marsh’s, moved in with Pratt and her family. Pratt’s father was familiar with the Japanese reputation, so he buried many items so the Japanese would not find them.

[Annotator’s Note: Interviewee taps on a cup throughout the segment.] Caroline Bailey Pratt and her family were living in Manila, the Philippines when the Japanese invaded the city on 2 January 1942. On 6 January, they arrived at her family’s home. Two Japanese officers and an interpreter told her family to pack for three days and gather food. They were taken to a large athletic stadium where they registered. Pratt and her family then boarded a bus and were taken to Santo Thomas Internment Camp [Annotator’s Note: Santo Thomas University in Manila, the Philippines, also known as the Manila Internment Camp]. The women and children were separated from the men into different rooms. They had no bedding until a few days later when some of their servants were able to bring them a king size mattress to share with their friends. The whole room was covered with mattresses and mosquito netting. Being only nine years old, Pratt was confused about her surroundings, but she was still able to play with children her age. After a month, the adults organized school and athletic programs for the children. They also found things to do for fun, like climb trees, dig for treasure, and play marbles with balls of cement. At the beginning of their internment, Pratt’s family servants made and sent them meals, but after two years that stopped. They ate food from the camp kitchen. The camp went through three states while she was interred there. At the beginning, the Japanese did absolutely nothing, and the prisoners were dependent on the people outside for food and supplies, especially through the Red Cross [Annotator's Note: Red Cross, an international non-profit humanitarian organization]. Pratt’s father was the treasurer of the Red Cross in the Philippines. Then in late April, the Japanese made the Red Cross illegal, so her father and the other directors had to work undercover. They raised money so they could buy food for the people in the interment camp. Having been in banking before, her father became charge of dispersing the money.

[Annotator’s Note: Interviewee taps a cup throughout the segment.] Caroline Bailey Pratt and her family were interned at the Santo Thomas Internment Camp [Annotator’s Note: Santo Thomas University in Manila, Philippines, also known as the Manila Internment Camp] after the Japanese invaded the Philippines in January 1942. As the war went on, the Japanese stopped the civilian authority in the camp and took over the control of the camp. They also managed the dispersal of food, which worsened the conditions for the prisoners in the camp. People in camp began to starve due to the lack of quantity and quality of the food. The prisoners received only two meals a day. Before Pratt’s family were interned, her father was a banker. When one of the bankers moved to the Los Banos camp [Annotator’s Note: Los Banos Internment Camp near Luzon, the Philippines], Pratt’s family inherited the shanty [Annotator’s Note: a hut made of of bamboo and palm fronds]. In the beginning, the Japanese only allowed people to be in their shanties during the day, but as the camp became crowded, they allowed families to sleep there. Pratt often avoided the Japanese guards because she was afraid of them and did not like them. The Japanese made the prisoners do roll call twice a day. Once, the prisoners spent four hours in roll call because the Japanese miscounted. Every morning, Pratt woke up and went to the chow line for food. She then went to school and shared textbooks with other students. The Japanese did not allow the students to be taught current history or geography. Pratt memorized many poems. She had very good schooling in the camp. In the afternoon, she played with her friends in the camp. They played the Revolutionary War with the British kids. They often called each other names and hurled objects at each other.

[Annotator’s Note: Interviewee taps a cup throughout the segment.] Caroline Bailey Pratt and her family were interned at the Santo Thomas Internment Camp [Annotator’s Note: Santo Thomas University in Manila, Philippines, also known as the Manila Internment Camp] after the Japanese invaded the Philippines. In September 1944, air raids began which gave the prisoners hope that they would soon be liberated. Food was becoming scarce, and Pratt had stopped going to school because of the air raids. She remembered watching planes fly over the camp and then seeing bombs dropping in nearby areas. One evening, Pratt heard “fireworks”, but soon realized it was the Americans coming towards the camp. Pratt and her father rushed up to fence to see the American tanks. There was so much chaos. The Japanese guards took over a building with some hostages. When the American Army settled with the Japanese, Pratt’s family and friends celebrated their liberation. The next morning, the Army set up a mess hall for the prisoners. The soldiers gave out chocolate bars to the children which made Pratt sick. Shelling continued after their liberation which made her scared, and one of her family friends, Emily Brooks, was killed during a shelling. Pratt’s family left camp soon after liberation. They were trucked out and loaded on a C-47 [Annotator's Note: Douglas C-47 Skytrain cargo aircraft] and taken to a military hospital. The American soldiers were so happy to see the children and gave them rides in a DUKW [Annotator's Note: DUKW; six-wheel-drive amphibious truck; also known as a Duck]. A few days later, her family boarded a ship and made their way to America in March 1945. The ship was hot below, so she spent most of her time on the deck.

[Annotator’s Note: Interviewee taps a cup throughout the segment.] Caroline Bailey Pratt and her family returned to America after they were liberated from the Santo Thomas Internment Camp [Annotator’s Note: Santo Thomas University in Manila, Philippines, also known as the Manila Internment Camp] in March 1945. Their ship docked in San Francisco [Annotator’ Note: San Francisco, California] and her family was met by representatives of her father’s bank. They were taken to a nice hotel and bought new clothes from a department store. A few days later, Pratt and her family boarded a train to New York and the bank [Annotator’s Note: for which her father worked] put them up at the Ritz-Carlton [Annotator’s Note: Ritz-Carlton Hotel, New York City, New York]. Her father had to be admitted to the hospital for illness. [Annotator’s Note: Sound and video are not synced as of 1:06:01.000.] Soon they were met by some friends from the Philippines that were in the internment camp with them. When she learned about the Holocaust [Annotator's Note: also called the Shoah; the genocide of European Jews during World War 2], Pratt felt that her experiences in the interment camp were better than those in the concentration camps. She did not like to talk about her experiences to others because they did not fully understand what her family went through. When she began school in New York, she felt uncomfortable because she did not fit in with the rest of the kids. In 1946, her family returned to the Philippines. She later returned to the United States for boarding school.

[Annotator’s Note: Video and audio do not sync up throughout segment.] Caroline Bailey Pratt said that her experience in the Santo Thomas Internment Camp [Annotator’s Note: Santo Thomas University in Manila, Philippines, also known as the Manila Internment Camp] had been with her through her whole life, especially about not wasting food. Her most memorable experience was liberation and the first air raid attack. She feels that the war created a new path for her and how she viewed the world. [Annotator’s Note: phone rings at 1:16:16.000.] In the 1990s she revisited Santo Thomas. She thinks that World War 2 means almost nothing to America today. Pratt believes there should be institutions like the National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana], and that we should continue to teach World War 2 to future generations. Future generations need to know their heritage and how people in history survived under stressful conditions.