Curtis Brooks was born in September 1928 in Manila, Philippines. His father was hired to build power plants in Manila in 1923 and became superintendent of Power Plants for Manila Electric Company. Life before the Japanese invaded was idyllic. His family had servants and a chauffeur which they took for granted. He grew up with a Chinese amah [Annotator's Note: girl or woman employed by a family for domestic tasks] and he had a Chinese accent as a child. There was a kind of serenity to it all that they really enjoyed. There were problems, like tropical diseases, but they weren't affected much. Brooks went to the American school in Manila. He still has friends from that time. The threat of war was always somewhere on the horizon because Japan was fighting in China then and refugees would arrive in Manila. Americans were required to take home leave every three years, vacation for them. They were due to go on leave in 1941, but there was some urgency with the electric company providing power to various military projects, so they stayed there. His mother had recently had a stillborn child and did not want to travel. Brooks' neighborhood before the war was in the Pasay suburb which was largely Americans and Europeans. [Annotator's Note: Brooks names several neighbors.] They had big homes with large yards. They were all expatriates. They mostly socialized with Americans and Europeans. There was a large British community. His dad worked with Filipino coworkers whom they saw as well. The last home leave he remembers was in April 1938. The family took the Potsdam [Annotator's Note: SS Potsdam ocean liner] to Singapore, Ceylon, and through the Suez Canal. This was the Nazi era in Germany. There was a "Strength Through Joy" group on board. [Annotator's Note: The Kraft durch Freude (KdF) was a state-operated leisure organization in Nazi Germany from 1930 to 1939.] Brooks' mother spoke German fluently but did not comment much on the group being aboard. One morning, he and his brother went up on deck to what they thought was a religious service, but the group suddenly said "Sieg Heil" [Annotator's Note: "Hail Victory" was the official Nazi Salute] so they ran off. They went over to Genoa, Italy. Mussolini [Annotator's Note: Italian dictator Benito Mussolini] went by in a cavalcade near their hotel. They intended to go to Germany but because of the Munich Crisis [Annotator's Note: the Munich Agreement, or Munich Betrayal, on 30 September 1938 ceded Czechoslovakia to Germany] they thought it wise not to and went to Paris, France and then England and then to New York. His uncle lived in Staten Island, New York. They also visited relatives in Wellsboro, Pennsylvania. They then drove across country and took a ship from Vancouver, Washington to Manila. An Army colonel named Dwight Eisenhower [Annotator's Note: later US Army General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe and 34th President of the United States] was on board and played Bridge with his father. He and his brother arrived too late to start at the American School, so they went to a boarding school named Brent School in Baguio [Annotator's Note: Baguio City, Luzon, Philippines] where he led a bucolic school life.

Curtis Brooks and his family had been on a vacation trip aboard the SS Potsdam and encountered a Nazi ceremony taking place. He knew the Nazis were a fanatic group. There was no mystery to the type of regime. His mother spoke German, but she never mentioned anything about what she heard or said. Although very young, Brooks and his brother were aware of the political situations of the world. This was due to discussions his family would have at home regarding the news. A friend who lived near them in Manila was Austrian and might have been Jewish. He recalls that this woman was very upset when Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] moved into Austria in 1937. The war in China was always news in the Philippines, so it made other news stand out. A British friend's parents lived on Hainan Island, China and the friend was very worried when Japan took it over. Spanish kids in the school were worried about the war in Spain which was not only Franco [Annotator's Note: Spanish dictator Francisco Franco Bahamonde] but Germany and Italy as well. When war broke out in Europe in 1939, he remembers his British friends' concern and apprehension. Life was not tranquil in any political sense. He felt the Japanese were not very friendly people. Frankly, they were hostile. They were not shy about the events in China, like the Rape of Nanking [Annotator's Note: Nanjing Massacre; mass murder and mass rape by Imperial Japanese troops against the residents of Nanking, now Nanjing, China, 13 December 1937 to 20 January 1938], Shanghai. He often saw the devastation the Japanese bombing caused to the Chinese cities. They could not be trusted and yet his father did business with Japanese companies. He bought coal from Mitsui [Annotator's Note: Mitsui & Co., Ltd., Japan] for the Manila power plants. Brooks did not worry about the Japanese threat but knew war was possible for a long time before the war as there was a lot of hostility in Japan toward the West.

The American School basketball team went to Baguio, Luzon, Philippines for a game against Brent School on 5 December 1941. Curtis Brooks and his brother went along. The game was on Saturday. On Sunday morning, 7 December [Annotator's Note: due to the International Date Line, this was the day before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii], Brooks, his brother and two friends were wandering around downtown Baguio. There was to be an air raid drill and they decide to go to see "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" starring Spencer Tracy and Ingrid Bergman in a movie theater downtown. He called Mrs. Croft, the chaperone for the trip, and asked if it was okay and also asked her if they were at war yet. She said no. This was about 18 hours before the attack on Pearl Harbor and the situation was so tense that he thought to ask. The news had been filled with talk of Japanese ships headed West, so he knew something was going to happen. Going back to Manila, they were on a train and an airman from Clark Field [Annotator's Note: now Clark Air Base, Luzon, Philippines] got on. He told them that they always flew with live bombs and that he thought they would be at war within a month. His name was Gaylord Gaines and he was killed the next day. [Annotator's Note: The Japanese attacked Clark Field they day after the attack on Pearl Harbor.] Brooks and his brother arrived in Manila at night. The next morning they turned on the radio but there was no transmission. They went to school early and an older student came by and told them about Pearl Harbor. This was on the other side of the world to them, so they did not know what it meant. It did not make sense that the war would start in Honolulu, Hawaii. There was subdued excitement at the school. Nothing changed in Manila that morning. His teacher was saying it was all rumor. His father picked them up at twelve-thirty to have lunch, confirmed it was true, and told them that Baguio and Clark Field had also been bombed. Around midnight that night, air raid sirens sounded. There was no air raid shelter, but they had a plan to go to the downstairs level and shelter there. Nothing happened though. Around three o'clock in the morning, he awakened to the sound of airplanes flying overhead and then heard explosions. They were bombing Nichols Field [Annotator's Note: Nichols Field, 5th Air Force, Pasay, Luzon, Philippines] which was about a mile away. That was as frightened as he has ever been in his life. This was a sudden realization that others were trying to kill others. After that, Manila was bombed daily.

The morning of 9 December 1941 was calm for the most part in Pasay, Luzon, Philippines. Curtis Brooks and his brother went to visit friends and did not go to school. The next night was calm but at lunchtime on the 10 December, one plane flew over low firing its guns. This was followed by others that went on for hours. They were strafing and bombing Nichols Field [Annotator's Note: Nichols Field, 5th Air Force, Pasay, Luzon, Philippines]. His parents had planned that the kids go to live with friends of the family in a robust building with an air raid shelter in Manila, Philippines. Their home was too close to Nichols Field. As they left their house, there was a shop called a tienda. A bomb had landed in the street in front of the tienda and a Filipino woman was standing by disheveled but calm. He was impressed by the effect of the bomb on the shop. He does not remember much else. They would sometimes sit in the air raid shelter for hours. The Japanese sank some ships in the bay and seemed to take their time to do what they needed to. An American soldier came by telling the Filipinos everything would be alright. He was not happy because his uniform was torn. They brought him in, gave him coffee and patched his clothes for him. Brooks never heard of any talk of leaving because there was no way to get out. They would have had to leave on a ship and the Japanese had control of the air. He had not seen an American plane since Wednesday, 10 December when a P-40 [Annotator's Note: Curtiss P-40 Warhawk fighter aircraft] landed at Nichols Field.

Curtis Brooks was living in Manila when the Japanese on landed on Luzon, Philippines. The first landings were on Aparri and Vigan, and were not considered significant. On 23 December 1941, the news said that 80 Japanese troop transports were sighted in Lingayen Gulf. Brooks said to his father they were going to lose. The Japanese landed south of Manila in Atimonan and were approaching from both sides. The US Navy blew their ammo stores at Cavite [Annotator's Note: Naval Station Pascual Ledesma, or Cavite Naval Base, in Cavite City, Philippines]. He recalls seeing fires at Nichols Field [Annotator's Note: Nichols Field, 5th Air Force, Pasay, Luzon, Philippines] and wondering what it meant because there had been no air raid. It disturbed him. USAFFE [Annotator's Note: United States Army Forces in the Far East] Forces united north of Manila and that left the way to Manila open. They had no place to go so they just waited. Brooks and his brother were staying with friends downtown who had a well-stocked liquor supply. They were told it would be good to get rid of it so they poured it all down the drain. They had stocked the houses with canned food in anticipation of a long siege but not of an occupation. There was an evacuation plan, but it was just to stay clear of Manila in the event they would be bombed, similarly to how China had been. The American forces set fire to all of the fuel dumps along the Pasay River. The fire was so huge it blocked the sun for three days and caused it to rain soot. There was some looting in the city as well. The first Japanese he saw was a communications unit set up across the street from them. The transmitter was pedal-powered. He and his brother went out to play catch and a Japanese soldier came by and played with them for a little while. By and large, the occupation itself was peaceful. The newspaper warned them that if a Japanese soldier was shot, then ten people from the neighborhood would be shot. The Japanese did come through on their way to confront the American and Filipino forces who had been backed into Bataan, Luzon, Philippines.

Curtis Brooks and his family were told by a Japanese civilian to move to Santo Tomas [Annotator's Note: to the Santo Tomas University Interment Camp, or, Manila Internment Camp, at the University of Santo Tomas, Manila, Philippines] and to take food and clothing for three days. They loaded up on to a bus being driven by a Japanese civilian. His parents would never leave there. He does not remember much about his first impressions. They were housed in the gym with no beds. He says they were not too dismayed by it as they anticipated being interned. He had not anticipated how hard the floor would be to lay on though. There were four toilets for 700 people. His mother was in the main building and the men and boys were in the gym. The gym had been the armory for the ROTC [Annotator's Note: Reserve Officer Training Corp] unit at the University of Santo Tomas. The Japanese had the internees empty out the weapons that had been there. It was very odd to him. Brooks does not remember what a typical day was like other than being with his friends. They did have school while there, but most of the time they stayed close to their parents. They got two meals a day, both a cornmeal mush. Classes went fairly well despite being held outside. The grounds had been used as a motor pool by the USAFFE [Annotator's Note: United States Army Forces in the Far East]. There were a lot of small cars there and the students disabled them on purpose while pretending to play on them. Lights went out near the end of January [Annotator's Note: January 1942] and they heard gunfire and airplanes. The Americans were bombing Nichols Field [Annotator's Note: Nichols Field, 5th Air Force, Pasay, Luzon, Philippines] nearby. The lights kept going on and off for a long time. People were encouraged by this. Two hours later they returned and bombed again. That was a morale boost, but it was a long time before it happened again. Just after the fall of Bataan, there were explosions due to a last-ditch effort by Americans to drop bombs on Nichols Field. They discussed their situation with their parents daily. There were so many rumors. The Japanese printed an English-language newspaper which carried highly distorted news. "What's the latest rumor?" was a typical greeting. They did not believe a word of the Japanese paper at first and then, ironically, when the tide turned, they actually did believe the Japanese stories which were no longer true.

While there [Annotator's Note: in the Santo Thomas Internment Camp], Curtis Brooks and the other children started to have organized sports. There was a lot of room on the grounds with basketball courts and baseball diamonds. Despite being classified as enemy aliens, they were interred in a completely supportive local population. If they needed things and there was a way to get them into camp, they could get them. The Red Cross could buy things locally and get them to them. In the first two years it was better than it might have been. After about two months of living in the gym, Brooks, his father and brother moved to the education building. [Annotator's Note: Brooks names several of the people there with them.] After roll call and before lights out they would sit around and spin yarns. They spent March 1942 through December 1944 in the same room. One Australian and two British prisoners escaped, but were caught and executed. That was sobering to the other internees. Brooks never really interacted with the Japanese civilian guards. When the war started heading back toward the Philippines, the Japanese soldiers moved in, but it was mostly civilians until then. Through February 1944, the internees were allowed money and could go out and buy food. Once the Japanese Army took over that stopped, and hunger became a major part of their lives. They did have one garden in the back of their shanty where they grew a few things. The soil was not very good. The shanty was more of a place to eat than to live. They had coconut charcoal that took a lot of effort to burn in a small Filipino stove. News would filter down but there were so many rumors it was hard to know what to believe.

Curtis Brooks knew the Americans were approaching the Philippines. In 1944, the Japanese military posture in the Philippines changed and they were practicing air raid drills and blackouts. Brooks had not seen any American military signs for three years. On 9 September 1944, the siren sounded. They had not been told of any practice drills. Ernest Stanley, the camp interpreter, was coming out of the camp commandant's office. Stanley said it was a real alert. Seven days later it sounded again, but nothing happened. They were in class on 21 September and they heard a siren make a "whoop" sound and then stop. Brooks then became aware of the sound of many airplanes. The Japanese had been registering their antiaircraft guns in the morning. He ran out and the sky was full of airplanes. He wondered how the Japanese could get caught by surprise by so many airplanes. Everyone ran outside. Brooks made his way out the front door and saw four planes diving on Nichols Field [Annotator's Note: Nichols Field, 5th Air Force, Pasay, Luzon, Philippines] and then the antiaircraft fire went after them. He knew then it was the Americans. There were no Japanese aircraft up and he could see planes attacking ships in the bay. Suddenly their lives changed. 22 September produced another massive air raid. The ground was shaking from the explosions. They were aware of the landings in Leyte and Mindoro, Philippines. Lingayen Gulf bombings started soon after. They were very hungry and weak, and Brooks had beriberi so they waited for what seemed an interminable time. They also found out the Americans had landed in Nasugbu, Batangas. As soon as the landings on Luzon took place, the Japanese started demolishing their own facilities. On 3 February 1945 it was cloudy and the whole eastern sky lit up as the Japanese burned Camp Murphy [Annotator's Note: now Camp General Emilio Aguinaldo, Military Headquarters, Armed Forces of the Philippines, Quezon City, Philippines]. Brooks had heard the Americans were just 50 miles away. Otherwise the day was routine. His father had died by this time of beriberi and he was with his mother. They had no funeral as his body was taken away from the camp. His mother was killed in an artillery shelling about two weeks later. [Annotator's Note: Brooks cries.]

On 3 February 1945, nine American planes flew over the camp very low and slow. Curtis Brooks told his brother he thought they were landing. Shortly thereafter a British woman came by and said she thought they were coming in that night to free them. About then they began to hear sporadic machine gun fire. Someone up high in the building said they could see trucks coming into the city. Brooks decided to go up to the third floor when he heard over the public address system that Lieutenant Abiko [Annotator's Note: Japanese Army Lieutenant Nanakazu Abiko] wanted to remind the internees that they were not allowed to demonstrate in the presence of American planes and that they were still under Japanese control. Once on the third floor with his brother, they looked out. They did not see any tanks or trucks, but they did see Japanese soldiers running away from a building. As it got dark, the power failed, and everything went black. Brooks could see tracer bullets over the city. Then a fire started nearby with some fuel drums exploding and he saw a light at the front gate followed by shooting. The light at the gate started moving into the camp and in its glare they saw the Americans coming in. The internees all thundered out of the main building, cheering and yelling. The Japanese had guards inside at the stairwells, so he and his brother went back into their room. They were told to lie down on the floor by the Americans outside and then the shooting began. They were then told to go into the back room of the building and lie down when more shooting started. He looked outside and saw that north Manila looked like a sea of fire. He was afraid they would not make it out. The next morning negotiations were going on and the shooting stopped for good. Brooks looked out the front window and it looked to him like the entire American Army was out there. Food was brought in and finally on 5 February 1945, the Japanese surrendered and left.

On 4 February [Annotator's Note: 4 February 1945] Curtis Brooks looked out and saw all of the American military. Right below them was a tank with the hatch open and all the kids started chatting with the gunner. Brooks was at a reunion of the 44th Tank Battalion years later, and was introduced to that gunner. [Annotator's Note: Brooks pauses for some time.] Brooks and his brother then ran down to the Japanese offices and started to loot them, but there was nothing to get. He did find a small cap that he kept as a souvenir. The Americans came in and told them to leave the building. They all gathered out front and then they dispersed, but the Japanese outside the city started shelling the camp. His mother was killed in the shelling. They were not aware that the Japanese were going to turn Manila into a battleground again. They took shelter in the main building which was hit several times just after being liberated. Later, the Americans would make a hospital there but there was not one for his mother. [Annotator's Note: Brooks takes a very long pause.]

A few days after being liberated from their internment in Santo Tomas in Manila, Curtis Brooks and his brother were still getting lugaw [Annotator's Note: lugaw, also known as congee, is a rice porridge] for breakfast. That morning, the Americans gave him evaporated milk to go with it and he felt like the richest man on earth. The Japanese were shelling the area, so he and his brother would go in the Main building which was still quite safe. He would spend the nights on a makeshift bed out behind another building. The shelling lasted a few days and then it would be sporadic. Brooks thinks they received one day's notice to leave Santo Tomas [Annotator's Note: the Santo Tomas Internment Camp, or, Manila Internment Camp, University of Santo Tomas, Manila, Philippines]. They left on 23 February 1945. There were transport planes parked around a road that they were using for an airstrip. He and his brother were put on a plane to Leyte. Flying over Manila he could see there was nothing left. As they flew over Laguna de Bay, he saw amphibious tractors going into Los Baños [Annotator's Note: Los Baños Internment Camp, Los Baños, Philippines] to liberate it and remove the internees. Brooks landed in Tanauan and boarded a landing craft to the SS Jean Lafitte [Annotator's Note: USS Warren (APA-53)]. It was only troop accommodations, but it was paradise to them.

Curtis Brooks was aboard a transport aircraft after being liberated from the Santo Tomas Internment Camp in Manila, Philippines. Flying into Leyte Gulf was astonishing. He saw so much military equipment along the coast. It was the staging area for the invasion of Okinawa, Japan. He counted over 100 ships sitting in Leyte Gulf. It took about a month aboard the ship [Annotator's Note: USS Warren (APA-53)] to arrive in the United States. They left in a convoy with two escorts. They landed at San Francisco, California. Before that, they landed in Manus in the Admiralty Islands, Papua New Guinea, and it looked like New York City to him. The British fleet was in port there. They went over and looked at an Australian ship and the sailors gave them candy. They sailed the southern route to San Francisco. They had heard about the amount of rationing before coming in, but they saw a lot of cars. Friends who had left the Philippines before the war, lived in San Francisco and put them up. They could not believe how much food was there. It was not well known that the liberated people were being brought back to the States. He looks back on this time with feeling because it was the last time they were all together.

Curtis Brooks went to Staten Island, New York then Wellsboro, Pennsylvania [Annotator's Note: after being liberated from the Santo Tomas Internment Camp in Manila, Philippines]. He spent a year in Staten Island. He felt very out of place in the United States. There was nothing called post traumatic stress syndrome then and he does not recall any nightmares. People seemed to have no real concept of what they had been through and did not seem very interested. They did not speak of it much with each other. He went to Pingry School in Elizabeth, New Jersey. When he went into the internment camp, he was in the eighth grade and had spent three years in school in the camp. He then attended Rensselaer Polytechnic [Annotator's Note: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York]. He transferred to Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont. He was living with friends of his parents. As the Korean War broke out, the draft started, and he got a notice to report for medical exams. He got a student deferment, 2-A [Annotator's Note: 2-A is a US Selective Service System Classification deferment due to occupation]. He finished school June 1952 then he volunteered for the draft. He was married. He knew he was going to be called so there was no point in starting a career. He was 1-A [Annotator's Note: 1-A is a US Selective Service System Classification indicating the individual is fit for military service] and he knew he would go. He served for two years in the 10th Field Artillery Battalion, 3rd Infantry Division, Headquarters Battery.

Curtis Brooks arrived for duty in Korea at night. His unit [Annotator's Note: Headquarters Battery, 10th Field Artillery Battalion, 3rd Infantry Division] was at the front lines. He did not like hearing artillery again after having heard so much of it as a prisoner of the Japanese in the Philippines. It was a congenial bunch of soldiers and they got to know each other quite well. The Armistice occurred not long after he arrived, so he just did his time. There were a number of people who had been interred in the Philippines and then sent to Korea as well. He thinks some senior officers might have been World War 2 veterans but not anyone else. He was on a train from Yokohama to Sasebo, Japan on his way to Korea and he arrived in a city that looked familiar to him. He realized it was Hiroshima, seven years later. A soldier he was with had no idea of what he was talking about when he said it had been the site of an atomic bomb blast. He did not like the Japanese and a hard time seeing them. On R&R [Annotator's Note: rest and recuperation] from Korea he went to Kyoto, Japan. He hired a Japanese guide and it went well.

Curtis Brooks does not really think about the atomic bombs being dropped on Japan. That it hastened the end of the war was all that struck him about it. Being liberated from the Japanese internment camp at Santo Tomas in Manila, Philippines, is his most memorable experience of the war. 3 February 1945 is an emotional holiday for him. World War 2 changed his life completely. He had no home and he came to the United States as an orphan. Brooks does not think there is much collective memory of the war left. There is a distant pride in the accomplishments achieved and appreciation for the sacrifices, but the knowledge of World War 2 in the Pacific is confined to the attack on Pearl Harbor and the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. He notes that The National WWII Museum's documentary never mentions the Philippines once, which is a little disturbing to him. He thinks it is wise to have the museum though and it helps a great deal in focusing memory. He feels the war's history should be a part of even grade school curriculum. The Cold War absorbed our attention and resources for 40 years. He worked for a time in the Pentagon and Army Intelligence, focused on the Soviet threat. The techniques of tyranny are essentially the same. Tyranny cannot accept setbacks. Brooks says that nuclear deterrence was the fundamental difference between the Cold War and World War 2. Now that the deterrent is somewhat abbreviated, we see the aggression beginning in small ways. [Annotator's Note: Brooks discusses various Cold War incidents and describes how tense it all was.] The nuclear age meant that suddenly there was no future.