World War II veteran’s PH memoirs
I am Arthur Stoddard Johnson III, in my 90th year on this planet, and I am compiling a memoir of my World War II years. I grew up in Boston, and during my service years, I enjoyed looking up friends and family wherever I went. Shortly after meeting the Lichaucos, I was posted to Tokyo, Japan. My grandparents made a round-the-world cruise in the 1930s and stopped in both Manila and Japan. (I try to get bits of history into my writings.)
I found the article on Jessie Lichauco in the Feb. 7, 2010 issue of the Inquirer. And I have learned of Marcial’s (her husband) career from other sources.
In a Sept. 28, 1945 letter to my family, I described finally locating the Lichaucos after months of trying. I met Jessie and Marcial on their lawn, by the Pasig River, and enjoyed dinner with the family. I was searching for the Lichaucos because my Uncle George Blake Johnson of Boston had been a friend of Marcial’s when they were both at Harvard University in the 1920s.
When I met the Lichaucos, I was a staff sergeant, flight radio operator in the US Army Air Forces, Air Transport Command, based at Biak Island in New Guinea. I made regular flights to Manila and other Pacific stops, including Australia.
I have ordered a book titled “Beneath the Banyan Tree” by Cornelia Chung who is, I suspect, a Lichauco, perhaps one of the babies I met in 1945. I’ve been looking for a copy of “The Conquest of the Philippines by the United States: 1898-1925” by Marcial P. Lichauco. The websites all say, “Out of Print—Limited Availability.”
I have a copy of James Bradley’s “The Imperial Cruise” that exposes President Theodore Roosevelt’s race-based foreign policy in Asia. And I have done some readings on Emilio Aguinaldo, and the early republic.
I would appreciate any information about Jessie Lichauco and the two babies I met in 1945 on a lawn by the Pasig River.
—ARTHUR S. JOHNSON,
