Suzanne Watson

In the Enemy's Camp Suzanne Watson

On New Year's Day 1942, the Japanese Army marched into Manila. They rounded up more than 3,600 civilians, mostly American businessmen and their families, and interned them behind the walls of Santo Tomas University. These citizens endured the privations of a prisoner-of-war camp, and the erratic behavior of their Japanese captors, for more than three years. By the end of 1944, the internees were living on starvation rations and the Japanese had drawn up plans for their execution. Their survival depended on the ability of the American Army to reach Santo Tomas before the execution orders were carried out. In the Enemy's Camp tells the compelling story of Kathleen Chapman Watson, who was interned in Santo Tomas along with her husband and two children. To ease her suffering, she kept a diary in the form of letters to her parents that chronicled her experiences at the hands of the Japanese. The diary, written more than sixty years ago, is at the heart of In the Enemy's Camp and makes it one of the most gripping accounts ever recorded of World War II.