Japs fire Catholic center, shoot fleeing refugees
Attempt to chain door fails – only 700 of 2,000 are believed to have survived
By Robert Crabb, United Press staff writer
MANILA, Philippines – The Japanese have run amok in southern Manila in a wholesale massacre of Filipino civilians trapped inside their lines.
Eyewitnesses said the Japs fired the Catholic refugee center at the College of La Concordia with incendiary grenades, after trying to chain the doors to prevent the refugees from escaping.
The center houses about 2,000 persons, including many blind, insane, wounded and sick. Only about 700 are known to have survived by running a mile-long gantlet of Jap gunfire.
Spanish-born Mrs. Denis Allmond, wife of a chief quartermaster in the U.S. Navy, escaped from the burning center with her two children, Denis Jr., 4, and Janet, 5.
Mrs. Allmond said the Japs tried several times to chain the doors of the main building at the center, which was operated by the Sisters of Charity.
Men inside the building, who had put out three fires started by the Japs, unchained the doors, and get most of the refugees out. Then the Japs mowed them down with machine-gun fire.
“All except about 700 were killed, including most of the infants,” Mrs. Allmond said.
Many of the Sisters, all of whom were Filipinos, were among the missing or known dead.
First-hand evidence of Jap atrocities was also uncovered by clean-up squads of the U.S. 37th Infantry Division. The Doughboys found the bodies of 200 Filipino men, women and children who had been killed by the Japs.
Many of the victims were bound before they were shot.
The bodies of eight members of the Filipino Constabulary were found in the Pasig River. They had been tied up, shot and then thrown into the river.