Mary Jo Bellner Swartzberg
This is in follow-up to Part I regarding Loretta Tom who, with her family, survived the Japanese attack on the Philippines the day after Pearl Harbor was attacked.
Fighting in the Philippines continued until Japan’s formal surrender on September 2, 1945. Over one million Filipinos were killed and the U.S. casualties were 10,380.
Several years later Japan had to make reparations to the Filipino people, and, as well, the United States contributed to the re-building of the country. Unfortunately, money was skimmed from the re-building effort and, therefore, the project took much, much longer than it should have.
Loretta and her siblings all went to college in the Philippines and after graduation, with a Bachelor’s degree in Nutrition, Loretta did an internship in dietetics at Barnes Hospital in St. Louis. Eventually, she went to Ohio State University where she met her future husband, whom she married in 1962. They had four sons together, but one son died of myocarditis when he was only sixteen.
Loretta has a Master of Arts in Human Resources and a Master of Science in Management. One brother is a doctor, another is in business, one sister is a research chemist and another sister is an entrepreneur. A younger brother died in a freak airplane explosion over the Indian Ocean when he was fourteen. He was on his way to an International Boy Scout Jamboree.
When asked about the war years, Loretta understates her experiences. “I feel really, really blessed and I do not feel angry about those years.” And while her father would rarely speak of the war years he did say: “God brought us out of this war alive and has some purpose for us in life.”
It seems that Loretta’s father foreshadowed all that his children would accomplish in future years.
“I try to learn as much as I can about WWII, as it is an interest of mine. But it is difficult to grasp the magnitude of that war, or any war for that matter, unless one is personally touched by it.”