Oral History Interview with Thomas Bousman, April 28, 2001 Page: 8
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Thomas Bousman
All right, I can tell you this simply, that for about 8 days it
was daily bombing, and we had dug trenches in our front
yard in Manila We were only a block from Taft Ave. the
main drag and then a few blocks from Dewey Blvd. there at
the bay. Dad after each bombing, my dad would take the
car and go and get the wounded and take them to the
hospitals. And a few times Mother would go along. After
that for 8 or 10 days, we decided that we should go and
refugee out to the country, so we went to Los Banos to the
Church Among The Palms where there was a lovely chapel
by the church and a student center and a house, a 2-story
house, the mission house and other missionaries went out
and gathered there with us. Christmas Day 1941 we were
sitting down, this large group about 25 of us to Christmas
Dinner, when we heard the bell ringing in the Catholic
Church, and that was the signal that it was an air raid . Sowe went outside and got into the trenches we had dug.
Two bombers came over and bombed the railroad station at
Los Banos. Its' called College Station there. And then
those who survived the bombing ran out into the adjacent
coconut groves, and those two planes flew over and
machine gunned these helpless civilians. So when the
planes had left, my dad again took the car and a few other
of the missionaries took their cars, and were taking the
wounded up to the college infirmary, a very small little
hospital; they came back, and they said that they needed
those who knew first aid techniques to assist, and my
mother went. Well, they weren't gone very long before we
heard the roar of low planes again, and we went in this
particular house. We went down in the lower part which
was cement up to about 5 feet. There were 7 bombs that
fell in that string. The first one fell right outside the
infirmary. Mom and Dad had heard the planes. They'd run
out and crawled into a culvert under the road. The last of
those 7 bombs fell right outside our house (luckily in the
lawn) so all it did was make a big crater, throw dirt and sod
all over the place. Well, our parents then decided they
needed to see what was happening to their kids so they left
the hospital assistants there and came and when they saw
what this crater had done, they were just speechless. The
thing that I remember, after we staggered out and of course
most of us were in tears because of the fright and our ears
were ringing because of the sound, but we saw Filipino
families carrying some possessions, and their children were
running up to the foothills. They'd had it for that day.
You see, this was the second time in just a few hours thatRev. Dr. Thomas Bousman Interview
8
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Bousman, Thomas. Oral History Interview with Thomas Bousman, April 28, 2001, text, April 28, 2001; Fredericksburg, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1603675/m1/8/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting National Museum of the Pacific War/Admiral Nimitz Foundation.