Today we woke up with an extraordinary mission. We were quite surprised to find out yesterday that my paternal great uncle, Harry Mercer, died during WWII in the second wave of the Battle of Leyte and is buried in Manila. He died in combat on January 11, 1945, just less than two months after the troops in his division had landed in this country. Sadly, he never lived to realize the allied troops’ victory against the Japanese and the subsequent liberation of the Philippines.
To beat the midday sun, we headed out the door first thing in the morning. We walked for about an hour through a relatively quiet area of Manila, asking machine-gun toting guards for directions along the way, until we found the American Manila War Cemetery. Harry was buried in the U.S. Army cemetery because for a short time he was a faux-yankee. Since he was too young to enlist with the Canadian troops, he went south across the border, lied about his age and residence and went to war with the Americans after a single year of training. Harry’s gleaming white marble cross headstone has forever etched him as a resident of Massachusetts. He now rests beside by Americans on all sides except to his right, where a Filipino soldier lies.
After taking a few photos to show family back home, Magi walked off to look at a large memorial nearby. I sat by the grave and was awestruck by the serene setting that was to be found in such a bustling and overcrowded city such as this. Magi returned with two handfuls of white and yellow flowers that had fallen from a nearby tree. We scattered them around Harry’s grave and rested the most beautiful one on an arm of the white marble cross.
It was quite a poignant morning because I am the first family member to ever visit Harry’s grave. My aunt Cheryl commented on how wonderful it would have been for my poppy to know that someone in the family had visited his brother after all these years. I went there and returned home carrying that precise emotion.
tothesea,
k~*