From the June 12, 2012, Chicago Tribune obituary page.
CECILIA FLORES (1917-2012)
Died June 2, 2012.
A native of the Philippines, she worked as a nurse at a US Army hospital in manila in 1941 when the Japanese attacked the base. Her daughter, Nona C. Flores said, "She looked out her window and saw the faces of the Japanese fighter pilots" as they flew by.
She wrote in her memoir, "For a week we were at the hospital, no time to eat. drink, cry or feel sorry for anyone. Confusion, chaos, armless, legless, shrapnel, bloody, moaning by some soldiers, others just lay on the stretcher waiting for mercy."
After the Japanese took over the Philippines, she served in the Red Cross for the remainder of the war. As the war was winding down in 1945, retreating Japanese soldiers torched the house she was staying in and she suffered burns over 40% of her body.
"She escaped because she was awoken from sleep by a stray puppy that she had found who was licking her face when the house filled up with smoke," said her daughter.
One of the Greatest Generation. --GreGen
The USS North Carolina (BB-55) My all-time favorite warship. As an elementary school student in North Carolina, I donated nickels and dimes to save this ship back in the early sixties.
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