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August 17, 2005 Dear Mr. Moore, Your name and e-mail address was given to me by the Executive Editor of the newspaper that I work for. Jack Sanders of The Ridgefield Press. Sometime, last January, "Santo Tomas" had come up in conversation with Mr. Sanders and I proceeded to tell him that my father was in Japan on a business trip when World War II broke out and was subsequently taken prisoner. He was interned at "Santo Tomas." I had contacted you via e-mail (pepperbud@sbcglobal.net) however; I never heard back from you and only recently have had some free time to tidy up paper work and general things around my house that I decided to try again, only this time to mail you a letter. My father's name was Samuel W. Bushman, he was 39 years old when the War broke out and passed away on July 4, 1981. I was instructed at an early age never to ask questions or to bring the subject up in front of my father. Unfortunately, I was an only child, and had no one to ask. My father did have a son by a previous marriage -- however, there was never any contact. My mother never talked to me about what my father had experienced and in some respects I feel cheated at not being able to know, just from a historical point. In bringing up my two sons, I would have loved to have shared his experiences while they were studying about World War II. I do have most of his documents from the State Department - a hole punched meal ticket, censored mail from the Red Cross back to the states, letter(s) from the S.S. Gripsholm along with letters from Shanghai. Do you have any suggestions as to how I might research his time specifically in Santo Tomas? What do I need to furnish you with? I don't even know who any of the other people were that were with him. Thank you very much for taking the time to read this. I look forward to hearing back from you. You may contact me either by e-mail nyctaximama53@comcast.net, or by my address which will follow at the end of this letter  Marilyn E. Finklea 19-4 Prospect Ridge Ridgefield, CT 06877  or would like to be added to my POW/Internee e-mail distribution list, please let me, Tom Moore, know. Thanks! |