A.In 1941 I was a "G-man detective" and had a wooden pistol to prove it, even though,aged five, I had no idea what the "G" stood for. It was actually "government" man,meaning FBI agent, a popular career among American boys I grew up with in prewarManila. I didn't learn until after the war that my father, Gerald Wilkinson, thedynamic young manager of a British sugar firm, had been in the same line of business.
B.Commercial enterprise was his passion, but he also worked for the British SecretIntelligence Service (later MI6). He spied on Japanese businessmen in the Philippinesdoing the same thing as him and tracked Japanese military movements. BeforePearl Harbour was hit on 7 December 1941, he warned of a coming Japanese attacksomewhere in the Pacific, but American military muddles and service rivalriesprevented his warning getting through to the US Navy.
C.On Christmas Eve 1941, as Japanese soldiers closed in on Manila, my father surprisedme by appearing in the uniform of a British army major. Later that day, after hastyarrangements, he left us--my mother Loma, my older sister Mary June, aged eight,and me. My mother drove with him to the docks and said goodbye, not knowing whenand how they would meet again.
D.He took a launch across Manila Bay to the fortress island of Corregidor, the USArmy's last holdout in the Philippines. Here he joined the US Philippine commander,General Douglas MacArthur, as his British liaison officer. Before Corregidor fell tothe Japanese, MacArthur was taken off by motorboat and then plane to Australia.Gerald Wilkinson and other staff followed him in a submarine, creeping under theJapanese ships.
E.The rest of us went into Santo Tomas Internment Camp (拘禁营), an old Dominicanuniversity turned prison for "enemy aliens". Conditions there were good at first, apartfrom intense overcrowding in the sex-segregated dormitories: beds 18 inches apart.Neutral friends (Swiss and Irish) sent in extra food and other items, money circulated,little shops sprang up. The guards mostly left us alone, relying on an interneegovernment to keep order.
F.Two years later, though, as the war turned against the Japanese, they sealed off thecamp. Rations were cut again and again, and soldiers stole from our food reserves.Our calorie intake plunged below 900 a day. As our hunger intensified, recipe-writingbecame an obsession. My mother became desperately thin, more so than Mary Juneor me, but we never heard her complain. The worst affected were older people,especially men. In the last few weeks, one or two were dying each day from heartfailure caused by malnutrition.
G.On 3 February 1945, the camp was joyously liberated by a "flying column" ofMacArthur's returning army. Two months later our troopship docked at Los Angeles--and there was Gerald Wilkinson, resplendent ( 辉煌的) in a lieutenant-colonel'suniform (he had been promoted), laughing and hugging us. Now head of British FarEast Intelligence in New York, he had wangled (设法) special permission to boardour ship to meet us. After a summer with American friends, we sailed to Englandwhere we lived at first with my mother's parents while my father made trips back tothe us and the Philippines to rebuild his company.
H.But his war did not end there. In February 1946, at a public inquiry into the PearlHarbour disaster, MacArthur's intelligence chief, Major General Charles Willoughby,denounced Gerald Wilkinson as an intelligence amateur who had "attached himself tous, leaving his wife and children to fend for themselves" in a Japanese prison camp.
I.Willoughby had two reasons to dislike my father. His intelligence reports had exposedWilloughby's failure to predict a Japanese attack and Willoughby, who was ferventlyanti-British, saw my father as Churchill's spy on MacArthur's staff. About that hewas right. My father did indeed report to Churchill on MacArthur's plans, includinghis political ambitions. Deeply upset by Willoughby's charge of deserting his family,Gerald went after him. Under threat of a law suit, he got Willoughby to sign apromise not to repeat his charges, while his allies in the press ridiculed the attack.Willoughby's charge, though, was close to the bone.
 J. Back in December 1941, as the Japanese closed in on Manila, the British governmenthad been desperate to get Gerald out in case his intelligence fell into enemy hands.Putting him on MacArthur's staff solved the problem.
K.Gerald actually came closer to death than any of us. On one mission, the light planein which he was a passenger had engine trouble and crash-landed upside down.Miraculously the pilot and Gerald climbed out with only scratches and bruises. Butmost of his war, first in Australia and then New York, was more comfortable than
ours. Glamorous, too: he had personal meetings with Churchill, who took a shine tohim, and he rubbed shoulders in New York with Noel Coward and Roald Dahl whowere writing "war information"--ie, propaganda.
L.It was only after my father died in 1965, leaving behind a secret war diary, that wediscovered his extraordinary attempts to get closer to us in the camp. Having failed toget us repatriated (遣返) under a diplomatic exchange, he repeatedly put a quixoticproject to MacArthur. He would enlist (入伍) in the US Army, do special-forcestraining and then join the Philippine guerrillas via one of the US Navy submarinesthat supplied them. With his knowledge of the Philippines and the wider war picture,he claimed he could provide encouragement to the guerrillas and link them to the wareffort. When that idea was turned down, Gerald hatched what was perhaps the mostbizarre event in the history of the Santo Tom,is camp. Working with US intelligence,he sent a 20-year-old special-forces operator and frogman, Reg Spear, into the camp.
M. Two months before the camp was liberated, Spear landed by submarine north ofManila. He carried false papers showing him to be a Canadian engineer exempted (豁免) from internment to work for a mountain gold-mining company. His cover storywas that he needed to consult the company's top engineer, now an internee leader inSanto Tom,is. Spear successfully got by the guards and out again. His main missionwas to discuss rescue scenarios with the internees' governing committee. But he alsohad a side commission from Gerald: make contact with our mother. He was allowedto walk past her outside a dorm. He murmured, "Hang on. Gerald sent me." She wastoo surprised to make much response.
N. My mother died in 1992 and we only learned of this event later. She never mentionedthe Spear visit but then she did not volunteer much on the camp experience unlessasked--not out of trauma but out of modesty. Life was hard near the end ofinternment: like other parents in the camp, she worried particularly about feedingus. After the war, though, she told a niece that "the camp" was the best thing thathad happened to her: it showed she could manage, and she met people she otherwisewouldn't have. My father's diary kept quiet on specific intelligence operations: the Spearstory came more recently from Spear himself(who has now died) and other sources.
O. Gerald never showed guilt about our imprisonment and separation from him. On thecontrary, when introducing me to friends, he would sometimes say with pride: "Youknow, Rupert was a guest of the Emperor."