The horrors of conflict still haunt America’s largest World War II cemetery

By Brad Lendon, CNN

Manila, Philippines (CNN) — Two gravesites, less than 10 miles apart in a crowded, noisy, Asian metropolis of 14 million, stand testament to the horror, sacrifice and history of World War II.

Go to one and you can see the names and read the stories of those buried there, more than 17,000 troops, almost all of them lost in battle across the Pacific from 1941 to 1945.

Their headstones — 16,938 Latin crosses and 175 Stars of David — are arranged in neat rows in meticulously manicured grass across 152 acres in the Manila American Cemetery.

Go to the other and you’ll see just a single white cross, steps away from a hole in the ground leading to the dungeons of an old stone Spanish fort.

Its base bears an inscription: “This cross marks the final resting place of approximately 600 Filipinos and Americans who were victims of atrocities during the last days of February 1945.”

There are no individual stories here, but local lore says the spirits of those who perished in Fort Santiago’s dungeons remain and sometimes make themselves known to visitors.

Haunted and holy. These are the last vestiges of a global conflict in Manila.

Just steps from the gleaming skyscrapers of the Bonifacio Global City neighborhood in the Philippine capital, the Manila American Cemetery is an oasis of calm in one of the world’s most densely populated cities.

The noise of Manila’s notorious traffic goes silent just after I pass the gates of the burial ground. No hum of scooters, no roar of jeepney engines, no incessant honking of car horns. The soothing calm is broken only by the occasional jetliner taking off from Manila International Airport, three miles to the west, or a groundskeeper’s golf cart.

Rows upon rows of headstones — 17,111 in total — are laid out on the gentle slopes of a hilltop, the largest single burial ground for US World War II casualties.

The hilltop is capped with a circular memorial to those whose remains were never found after the war, 36,286 names chiseled into huge limestone tablets.

Some 3,000 of those headstones are of “unknown soldiers” — “A comrade in arms known but to God,” they read.

The rest identify those buried beneath them, some with histories of the fallen.

Private First Class Alfred Davenport is one of the first I see. Buried not far from the cemetery entrance, Davenport was a Black infantryman from Plymouth, North Carolina, who died from injuries sustained in Bougainville, Solomon Islands, in June 1944. He was 20 years old, his biography says.

Though Davenport served in a segregated unit for Black soldiers, “he and his comrades are buried side by side regardless of their rank, race, religion, gender and nationality,” the biography says.

Walking up the road up the hill from Davenport’s grave I come to the monument to the missing. In the US Navy section, I find five brothers from Iowa — George, Francis, Joseph, Madison and Albert Sullivan — who all died after the light cruiser on which they served, the USS Juneau, sank in a Japanese torpedo attack during the 1942 Battle of Guadalcanal, also in the Solomons.

Their deaths represent the largest loss to one family in US military history, according to the Naval Museum Development Foundation.

The Sullivans aren’t the only brothers memorialized at the cemetery. Buried beneath its grounds are the remains of 21 sets of brothers, all lying side by side.

Manila American Cemetery isn’t just a memorial ground. It can be an immersive history lesson, too.

On the walls of the circular memorial are mosaic maps of the war in the Pacific, from specific engagements like the tide-turning Battle of Midway to years-long operations, like how US submarines fought across the region, including a list of the 49 boats that never came home.

The mosaics are colorful and filled with charts and diagrams of battle movements. For military history enthusiasts like myself, they can be worthy of hours of attention.

Across a driveway from the memorial is a modern visitor center, with exhibits, personal stories and mementos, and more details about the Pacific War.

The visitor center offers free tours of the grounds for those interested.

Dungeons and a Philippine hero

A 9-mile drive (warning: that could easily be an hour or more in Manila’s traffic) from the cemetery lies Fort Santiago, a stone bastion built by Spanish colonizers in the late 1500s and expanded and reworked at various times under Spanish, British, American and Japanese rule in the Philippines.

Sitting at the northern edge of the Intramuros walled neighborhood, it’s a must-stop for foreign tourists and Filipinos alike, the latter because it’s where Jose Rizal, a patriot who is considered one of the fathers of Philippine self-government, spent his final days before facing a colonial Spanish firing squad in 1896.

A small museum documents Rizal’s time on the grounds, including readings of his moving last letters to friends and family.

But on a weekday morning, Rizal’s cell is clearly not the main draw here.

That’s a few dozen feet away, where the large white cross marking a mass grave sits near the entrance to the dungeons under the Baluarte de Santa Barbara, the rampart of Fort Santiago on the shore of the Pasig River.

Schoolchildren in uniform on field trips crowd around the cross and then head single file into the dungeons. They are not subdued, but they are certainly respectful, as they hunch through the entrance and into the space where hundreds perished at the hands of Japanese occupiers near the end of World War II.

I follow a school group, crouching as the low entrance would cut me off at chest height if I didn’t.

“After the Battle of Manila in 1945, layers upon layers of dead bodies amounting to about 600 prisoners were found locked inside the dungeons and left by the Japanese to suffer starvation and suffocation,” a sign inside the dungeon says.

There are real pictures of what US troops found when they liberated the fort, along with statues replicating some of the wartime conditions. Even in this tourist setting, it’s humid, cramped and uncomfortable. After a few minutes, you’ll want to get out into the fresh air. I did.

There are numerous reports of paranormal activity around the fort and the dungeons, especially. Visitors report sudden temperature changes, strange breezes and whispery voices — even the feeling of touch — when visiting.

Some even say the spirit of Rizal himself still walks the grounds.

Walk into the Intramuros walled city south from the fort and there’s another monument where some say spirits linger, the Memorare Manila 1945.

The statue, erected in 1995, salutes the 100,000 civilian casualties of the Battle of Manila over a month in early 1945.

“They were mainly victims of heinous acts perpetrated by the Japanese imperial forces and the casualties of the heavy artillery barrage by the American forces,” the National Historical Commission of the Philippines says on its website.

Like Fort Santiago’s dungeons, some say spirits of those dead gather here.

A plaque nearby lists 36 Japanese massacre sites around Manila.

A personal mystical experience

I didn’t see any ghosts in Fort Santiago or Intramuros, but thinking back to the American cemetery, there was a moment that made me stop and wonder.

As I walked alone among the rows of cross headstones, the afternoon sun was in my face. But as I looked down, my shadow was clear in front of me. I was startled.

I turned around to find the source of the light, and the sun was reflecting into the cemetery off the glass surface after a high-rise office building in Bonifacio Global City.

Maybe it wasn’t a sign, but it certainly was an amazing coincidence.

The shadow lasted less than a minute. What were the chances I’d be in that exact spot, on a cloudless day, with the sun at just the right position to reflect off that building to cast my shadow into the sunlight?

Haunted? No. Holy? Of course not.

But spiritual? Mystical? Hmmmmm.

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