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Code Name: High Pockets: True Story of Claire Phillips, an American Mata Hari and the World War Two Resistance Movement in the Philippines
CODE HIGH POCKETS is a true story of Claire Phillips, an American Mata Hari and the resistance movement during World War II in the Philippines. Claire Phillips was High Pockets, a code name she adapted for having the habit of stashing important notes and valuables inside her brassiere. She established an exclusive club in Manila called Tsubaki Club that became a hotbed of espionage against the Japanese forces. With the money she made out of th Japanese, she sent aid and supplies to the Bataan guerillas, to the POWs in Cabanatuan and other prison camps. Ms. Binkowski takes you into an exclusive nightclub in Manila for Japanese officers and affluent Japanese businessmen, during WWII, in Philippines. You travel into the horrific prison camps. You go to the foothills and mountains of Bataan, where the guerrillas hid, waiting for their moment to strike. You meet the spies in Manila who risked everything to smuggle food and medicine into those prison camps, and then descend into the smelly dungeons of Fort Santiago to hear their screams, as they are tortured by the Kempetai. You witness them being murdered, by decapitation, in the Chinese Cemetery. Then ... Liberation!
- GenresNonfiction
260 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 10, 2016
Code Name: High Pockets is a biography of American agent Claire Phillips but as was the case with most WWII resisters, Phillips had a large network supporting her work. Bautista Binkowski makes mention of dozens of these people, most of them Filipino. She also interweaves the Claire Phillips story (and that of Margaret Utinsky to a lesser extent) with a more general Philippine WWII history. The result is a thorough study of the time and place.
So it's unfortunate that the book is nearly impossible to find. Anywhere. My reference librarians can usually work miracles but this wasn't available to them from any library in the U.S. Determined to lay my hands on one, I purchased a used copy on AbeBooks.com for an enormous price, which for the purposes of researching my book, Women Heroes of World War II—the Pacific Theater: 15 Stories of Resistance, Rescue, Sabotage, and Survival, was definitely worth the money. (Another book that has recently benefited from Bautista Binkowski's excellent work is the well-written Angels of the Underground by Theresa Kaminski.)
If Americans know anything at all about the war in the Philippines, they've probably heard of the Bataan Death March and not much else. But the Filipino contribution to ultimate victory during World War II was absolutely stunning and that's why this particular book is so valuable. The author, who lives in the Philippines, really knows her history (she's a military history tour guide) and was able to interview many people (and/or their children) who worked with Claire Phillips, giving portions of this book a thrilling sense of oral history.
The writing, however, is not necessarily as compelling as the story it tells. But that story is so important, this book definitely deserves a second chance.
So it's unfortunate that the book is nearly impossible to find. Anywhere. My reference librarians can usually work miracles but this wasn't available to them from any library in the U.S. Determined to lay my hands on one, I purchased a used copy on AbeBooks.com for an enormous price, which for the purposes of researching my book, Women Heroes of World War II—the Pacific Theater: 15 Stories of Resistance, Rescue, Sabotage, and Survival, was definitely worth the money. (Another book that has recently benefited from Bautista Binkowski's excellent work is the well-written Angels of the Underground by Theresa Kaminski.)
If Americans know anything at all about the war in the Philippines, they've probably heard of the Bataan Death March and not much else. But the Filipino contribution to ultimate victory during World War II was absolutely stunning and that's why this particular book is so valuable. The author, who lives in the Philippines, really knows her history (she's a military history tour guide) and was able to interview many people (and/or their children) who worked with Claire Phillips, giving portions of this book a thrilling sense of oral history.
The writing, however, is not necessarily as compelling as the story it tells. But that story is so important, this book definitely deserves a second chance.
April 24, 2009
A very well-researched, straight-forward account of the Philippine resistance during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines during WW II.
Though the title of the book refers to Claire Phillips, code-named High Pockets, because of her choice of a hiding place for messages: her brassiere. The book actually spends a great deal of time on events leading up to the Japanese victory in 1942 and on resistance efforts other than those of Claire Phillips and her network of spies and couriers.
The author, who lives on the infamous Bataan Peninsula, is very involved in insuring that those who fought and those who resisted are not forgotten. This book is part of that effort.
The main story is actually quite simple. Claire Phillips, widow of an American soldier, passed herself off as Dorothy Fuentes, an Italian citizen, and with the help of friends opened a nightclub, the Tsubaki Club, that catered to Japanese Officers.
Using the club as a front, Phillips gleaned valuable information which she passed on to those resisting the occupation in the Philippine hinterland, particularly Bataan. She also converted the profits from the club into food, medicine and supplies for the survivors of the Bataan Death March imprisoned in Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija Province, north of Manila. The liberation of which was the subject of the best-selling book, Ghost Soldiers by Hampton Sides.
Eventually Phillips was caught imprisoned and tortured mercilessly until liberated by the advancing Americans in 1945. Awarded the Medal of Freedom, she lived out her years in Portland, Oregon dying at age 53 of pneumococal meningitis in 1960: her early demise undoubtedly a partial result of her ordeal as a prisoner of the Japanese.
In addition to Phillips, Binkowski, details the exploits of many other heroes and heroines, who risked their lives resisting the Japanese occupation; not only Americans and Filipinos but also Chinese, Swiss, Czechs, Russians and others. The list is long, many of whom did not survive the war.
It is an inspiring account and well worth reading for anyone who is interested in WW II, particularly the Asia-Pacific Theater.
The only negative is the large amount of grammatical and spelling errors, which I am told, will be corrected in the next edition.
Though the title of the book refers to Claire Phillips, code-named High Pockets, because of her choice of a hiding place for messages: her brassiere. The book actually spends a great deal of time on events leading up to the Japanese victory in 1942 and on resistance efforts other than those of Claire Phillips and her network of spies and couriers.
The author, who lives on the infamous Bataan Peninsula, is very involved in insuring that those who fought and those who resisted are not forgotten. This book is part of that effort.
The main story is actually quite simple. Claire Phillips, widow of an American soldier, passed herself off as Dorothy Fuentes, an Italian citizen, and with the help of friends opened a nightclub, the Tsubaki Club, that catered to Japanese Officers.
Using the club as a front, Phillips gleaned valuable information which she passed on to those resisting the occupation in the Philippine hinterland, particularly Bataan. She also converted the profits from the club into food, medicine and supplies for the survivors of the Bataan Death March imprisoned in Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija Province, north of Manila. The liberation of which was the subject of the best-selling book, Ghost Soldiers by Hampton Sides.
Eventually Phillips was caught imprisoned and tortured mercilessly until liberated by the advancing Americans in 1945. Awarded the Medal of Freedom, she lived out her years in Portland, Oregon dying at age 53 of pneumococal meningitis in 1960: her early demise undoubtedly a partial result of her ordeal as a prisoner of the Japanese.
In addition to Phillips, Binkowski, details the exploits of many other heroes and heroines, who risked their lives resisting the Japanese occupation; not only Americans and Filipinos but also Chinese, Swiss, Czechs, Russians and others. The list is long, many of whom did not survive the war.
It is an inspiring account and well worth reading for anyone who is interested in WW II, particularly the Asia-Pacific Theater.
The only negative is the large amount of grammatical and spelling errors, which I am told, will be corrected in the next edition.
May 18, 2009
Hampton Sides devotes a chapter in Ghost Soldiers to Claire Phillips, an American married to a GI in the Philippines, who pretended to be Italian, ran a nightclub and helped the resistance movement during World War II. The one chapter he had was incredibly interesting, and I wanted more. While this book did provide the expanded, ultimately it was a bit disappointing for me. Part of the problem was that it turns out that I had an advance copy. Two chapters were missing (which I was eventually able to get thanks to the author). In addition, there were numerous grammatical errors, which proved consistently distracting. Finally, there were problems with the story telling. At times it felt like the author was just trying to get all the knowledge she had accumulated down on the page. The less important details at times overwhelmed the larger picture, at least for me, making it difficult to follow.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews