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About Clarence Shearer

About the author: Clarence Shearer, Pharmacist’s Mate, U.S. Navy, Medical Supply Depot, Cavite Naval Yard, 16th Naval District. Captured on Corregidor, May 6, 1942. P.O.W. in Old Bilibid prison, Manila, until liberated on February 5, 1945.

About the diary: Two sources were used by The Philippine Diary Project:

  1. Dairy entries from June 3 to 29, 1942 were also included in the edited manuscript of “Carry On” by James M. Robb (with introduction by Jannis Robb Garred and Allison Robb Marks) found in the Stanford Digital Repository (the story of the manuscript itself is told in a 2016 feature article, Lost and Found). These entries (page 45) were preceded by this entry:

Of course, thousands of words might be devoted to describing the diet at the prison hospital, without getting the full picture across to Americans, accustomed as they are to take food almost for granted. But here is the bald, unvarnished resume of the food ration during the month of June, 1942, as taken from the diary of Pharmacist Shearer, written on the spot:

2. Diary excerpt for July 28, 1942 in the HistoryNet feature, In the Company of Ghosts.

A third source identified by Conduct Under Fire: Four American Doctors and Their Fight for Life as Prisoners of the Japanese, 1941-1945 is the following: ShearerClarenceShearer; Journal. May 29, 1942-July 8, 1943. Companion Document to Sartin, Bilibid Letter Book, 1942, RG 389, Box 2178, NARA