Photo By Staff Sgt. Ryan Brooks | A Tenorio family history book shows Calisto and Luise Pangelinan Tenorio and their...... read more read more
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Immobilized with a grave illness, blinded by tears, delirious with pain and overcome by fear, nine-year-old Cynthia could no longer hear her family outside the cave near. The Japanese were searching for them so they had made the decision to continue through the jungle towards Agat, Guam in hopes of reaching the Americans first. Minutes slowly turned to hours and hours turned to days. Thought to be beyond help, Cynthia had been abandoned by her family and seemed fated to perish in the darkness; or worse, be discovered by hostile forces.
Cynthia Tenorio Terlaje was born Cynthia Tenorio on the island of Saipan in 1936, the same year Joe DiMaggio would make his major league debut with the New York Yankees. Little did they know at the time, but her family moved to Guam during the height of the island’s disastrous tension in 1944.
Calisto Tenorio, Cynthia’s father, kept his family of seven sheltered from the barbarism of the tyrannical Japanese rule by working for them. This employment took him and his young family across the islands from Saipan, to Yap, and finally to Guam, where he worked in the Japanese commissary. This kept their family safe and ignorant of the atrocities that were being committed against the island’s inhabitants. Cynthia grew up playing with the daughters of Japanese officers and learned their language. She wore a dress her mother, Luise, made her and grew accustomed to a safe life. However, the Japanese attitudes towards the Tenorio’s would soon abruptly change.
The heat was turned up for the Japanese when American aircraft carriers launched air strikes on the Marianas Islands beginning on June 12, 1944, to prepare for their invasion.
In July, as American forces prepared to liberate Guam, Japanese troops tightened down and forced the civilian population to march to Manenggon and other concentration camps where many were massacred. At the time they were forced to march, Cynthia’s father quickly gave groceries away to the Chamorus (Guam natives) from the Japanese commissary and escaped to the jungle with his family, an open act of treason. Along the way, Cynthia would hear others say that the Japanese were hunting her father, specifically, to kill for his crime.
The Tenorio family had trekked through the jungle to the Manenggon area starving, dehydrated, but together and unscathed. The nearby river offered many people a place to rest, to wash clothes, and water to drink. This is where Cynthia would catch a virus and become gravely ill. Her sister, Lillian, and other children saw “big tall Americans” marching on the hill with machine guns. They told the Chamuro people who spoke English to go toward the village of Agat for safety with the Americans. Some people who could speak English said that Americans are going to the village of Agat but Cynthia had to lay down in a cave and her mother would later tell her that she thought she was dying.
Alone in the cave, listening to the sounds of shelling, gunfire, hurried feet, and yelling, Cynthia’s mind wandered and retraced the terror of the last few days.
“I remembered when my mother put me down,” said Cynthia. “I don’t know if she was praying or crying but they all left and I was by myself inside the cave. I have no idea how long I stayed in there but there were no parents or siblings, only the noises of war and the muddled screams of panic from outside. I was crying and then I heard a clear voice ask, ‘where’s your parents?’ in Chamuro. I told him, ‘they’re outside’ and he looked at me and said, ‘there’s nobody out there.’”
Contrasting the noises coming from outside, the cave welcomed a new element of peace; it was the aroma of hope.
As the sound of machine gun fire and bombs drew closer, the sound of the river was drowned out by that of frenzy. The man told his his wife and daughter that they must go immediately and follow the others to the village of Agat. However, he stayed in the cave and said, “do not be afraid because I’m not going to leave you here alone. I’m going to take you with me.”
The man put her on his back and carried her out of the cave. Cynthia recalled, as they headed south, they passed over many dead bodies, most of whom were Japanese soldiers. As dangerous as fleeing a war zone was, she never felt more secure than on this stranger’s back.
Two days later they arrived to Agat and the man handed Cynthia over to the Americans to receive medical treatment. This was the last time she saw him, never knowing the name of the man who saved her life. Two and a half days later and on her way to recovery, Cynthia spotted her family coming out of the jungle and into camp. They were reunited once again. She recounts that it was as though her parents had seen a ghost. Of course they were ecstatic to see her but there was also an unspoken sense of guilt and discord that remained.
“For so many years after the war, I have never questioned my parents why they left me there,” said Cynthia. “My mother never told me anything and I never asked. I felt like she was trying to forget that time. I know it hurt her because who wants to leave their children behind? But I was left alone.”
The shock and pain of being abandoned became an ominous barrier between Cynthia and her parents, even 75 years after Liberation Day.
Post-war life eventually normalized once more and years later she married Agapito Terlaje in 1953 and they had nine children together. Sometime in the 1970’s after he retired from the Army and they permanently moved back to Guam, they visited the Terlaje family in their village of Yona. The elders there were exchanging their stories of the war. She sat and listened.
One man who was playing the accordion stopped playing and placed it down by his side. The man, Francisco Terlaje, proceeded to tell his story of finding a sickly little girl in a cave and rescuing her. Cynthia was suddenly captivated by this man’s story because it was her story. She had actually married into the family of the man who saved her life.
“I was shaking like a leaf,” said Cynthia.
Francisco’s children were present at the party and they had grown hearing about this girl their whole lives. They had never known what became of her and Francisco lamented not knowing. Did she live? Did she move off island? Did she marry or is she a nun? He said that ‘before I die, want to see this girl.’
Cynthia ran into his arms kissing and hugging him. The people there weren’t sure what was happening. She placed his hands on her face and said as she wept, “Look at my face. I am the girl you carried from the cave. Thank you for saving my life.”
From that point on, Cynthia and Francisco shared a lifelong bond. He was not her biological family… he was closer. She was invited to all of his family events and was treated as his oldest daughter.
She would later deliver his eulogy to a silent church.
| Date Taken: | 10.03.2019 |
| Date Posted: | 10.16.2019 06:53 |
| Story ID: | 347797 |
| Location: | GU |
| Web Views: | 67 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Abandoned and restored, by SSgt Ryan Brooks, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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