Claire Phillips, High Pockets
Editor’s note: Corry E. Mason sent an excerpt from the book Ghost Soldiers: The Forgotten Epic Story of World War II’s Most Dramatic Mission by Hampton Sides to The Columbia Star. Mason said, “The book Ghost Soldiers involves the prison camp my father resided in (during WWII). His weight dropped from 180 lbs. to 78 lbs. I believe it’s true to say I might not be writing this now if it were not for the heroism of Claire Phillips, aka High Pockets. If ever there was a great American hero, it is she. Her story could stand being recycled into the light of day again. Who was Claire Phillips, aka High Pockets, Clara Fuentes, and Madame Tsubaki?
Compiled by
Mimi M. Maddock
Claire Phillips, a singer and dancer, obtained false papers passing herself off as Italian while stuck in Manila with a small child. She borrowed money and opened an upscale cabaret, Club Tsubaki, that catered to Japanese officers. Her husband at the time was a prisoner of war in Cabanatuan. Phillips and her Filipina staff gathered valuable information from the Japanese that they passed on to the allied intelligence. Phillips gained the title “High Pockets” because she hid the messages in her brassiere. She used the proceeds from her club to buy food and medical supplies to smuggle to the prisoners. She also printed an underground tabloid telling war details.
Phillips’ husband died in Cabanatuan. Phillips was arrested by the Kempeitai and held at Bilibid Prison where she was tortured and kept in solitary confinement for six months awaiting execution for espionage. She was liberated by American forces in 1945. She returned home to Portland, Oregon, and wrote about her experiences in the book Manila Espionage in 1947. She was awarded the Medal of Freedom in 1951. Phillips died in 1960 at age 52 in Portland Sanitarium.
Many stories have been told about Claire Phillips. The movie I Was An American Spy came out in 1951. She is featured in The Great Raid by William Breuer, Ghost Riders by Hampton Sides, and recently in High Pockets by Edna Bautista Binkowski.
An excerpt from Ghost Soldiers
“The most fascinating of all of Cabanatuan’s clandestine enterprises, was the one operated by a mysterious woman known to prisoners as High Pockets. During the occupation, High Pockets ran a popular Manila Cabaret, Club Tsubaki, where Japanese Officers liked to congregate…. From the front door of the club, one could look back and see the vast piers and wharf installations along Manila Bay, where the Japanese warships and transports docked for repairs and where Imperial Army and Navy quartermasters resupplied their stores for the fierce battles that were being waged throughout the Pacific.
“…The newly arrived officers could walk right off the planked piers and into Club Tsubaki for an evening of drinks, dancing, and female companionship.
“Patrons would be greeted at the door by the club’s owner, a glamorous 33–year–old woman who claimed to be a Filipina of Italian extraction named Dorothy Clara Fuentes. She would be dressed in a white evening gown with a plunging neckline and a slit halfway up her thigh. Her olive skin would glitter with jewels. She would bow very slowly and, with an expansive gesture, she would say ‘Kombanwa.’ Then, she would escort her guests arm in arm through the cream–colored bar, past the dancing stage with its curtains of lavender satin, to the rattan settees along the back wall.
Fuentes would set up each party with a suggestively dressed hostess, who was theirs for the night. The hostesses would pour the Japanese drinks, stroke their hair, light their cigarettes, and keep up a constant chirp of flatteries in a mangled polyglot of English, Japanese, Spanish, and Tagalog.
“The floor shows lasted into the night…The dance troupe performed beneath the spotlights wearing little more than gold satin G–strings, coconut shells, and bright headdresses fashioned with turkey feathers. Fuentes encouraged the dancers to vamp it up as much as possible…
“Now and then Madame Tsubaki would climb the stage and sing a few of her signature torch songs. She was a natural chanteus.
“After the set, she would cuddle up beside the club’s most prominent guest and give him all the attention he could stand…She would begin to ask questions: Will you come tomorrow night? When do you leave Manila? Which one of those ships out there is yours? What are you carrying on such a big boat? Where will you go next?
“At the end of the evening Madame Tsubaki would escort her clients to the door and bow low in gratitude…While her memory was fresh, she would jot down everything the Japanese officers had told her that might be of military significance. She’d promptly hand her code–written note to a Filipino runner waiting in the alley. The runner would deliver the message to American guerrillas operating in the hills of Bataan, who would then relay relevant details, via shortwave radio, to General MacArthur’s strategic headquarters in Australia or New Guinea. Her notes, dashed of in a nearly illegible scrawl, would always close with the recognizable sign off:
Yours in war,
High Pockets
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