Heroes are people who rise to the occasion and slip away quietly. –Tom Brokaw
This war veteran was caught, tortured and starved. Forced into a small 2 foot by 4-foot cell made this service member fight for life as a prisoner of war. This prisoner needed something to pull them through the ordeal.
Her mantra was “I will survive.” Yes, this prisoner was a woman. Her story is a tale of resolve, grit and ultimately, humbleness. An American hero whose story needs to be repeated.
“Women don’t tell war stories like men do,” observed her daughter Betty Murphy.
Loring May Ebersole (her name later became Florence) was born in Santiago City, Luzon, north of Manila on October 11, 1915. She was the daughter of US Army veteran Charles Ebersole of the Spanish American War and a Filipino Mother, the former Maria Hermosa.
The Philippines had been a US Territory from 1898 with many Americans living on the islands.
Florence (or Betty as she was known all of her life) worked as a stenographer for the US Army intelligence in Manila. She met Chief Electricians Mate Charles Edward Smith a crewmember on a PT Boat. They married August 19, 1941, four months before war was declared. Her husband was killed on February 8, 1942 as he tried to supply American and Filipino troops trapped by the enemy on Corregidor Island and the Bataan Peninsula.
In Manila, all military personnel were ordered to evacuate, apprehension for anyone remaining was imminent. She avoided capture and interment hiding her American citizenship and claiming herself a Philippine subject. They offered her the position of writing names on fuel ration tickets due to her superior penmanship. Betty wrote false names and forged fuel ration tickets for Filipino guerrilla members.
The guerrilla resistance ran propaganda campaigns and intelligence gatherings. They also performed armed resistance and sabotage. They discovered Japanese mines, and Japanese spies. Her assistance was of great help.
A message from a former boss, Major Engelhart of the Army intelligence asked for help in their imprisonment. Food and medicine were in short supply. Betty smuggled supplies to them.
Betty was arrested by the Japanese for her complicity in aiding the American and the Japanese enemy forces in October 1944, as the Americans made strides to recapture the Philippines. She was interrogated and then tortured with electrical clamps on her fingers when she would not provide information about how they were assisting the underground efforts. Betty was sentenced to three years’ hard labor at the Women’s Correctional Institution in Mandaluyong, near Manila. Her cell only allowed her to squat.
“She was down on her haunches basically every day, and was only fed a bowl of rice gruel per day,” her daughter Betty Murphy remembers her mother telling her.
Her rescue from the prison camp came in February 1945. Weighing only eighty pounds, she was returned to the United States in a Coast Guard-manned transport. Betty regained her strength and joined the Coast Guard Woman’s Reserve (SPARS-Semper Paratus-Always Ready) on July 13, 1945 on LST-512, which had served in D-day and was then in New York Harbor. Her basic training was at Manhattan Beach Training Station. When asked why she enlisted, she replied “to avenge the death of my husband.”
When the war was over, she met US Army veteran Robert Finch. They married and moved to Ithaca, New York. Betty worked as a secretary at Cornell University and raised two children.
In 1947, she was awarded the Medal of Freedom (which later became the Presidential Medal of Freedom), the nation’s highest award to a civilian. She was also awarded the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Ribbon.
In observance of the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II in 1995, a Coast Guard Administrative building on Sand Island in Hawaii was named in her honor.
As she reflected on her war service, Betty said, “I feel very humble, because my activities in the war effort were trivial compared with those people who gave their life for their country.”
Florence “Betty” Ebersole Smith Finch left this life on December 8, 2016 at the age of 101. She leaves a daughter Betty, a son Bob, sister Olive Keats, six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Mr. Finch died in 1968.
Full military honors were offered Saturday, April 29, 2017 for her interment at Pleasant Grove Cemetery in Cayuga Heights, New York. Betty asked for the delay in her service as she did not want family and friends to disrupt their holidays and also not to have to travel in the winter weather.
In keeping with Tom Brokaw’s quote at the opening, this quiet person, Seaman First Class Finch remained hushed to her acquaintances about service to her country.
“Her friends were flabbergasted. They had no idea that was her history,” daughter Betty remembers. “It had not defined her, but it defined how she lived her life.”
“Of the thousands of women who served with honor in the United States Coast Guard, one stands out for her bravery and devotion to duty.” –2015 Coast Guard Blog