Page 47 - WashingtonSyCip_Bio_Excerpt_2nd_Edition

Passenger on a Ship

Those were carefree times for Wash and his unlikely gangmates. By Frankie’s account,
they comprised “Wash, with a Chinese background, from the Philippines; Jan,
an Afrikaner from South Africa; Ed, a descendant of Norwegian pioneers, from
Wisconsin; and me, a New Englander, with English ancestors who came to America
in colonial days.”

Another close friend of Wash in those days was Mary Fitt. Her parents were from
Scarsdale, owners of the company that manufactured Simmons beds. Mary introduced
Wash to American baseball, and once took him to Ebbets Field in Brooklyn. Because
they had not purchased tickets in advance, all they got were seats high up in the
bleachers. Mary pointed out the players on the field to him, teaching him about
positions and plays. But Wash said he couldn’t see the numbers on their uniforms.
Mary later took Wash to the Manhattan Eye Hospital where she had a friend test his
eyesight. This was how Wash found out that he needed prescription glasses.

Caught in the whirl of war

Soon Wash would discover that his eyesight was the least of his worries. War had been
raging in Europe for more than a year now, but on December 7, 1941, it took a drastic
turn eastward. A few hours after Pearl Harbor was attacked, Japanese bombers flew
over Baguio, Davao, Aparri, Iba, and Clark Air Field, catching the Americans flat-
footed. The war could not have come at a more inopportune moment for Washington
SyCip, who was just 20 and was already poised to achieve his PhD in record time.

“When Pearl Harbor day came, I was in the library working on my dissertation—my
outline had been approved. A friend came running in, crying, ‘Wash, Wash your
home is being bombed!’ So we went out of the South Hall library and listened to the
radio broadcast. I felt so completely lost. I was in a foreign country, and there was a
war, and my family was over there.”

It isn’t hard to imagine Wash’s anxiety at this instant. Sharp as his instincts were, he
must’ve sensed that the war was coming to America, perhaps even the Philippines,
and the only question was when—even if, at times, America and especially New York
seemed too busy or having too much fun to worry about a war.

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