Little Joe

Until the 43rd Infantry Division entered his life, Jose Estrella lived on Luzon and helped his parents in the family rice paddies. Before the war he had tried to join the U.S. Army in the Philippines, but he was too small. The Japanese put him into a forced labor camp, cutting wood for charcoal. One day, 17-year-old Jose slipped away from a work gang, swam across a river and hid in the bamboo grass, waiting, so "I will be the one in Pozorrubio to find the Americans." Three G.I.s took him to headquarters, and after that, "I walk all around and show where is Jap guns, there, and there and every one."

Jose became a mascot for the 43rd, a New England National Guard division, and he also scrubbed pots & pans in the mess tents. One night, seeing some Japs lying in ambush, Jose raced back to a G.I., saluted stiffly and cried: "Sir, Japanese sniper--this way, please!" Often he slipped at night to his parents' home, returned with roasted chickens, fresh eggs and bucayo (bits of coconut fried in brown sugar) for his G.I. pals.

The boys in the division's 152nd Field Artillery Battalion called their friend "Little Joe from Pozorrubio." Little Joe stuck with them through six months of combat. But when the 43rd moved on to occupation duty in Japan, Jose went sadly back to work in the rice paddies.

Later, Jose wrote to one of his old pals of the 43rd, ex-Sergeant F. Allen Shippee, who now manages an ice plant in East Providence, R.I. Jose said that he wanted to come to the States to study agriculture, and would sell his carabao to pay for it. Shippee put up bond to permit him entry into the U.S. as a nonquota student, and fixed up a room for him in the Shippee home. Last week, Little Joe, with $32 in his pocket, arrived in Providence. For his old friends in the 43rd, he had brought along a big grin, and 7 Ibs. of bucayo, wrapped in banana leaves.

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