Just about the time Jim was first climbing into the cockpit of his WACO 10 somewhere in Minnesota, a first child - a daughter - was born to Mateo and Josefina Ruiz at Sta. Cruz, Manila, Philippines.

She was named Araceli. Sally is what she is known as now - an easier pronunciation for language impaired Americans of Celi, as she was called by her friends and family. Sally's father was with the Kabasalan Goodyear rubber plantation in the Southern parts of the island nation and there were strong opinions within the extended family that Kabasalan was no place to raise a child. Therefore, Sally, at a very young age, went to live with her grandmother and aunt in Manila to be formally educated. Her visits home were brief during vacations from school. This was a strict upbringing with her grandmother and she was very much required to be 'toe to the line' at all times. She was a bright, resourceful and spunky girl and, in the process, Sally also became quite an accomplished pianist. She grew up retaining those characteristics becoming a bright, resourceful and spunky young woman who was also devastatingly beautiful.

Sally & her mother Josefina

On December 8, 1941, ten hours after the Japanese attack of Pearl Harbor and while Jim was sequestered on the S.S. Lurline heading for San Francisco, the Japanese invaded The Philippines. The American and the Philippine armies left for Bataan - on the 12th the US Fleet left for Java - on the 25th the government declared Manila an open city and left for Corregidor Island - and on January 2, 1942 the Japanese army took Manila with little resistance. Their leaving would not be so clean. Sally was there. She now resided in an occupied city.

As Jim was at Douglas testing and ferrying aircraft for war, Sally and her relatives were living by their wits. Theirs was a hand-to-mouth existence punctuated with air raids and the constant uncertainty of what the Japanese might do to them on any given day.

Sally tended to be a bit sassy with the Japanese (something that in retrospect may not have been the wisest of things to do) and one day she made comments to a Japanese soldier concerning the return of the Americans and how sorry the Japanese would be then. This soldier, for some reason, let her know in no uncertain terms that if the Americans did return, the Japanese army would destroy that city. From then on Sally remained prepared and mobile for that day.

The true horrors of war reached Sally and her Manila family when MacArthur finally did return.

The liberation of Manila was really the destruction of Manila. Between February 3 to March 3, 1945, with the Americans shelling and bombing and the Japanese making good on their promise of total destruction, the Pearl of the Orient was largely reduced to rubble. The Japanese didn't just destroy structures, however, they also committed mass murder of the Filipino population of Manila. It is estimated that between 100,000 to 150,000 civilians died within the city over those 30 days - many due to direct Japanese action. Some estimates are higher.

In Sally's own words -

Sally was there.

Sally survived.

There are no images of her during that time.

While Sally was struggling in Japanese-held Manila her father, Mateo, was doing his part for the Allied war effort. This account is from an article in Time, 1945.

Sally's father was a remarkable man and he and his colleagues perfomed great service under difficult conditions.

At war's end and through the efforts of Mateo and the Red Cross, Sally was reunited with her family in the south (each not knowing if the others had survived) and she could be something new now. Something she had not been able to be, up until then - just her mother and father's daughter and a big sister to a growing family.

Then - one day - an opportunity came.

Never a more fateful series of words uttered for them both - "I met Jim then..."