If you look at Ayala Ave. – G. Puyat and Makati Avenues, these three roads form a triangle similar to an airfield. It was the old Nielsen Field. (See Photo)
It was Joseph McMicking’s idea to develop Makati as the new financial center of the Philippines. Yet not a tiny street, park or even a building was named after Joseph McMicking and Roy Hall.
Neither was there anything named after Gen. Douglas MacArthur.
The Old Nielsen Field. It was Joseph McMicking’s idea to relocate Manila’s financial district to Makati in the old Nielson Field located northeast of Nichols Fields renamed Villamor Air Base.
Built by the Americans before the war, the Nielson airfield had two intersecting runways, the main runway NW/SE and a smaller runway running NE to SW, with taxiways that connected both, plus dispersal areas in the surrounding area. Prewar, used by American Far Eastern Aviation and Philippine Air Lines (PAL).
When the threat of war loomed, Nielson was taken over by the FEAF (Far East Air Force) and enlarged with hangers, workshops and facilities. FEAF’s Manila Air Depot is where new aircrafts were assembled and equipment stored.
Had the Philippines remained a U.S. Territory, Nielsen Field and Nichols Field would have been American Battlefield Monuments like the rest of the entire Philippines.
Below: Feb. 1945 map showing Nichols and Nielson Airfields plus Fort McKinley. – From the book: “The Battle For Manila”. It also shows the progress made by advancing U.S. troops.
If you look at Ayala Ave. – Makati Ave. and Gil Puyat Ave. (formerly Buendia Ave.) these three roads form a triangle similar to an airfield.
In fact, the Makati financial district was built around the old Nielson Airfield of WWII. (See Photos)
It was Joseph McMicking’s idea to develop Makati as the new financial center of the Philippines. Yet not a tiny street, park or even a building was named after Joseph McMicking and Roy Hall.
Neither was there anything named after Gen. Douglas MacArthur.
Somehow those from Panay Island, the ancestral land of Japanese collaborator-turned Philippine President Manuel A. Roxas and his relatives Ayala, Araneta, Zobel, Soriano end up owning practically everything in the Philippines.
The Old Nielsen Field Tower is now a library. I doubt the library will contain books detailing how McMicking and Hall families were “randomly” found by the Japanese and killed in Jan. 1945 as Gen. MacArthur was nearing Manila. Manuel A. Roxas, Ayala-Zobel’s cousin was working for the Japanese at that time.
Excerpt: “My question was why were those who collaborated with the Japanese treated differently from those who fought with Nazi Germany like the Ukrainians? Did the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have something to do with this leniency and over accommodation of oligarch-traitors?
Here is a 1943 photo of Brig. Gen. Manuel A. Roxas in US Army uniform sitting beside Col. Nobuhiko Jimbo of the Japanese Imperial Army. Later Manuel A. Roxas and other oligarch-traitors would manipulate the April 1946 referendum and circumvent the people’s decision to go back to a Philippine Commonwealth. Nothing short of an independent and sovereign Philippines would save them from going back to prison.
“The crime against our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that’s the essence of inhumanity.” – George Bernard Shaw in his play “The Devil’s Disciple” Act II (1901) If there is such thing as hate crime, there should be the crime of indifference. – Not everything is bad in the Philippines. Here’s a good one. An oligarch and ethnic Spaniard won a contract in France. The Alexander Graham Bell of the Philippines, Augusto Zobel de Ayala and the A. G. Bell of France, Michel Combes signed a deal last 17 Sept. 2014. The photo of the skin and bones starving boy was taken on 12 Oct. 2014. PHOTO: French President Francois Hollande (2nd row, R with a worried look) and Philippine President Benigno Aquino (2nd row,L), attend the signature ceremony of agreements between Alcatel-Lucent CEO Michel Combes (R) and Globe Telecom Chairman Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala at the Elysee Palace in Paris September 17, 2014. REUTERS/Christian Hartmann (FRANCE – Tags: POLITICS BUSINESS TELECOMS)
On the 10th anniversary of 9/11 WAIS editor John Eipper asked WAISers: “Where were you on Tuesday, September 11, 2001?”
Photos below are the WAIS posts of Mike Delong Deputy Commander of Central Command on 9/11/01 and David W. Pike President of the American University in Paris at that time.
Mike Delong’s post was not only about 9/11 but 9/12 and 9/13 as well. Sadly on July 28, 2018 Mike Delong died after suffering a heart attack. He was 73. RIP. SF.
On this 17th year anniversary of 9/11, I wish to add to my WAIS post the following:
In the afternoon of 9/11, I went to pick-up my son Gabe and Drake from school. Gabe asked me: “Dad, are we at war?”
I said: “Yes, son. But it’s going to be a very different kind of war.”
I wanted to tell Gabe: “There will be a lot of fighting and sometimes we will be fighting the enemy.” But at that time Gabe was 10 and Drake was 8 at that time. Although I was sure this is what’s going to happen, I didn’t want to confuse the kids. I was right.
WAIS links:
Memories of 9/11 (Michael Delong, Qatar, 09/11/11 5:12 am)
