“Leper Spy” Josefina Guerrero and her great contribution during World War II.
A woman with leprosy named Josefina Guerrero had helped Filipino and American soldiers in significant ways during the war, and here’s how she did it.
Hansen’s disease is more commonly known as leprosy. When Josefina Guerrero was diagnosed with this disease in 1941, she thought everything was over for her. Still, her fate took a different direction, making her a significant figure and hero during World War II. Before the Japanese occupation in the Philippines, she was receiving medications for her condition, but the Japanese invasion prevented her from having access to the medicines.
Her disease advanced, but she decided to die with honor. She joined the Philippine Resistance by becoming a spy.
The Japanese occupied Manila in 1942, and she and the other people who were suffering in Manila from leprosy wore a bell indicating that they were “unclean.” While this disease devastated many, this had become her ace in the hole.
She reported troop movements and the appearance of Japanese troops near her home. Initially, the Japanese troops were aggressive towards her, forcing her to hide the messages she carried, but as her disease advanced, they started to back away. That was how she got through the hole. As a guerrilla courier, she hid messages between two pairs of socks and her hair. The Japanese soldiers could not do a full body search on her because of her skin lesions.
Guerrero mapped out Japanese fortifications and gun emplacements on the Manila waterfront, and on September 21, 1944, the American bombers used this map to wipe out the Japanese defenses in Manila Harbor.
In January of 1945, she did the most dangerous one she was tasked to do. She was made to carry a map with her that contained the minefields planted to guard Manila. She had to deliver it to the American troops, as it would help them make their way to Manila safely in order to end the Japanese occupation in the Philippines, which, at that time, had been going on for three years.
The map was taped to her back, and she set off on foot, despite her paralyzing headaches and fatigue. Her destination was Calumpit, and while the American troops had already advanced to Malolos, she strived harder to return to Malolos, and handed the map to Captain Blair of the 37th Infantry Division. The American soldiers had a safe navigation, and while the war in Manila was happening, she made her way between the rain of bullets and helped injured soldiers and civilians and carried children to safety.
When the war ended, she became an outcast again and was exiled to a leprosarium 15 miles northeast of Manila. It was a place where only four nurses were tasked to tend to 650 patients, with no running water or electricity. Most of them slept on the floor in dirty conditions, and yearly, dozens die because of malnutrition.
But her story did not end here. She became a teacher at the colony and built coffins for the dead people. She sent a letter to a friend in San Francisco, and her letter was where she revealed the miserable conditions of the leprosarium. Her letter made it to the Catholic Chaplain at the National Leprosarium of the United States in Carville, Louisiana, passed around, and caught the attention of the Manila Times.
Investigators were sent to confirm the conditions, and that was when improvements happened. New dormitories were built, beds for both the dormitories and hospitals were provided, food rations were improved, telephone service was installed for emergencies, and water stations were built. The colony was cleaned up, and more staff to tend to patients were added.
Guerrero heard about the community at Carville, Louisiana, including the medical breakthroughs, and for once, she felt a flicker of hope. She fought and worked hard to obtain the first American visa for a foreign national with Hansen’s disease, and she made it to Carville in 1948.
Her condition was advanced, and it took nine long years for her condition to improve. She continued to fight against the maltreatment and discrimination of people with Hansen’s disease. In 1957, she was discharged from Carville. However, despite her dormant condition, she found it hard to land a job because of her medical history, and at the same time, she was also appealing to the decision that would deport her back to the Philippines.
20 years after staying in the United States, she was granted permanent residence and eventually American citizenship. She tried changing her past and changed her legal name four times. She served in the Peace Corps, received two degrees, and moved from Carville to San Francisco, to Madrid, to Washington, DC.
Those from her past thought she was dead, and those in her present have no idea about her history.