Josefina Guerrero (1917-1996) was a Filipina woman who suffered from Hansen’s Disease (Leprosy) and used the Japanese soldiers’ fear of her condition to move around Japanese-occupied Manila without suspicion, as she collected important war information, secret messages, ammunition, and supplies to pass back to the Resistance and Allied forces. She was responsible for saving the lives of thousands of American soldiers.
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Hello! From Wonder Media Network, I’m Jenny Kaplan and this is Encyclopedia Womannica.
Today’s spy was considered one of the best and most effective surveillance assets of World War II’s Pacific Arena. A Filipina woman who suffered from Hansen’s Disease, she used the Japanese soldiers’ fear of her condition to move around Japanese-occupied Manila without suspicion, as she collected important war information, secret messages, ammunition, and supplies to pass back to the Resistance and Allied forces. She was responsible for saving the lives of thousands of American soldiers. Please welcome Josefina Guerrero.
Josefina Veluva, known to friends and family as Joey, was born in 1917 in Lucban, Philippines.
When Joey was still very young, both of her parents passed away and she was sent to live with the Sisters of the Good Shepherd. Not long after, Joey contracted Tuberculosis and the nuns found themselves unable to provide her with proper care. She went to live with her grandparents while she recovered.
During her formative years, Joey attended a convent school in Manila where she learned English, played sports, and involved herself in the arts. She was described by her contemporaries as beautiful and lively. She was also deeply religious, with a particular adoration for Joan of Arc.
When Joey was 16 years old, she met Renato Maria Guerrero, a 26 year old medical student and member of one of the wealthiest and best-connected families in Manila. The young couple married and had a daughter named Cynthia.
Eight years later, in 1941, Joey began to experience a number of health issues, including fatigue, difficulty sleeping, and a series of small blemishes that appeared on her face and body. She went to an infectious disease doctor and was diagnosed with Hansen’s disease, also known as leprosy.
Hansen’s disease is a long-term infection caused by a bacterium called Mycobacterium lepromatosis. Its effects include damage to the nerves, skin, and respiratory system that can be severe and long lasting. Hansen’s disease can be spread via contact with the fluids of an infected person, which means that sufferers have long been stigmatized and ostracized as a result of their condition.
This was particularly true in the Philippines during the 1940s, where Hansen’s disease was considered a literal curse. A devoutly catholic country, many Filipinos believed that Hansen’s disease, as it states in the bible, was a “punishment for sin.” In Manila, those who suffered from Hansen’s were forced to carry a bell and provide fair warning to others that they were “unclean.” Once the disease progressed and became more apparent, sufferers were segregated from society and sent to live in special communities called leprosariums.
Even though Joey was married to a doctor who likely had some understanding of what Hansen’s disease actually was, she was nevertheless still ostracized. Her husband even took their daughter and moved out, leaving Joey utterly alone.
On December 8, 1941, the day after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Japan began what would be a brutal, years-long occupation of the Philippines. As a result of the harsh war-time rationing imposed by the Japanese, Joey was no longer able to get the medication she needed to keep her Hansen’s disease under control. Without it, the disease would continue to progress unabated.
Joey was bereft about the devastation experienced across the Philippines during the Japanese occupation, and particularly with regard to her personal situation. But she was also determined — if she was going to die, she would die doing something that mattered.
Joey reached out to a friend in the Resistance about becoming a guerilla soldier, but was initially turned down because, at 24 years old, they thought that she was too young. Nevertheless, she persisted, insisting that she could be immensely useful to their cause, and eventually the Resistance acquiesced.
Joey started working as a Resistance spy under the cover of a courier delivering information about the war. As her Hansen’s disease progressed unmedicated, her skin condition worsened and the blemishes and skin wounds on her face became much more pronounced. But instead of trying to cover up the condition, Joey decided to use it to her advantage.
At checkpoints, Joey made a point of showing her face to the Japanese soldiers who were scared of contracting the disease. So scared, in fact, that they let Joey pass without the usual full body searches because of their fear. As a result, she was able to move around Manila with comparative freedom, where she managed to listen in on conversations and pick up information relevant to the war effort. She would write any information she gleaned down on a tiny piece of paper that she would then hide in her hair bun or, later on, between two pairs of socks. Sometimes, she would pretend to be a Manila fruit peddler and would hollow out pieces of fruit to carry secret messages back to the Resistance. Besides messages and information, Joey also helped transport weapons and supplies.
By 1945, the American troops were planning a major campaign to retake Manila from the Japanese.
But there was one big problem. Intel suggested that the Japanese had planted minefields across the path the American soldiers were most likely to take. The Filipino Resistance leapt into action, creating a new map indicating where the mines were located. Now they just had to find a way to deliver the map to the American troops before they started their march. If the new map didn’t make it in time, the risk of mass casualties was huge and likely a death blow to the mission.
Joey, who had never been caught in her 4 years working as a spy, was chosen for the job. She was tasked with traveling 35 miles by foot to where the Americans were stationed. With no concrete information about how exactly to get to the Americans’ camp, she just started walking. Each day, symptoms of her Hansen’s disease worsened, including terrible headaches and fatigue, and Japanese soldiers were everywhere. Somehow she never stopped. By the time she finally made it to the American camp, she found that the Americans had left three hours earlier. So Joey turned around and walked after them until she caught up and was able to hand the map over to the American command.
Joey joined the American troops on their march to Manila, dodging bullets and tending to the sick and wounded. Though the map that Joey delivered allowed the Americans to accurately navigate the minefields, it was still a highly dangerous endeavor.
In the end, they were successful. The Americans recaptured Manila after beating back the Japanese forces.
Following the end of World War II, Joey was once again ostracized from society due to her continued struggle with Hansen’s disease. She ended up moving to a leprosarium in Quezon City, where she found the conditions there were unspeakably horrible. So she picked up her pen and wrote to American and Filipino charitable organizations who might be willing to donate funds to increase the quality of care at the facility. It worked, and soon the leprosarium was receiving a slew of upgrades and renovations.
While working on this campaign, Joey learned about a series of medical breakthroughs in the United States related to treating Hansen’s Disease, particularly at the Carville National Leprosarium in Louisiana. Joey fought tooth and nail to get an American visa, and in 1948 she left her home country to move to Louisiana where she was the first non-American admitted to the Carville National Leprosarium.
That same year, Time Magazine published a feature about Joey and her wartime accomplishments as one of the most effective spies in World War II. She was awarded the U.S. Medal of Freedom with Silver Palm for her courage during the war and for having saved thousands of American soldiers.
Joey stayed at Carville for a decade getting treatment for Hansen’s. While there, she became an activist destigmatizing Hansen’s disease and those suffering from it. After Joey was finally deemed free of leprosy, she moved to San Francisco to start a new life, before eventually moving to Washington, D.C.
Joey made significant efforts to conceal her identity and live as anonymously as possible. She even pawned her Medal of Freedom.
When Joey died on June 18, 1996, her obituary didn’t acknowledge her previous life as a spy and war hero. This was apparently how Joey wanted it, as she noted:
“I have tried very hard to efface the past. I simply want to forget it! It was too traumatic and has given me no end of heartbreak.”
Today, Joey is recognized as the extraordinary hero that she was, both in war and peace.
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