1191: Claire (Phillips) Snyder
Subject of the 1951 Film “I Was an American Spy”
Born: 2 December 1907, Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States of America
Died: 22 May 1960, Portland, Oregon, United States of America
Original Name: Mabel Clara Dela Taste
Before the war, Claire was a stage actress and singer. She had two sisters and moved to Portland with her family as a child. Claire dropped out of high school in order to pursue her stage career. After joining the Baker Stock Company, Claire traveled to Manila in the then-American-occupied Philippines. After her tour ended, she decided to stay in Manila. It was during the early days there that Claire married for the first time to a Filipino merchant mariner. The marriage didn’t last, but she did adopt a baby girl around this time.
In December 1941, the Japanese Imperial Army occupied the Philippines. Claire, her daughter, and her then-fiancé fled with the American army towards the Bataan peninsula. The couple married soon afterward but were separated after her husband was captured by the Japanese.
Claire decided to become a spy for the Americans after witnessing the brutality of the Bataan Death March. In order to gather intel, Claire opened a fabulous nightclub for Japanese officers. Sadly, her husband would die while being held as a Prisoner of War.
According to the Oregon Encyclopedia (article linked below):
“After Sergeant Phillips died in Cabanatuan, Claire Phillips began smuggling medicines, food, money, and morale-building news to prisoners of war, saving many and giving hope to others. The contraband was paid for unknowingly by those who patronized her nightclub, Club Tsubaki.”
Claire employed several attractive women to serve as hostesses in the club. They would gather intelligence on troop deployments and other information from the Japanese officers they were serving and plying with alcohol.
Claire’s nickname was “High Pockets” (supposedly because she carried her valuables in her bra). She would hand the information she gathered over to guerilla fighters, who would radio the information to General Douglas MacArthur’s camp.
In May of 1944, the intelligence ring was uncovered, and Claire was arrested. She was subjected to numerous forms of torture, including being beaten, burned with cigarette butts, waterboarded, and even subjected to a mock beheading. Claire refused to break, however, and instead would only give the names of guerilla fighters she knew had already died or had moved on from the area. She was sentenced to death in November of that year.
Luckily her execution was delayed, and in February of 1945 Americans liberated the prison. Claire was released, but her torture was so profound she only weighed eighty-five pounds after being kept captive for nine months. She was reunited with her daughter soon after.
Claire returned home to Portland with her daughter after her liberation, and wrote a memoir entitled Manila Espionage, which was published in 1947.
Claire received the Presidential Medal of Freedom the following year, the highest award that can be bestowed upon a civilian in the United States. In April of 1950, government officials in Oregon gifted her a new home in Beaverton as thanks for her work during the war. The next year, the Hollywood film “I was an American Spy” was released—which had been based on her memoir. Claire went on a press tour for the film and worked as a technical advisor on it as well.
Sadly, Claire passed away unexpectedly at age fifty-two from meningitis. She had also suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress and had been an advocate for liberated military prisoners.
According to 1859 Oregon’s Magazine (article also linked below):
“In the United States Embassy in Manila, a life-sized portrait of “High Pockets,” faithfully rendered in oil, adorns the Claire Phillips Room, a meeting place for visiting dignitaries. Fittingly, it adjoins the room where generals were convicted of war crimes for atrocities in Manila.”
In 2017, a memorial to Claire was created and dedicated in Oregon’s capital city, close to the World War II memorial.
Badges Earned:
Find a Grave Marked
Source:
https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/phillips_claire/
https://oregoncapitolfoundation.org/project/claire-phillips-memorial/
https://1859oregonmagazine.com/think-oregon/art-culture/claire-phillips/
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/89746045/claire-maybelle-phillips