Agent High Pockets

Agent High Pockets, first published in 1947 as Manila Espionage, is the fast-paced account of American Claire Phillips' experiences in Manila during the Japanese occupation in World War Two (the book is also the basis for the 1951 movie I Was an American Spy,). Prior to the war, Phillips had worked in Manila as part of a musical group. She had married, separated, and returned to the US, but came back to Manila just before the Japanese invasion. She fell in love with John Phillips, a soldier, and married him just after the war broke out; her husband became a prisoner of war, but sadly, was captured and died during his imprisonment. At the urging of American guerrilla leader John Boone, she began working for the resistance movement, opening a club for Japanese officers in order to win favors from the Japanese and to be able to send financial help and messages to the prisoners of war. The club also let her obtain intelligence from the Japanese clients, which she smuggled to the guerrillas who then forwarded the information to General Douglas MacArthur’s headquarters. As a guerrilla agent, her code name was “High Pockets” as she typically kept messages in her bra. Eventually though, she was arrested and tortured by the Japanese and spent more than eight months in prison before her liberation by U.S. Forces in 1945. After the war, she and her daughter returned to the United States. In recognition for her courageous efforts in the Philippines, Claire Phillips was awarded the Medal of Freedom in 1951.