You can’t build a hospital with 3000 beds without first finding a source of water.  As it turns out, water on a small island can be difficult to find - especially when the local inhabitants don’t want you to know where it is. To accomplish this you need to follow the “locals” day and night -  until they need to refill their supplies. 

Having done this, water was soon discovered deep in the underground caves within the jungle landscape.  As my dad tells it, the elderly women would spend hours, climbing down into dark and precarious caves only to return with small buckets of a milky white substance they called water.
Typical Cave in the Turk Islands
Actual cave entrance. Note the timber reinforcement.  This is Jack Wagner as a young man. Taken at the cave entrance.
Working deep in the cave.  Jack - evaluating the quality of the water and the extraction process.
This is a mini pump - typical of what would have been installed before the sand filtration system.


It wasn’t long after the discovery that they would construct a pumping system designed to extract the “water” from deep underground, pressurize it and press it thru a system of sand filters producing crystal clear water at the turn of a tap!

Upon completion of the job,  Papa Jack was thrilled at the prospect of sharing this miracle of technology with the local women.

Much to his surprise, they wouldn’t touch the stuff!  It was the wrong color for what they knew water to be. They shrugged their shoulders, packed up their buckets, crawled over the pumping equipment and down into the caves to retrieve the milky white substance.

It was of course a safety hazard to allow the women to crawl over and around the actively pumping equipment so, being the engineer and solution provider, Dad shut down the pumping station, cut the main feed line, spliced into the filtering system and welded-in a facet.

As he told the story, the local women were absolutely thrilled!  No longer did they have to crawl into the caves to fetch their milky white water and the miracle of a facet at the cave’s entrance put very large smiles on their faces.

Of course, there were hold-outs so he eventually had to weld the cave entrance shut.

Sleeping during those long jungle nights in the heat and humidity also came with its fair share of unfamiliar noises.  One noise in particular was the constant rumbling of  trucks passing in and out of the Navy base.  Occasionally, there were nights when the trucks would make a low “thump-thump” as they passed by. The noise was similar to that of a speed bump, and in fact, that’s about what it was. When morning came, he would see a very large Anaconda snake stretched out across the road, dead from the trucks, and the local women swarming around it excited to get the meat.


He also remarked about the incredibly large bats (5 feet and greater) which I was sure was just a fantasy story enhanced for my benefit.  Kind’a like the big fish story with his arms stretched out - you know - “this big”. He spoke about how he would often come across a local market where one was tied to a tree branch in preparation for a meal.  It was difficult for me to imagine such a large bat - until the day I came across this picture!

Once, my father told me about a time he was put in charge of  “keeping an eye” on a group of Japanese prisoners/workers.  It was a hot and very humid summer day in the Philippines and a road-side work crew or ‘chain gang’ spent the day in the sun pick and shoveling a trench along the side of the road. 

As the story goes, it was a long day of work in the sun and my father (Papa Jack), at the young age of  23, was responsible for ensuring the crew performed the day’s work swinging picks and shoveling dirt and rock with the goal of constructing a drainage ditch along the road.

Representation of a work crew


As the day dragged on, my father eventually removed his shirt along with his 9 millimeter, holstered hand gun – setting them both at his side on the hood of the truck.  Things got busy and the work crew, along with my father slowly made their way down the road putting a notable distance between them and the truck – when my father realized that he had left the gun behind.  As he panicked, realizing what he had done, he noticed the Japanese crew chief, walking towards him – gun in hand. 

Example road under construction in the Philippines


The crew chief understood the gravity of the mistake and quietly raised the gun – still in its holster – and presented it to my father.  I can only imagine how my father’s heart have would raced with the fear and sudden realization of what just happened. 

Thankfully, the crew chief was an older man and mature enough to understand and respect his captives . . .

and the situation ended without incident.