The Leper Spy: The Story of an Unlikely Hero of World War II - Hardcover

Montgomery, Ben

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1613734301 ISBN 13: 9781613734308

Publisher: Chicago Review Press, 2016

Synopsis

The GIs called her Joey. Hundreds owed their lives to the tiny Filipina woman who was one of the top spies for the Allies during World War II, stashing explosives, tracking Japanese troop movements, and smuggling maps of fortifications across enemy lines for Gen. Douglas MacArthur. As the Battle of Manila raged, young Josefina Guerrero walked through gunfire to bandage wounds and close the eyes of the dead. Her valor earned her the Medal of Freedom, but the thing that made her an effective spy was a disease that was destroying her.

Guerrero suffered from leprosy, which so horrified the Japanese they refused to search her. After the war, army chaplains found her in a nightmarish leper colony and campaigned for the US government to do something it had never done: welcome a foreigner with leprosy. The fight brought her celebrity, which she used on radio and television to speak for other sufferers. However, the notoriety haunted her after the disease was arrested, and she had to find a way to disappear.

About this title

About the Author:

Ben Montgomery is the author of the New York Times bestseller Grandma Gatewood’s Walk, which won the 2014 National Outdoor Book Award for History/Biography. An award-winning staff writer at the Tampa Bay Times, Montgomery was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in 2010. 

Review:

When Joey GuerreroLeaumax, a volunteer usher at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, dies,her brief obituarymentions only her birth in Manila and late-life accomplishments. What it omitsis her diagnosis ofleprosy, her WWII heroism in the Philippines, her championing of the rights oflepers, and her receiving theMedal of Freedom. The story of this unlikely spy begins when, as a young wifeand mother, Josefina Guerrerois diagnosed with leprosy. Forced to give up her husband and young daughter andlive in isolation,Guerrero decides to work for the resistance when Manila is attacked by Japan.Her leprosy, ironically,protects her from scrutiny by the enemy, and she is able to observe troops, drawmaps, and smuggleinformation to the Americans and food to prisoners of war. After the surrender,Guerrero is exiled to a leper colonywhere she protests the unsanitary conditions and scant medicine and latertravels to the U.S. fortreatment. Montgomery (Grandma Gatewood's Walk, 2014) offers afascinating tribute to the slight Filipinawho courageously saved thousands and chose anonymity. -- CandaceSmith, Booklist

Yet odds are you have never heard of Joey Guerrero, as she was known (along with several other names). Until a few years ago, neither had Ben Montgomery, but his new book, The Leper Spy: The Story of an Unlikely Hero of World War II, brings her extraordinary life back into the light. - Colette Bancroft, Tampa Bay Times

About this edition

• Publisher: Chicago Review Press
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1613734301
• ISBN 13: 9781613734308
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 288