Chick Parsons

Charles Thomas "Chick" Parsons Jr. (April 22, 1902 – May 12, 1988) was an American businessman, diplomat, and decorated World War II veteran.

Parsons was born in Shelbyville, Tennessee, moved frequently, and spent part of his youth (beginning at the age of 5) in Manila, before returning to Tennessee. Charles Parsons' interest in the Philippines occurred because two of his uncles had gone there to seek their fortune. Their letters home ignited his imagination and sense of adventure. As a result, he took courses in shorthand and Spanish while in school in Chattanooga. He graduated from Chattanooga High School. A postgraduate course in commerce and his increased fluency in the local dialects allowed Parsons to find work with the Philippine Telephone and Telegraph Company. Then in 1927, he went to Zamboanga on Mindanao as a buyer of logs and lumber for the Meyer Muzzell Company. This company, financed by Mayor James Rolph of San Francisco, exported timber to the United States. This job required Parsons to travel extensively throughout Mindanao, learning details about the island and its inhabitants that would save his life many times during World War II. and Blanche Anna Walker of Oxnard, California. At that time, Parsons was 30 years old and Katrushka was only 15, but their marriage was solid and quickly produced three sons – Michael, Peter and Patrick. Parsons moved his family to Manila in 1929, where he took a job managing the Luzon Stevedoring Company as "boss stevedore," which operated a fleet of tugboats, chrome and manganese mines, and other activities. Other business interests included managing the North American Trading and Importing Company, which produced alcohol from molasses discarded from sugar refining, and the La Insular Cigar and Cigarette Factory, one of the largest tobacco interests in the Philippines and owned by Spanish royalty. Ironically, due to a Philippine law requiring a 60% American or Filipino interest in a foreign company operating in the Philippines, Parsons also became president of Nihon Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha, a Japanese mining company. In 1929, according to Ingham (1945), he also made another important career decision. He joined the United States Naval Reserve as a lieutenant (jg), and took active duty with the Pacific Fleet whenever possible. By the fall of 1941, Parsons was 39 and anticipating an early retirement, as well as spending more time enjoying his hobby of polo. In 1937, he helped organize the Los Tamaraos Club with the Elizalde brothers in Tambo, Parañaque. Parsons was proud to be the "only polo playing stevedore in the world." Then, on the night of December 8, 1941, a fellow reserve officer woke Parsons up and informed him that the entire personnel and equipment of the Luzon Stevedoring Company had been taken into the United States Navy. Parsons was immediately sworn into active duty as a full lieutenant. used their time in Manila to obtain information on the Japanese and their activities, to communicate, and even visit, with American and Filipino soldiers who had fled to the nearby hills and jungles, and to obtain information on American prisoners held by the Japanese. Charles Parsons often did this dressed as a Filipino peasant, the disguise enhanced by his deeply tanned skin caused by years in the tropical sun. He also organized and maintained extensive intelligence networks and coastwatcher radio stations throughout the country, which transmitted information on Japanese troop movements to the Allies. In 1944, Parsons returned to Leyte nine days ahead of MacArthur to help prepare the guerrillas for the invasion. Later, he accompanied the first troops into Manila, where he arranged supplies for the starving civilians newly liberated from the Santo Tomas Internment Camp. After the war, Parsons resumed his business activities in Manila and assisted in rebuilding the country.

For his distinguished military and public service, Parsons was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, two Navy Crosses, the Bronze Star, the Order of Saint Sylvester from the Vatican, the Orden de Vasco Núñez de Balboa from Panama, the Philippine Legion of Honor, and the Armed Forces of the Philippines Medal of Valor. He never requested the Purple Heart for the several times he was wounded in skirmishes with Japanese troops, once by a saber that opened up the right side of his neck. In 2004, the ballroom of the Embassy of the United States, Manila, was named after Chick Parsons.