The camp housed about 500 civilians, mostly Americans, between April 1942 and December 1944 when the internees were moved to Bilibid Prison in Manila.

[1] The American military base of Camp John Hay in Baguio was the first place in the Philippines bombed by the Japanese on December 8, 1941.

Before the war, the area was popular among Americans as a Hill station to escape the heat and disease of the lowland tropics.

At the same time, the Japanese also released a number of elderly American residents of Baguio who were permitted to live outside the camp, although with restrictions on their movements.

[7] The remaining sixty percent of internees included a large contingent of miners as many gold and other mines were in the region.

[8] A census of the internees on January 1, 1944 counted 480, including 217 males, and 263 females of whom 388 were American, 72 were British or Commonwealth, and 20 were Filipino Mestizos and others.

Halsema, former mayor of Baguio, swatted flies and mopped floors; his wife Marie prepared vegetables for cooking; married daughter Betty Foley prepared baby food, washed clothes, and supervised school study halls; her husband, Rupert, cut and hauled firewood; and brother James Halsema, a graduate of Duke University, edited a daily news summary and helped push a garbage wagon.

[17] “…work assignments followed an elaborate ‘Master Sheet’, drawn up by internee Gus Skerl, that would have done credit to the operational studies of a major corporation.

"[18] Dr. Augustus (Gus) Skerl, a British mining geologist, also grew yeast on banana skins gleaned from the garbage to provide vitamin B to those suffering from beri-beri.

[20] An event which bolstered both the health and the morale of the internees was the arrival of Red Cross food boxes in December 1943.

Each internee received one food box weighing 21 kilograms (46 lb) and packed with a large variety of foodstuffs.

There, they resided under very difficult conditions until liberated on February 4, 1945 by American soldiers engaged in expelling the Japanese army from Manila.

James Halsema and Robert Sheridan, the only Catholic priest at Camp Holmes, wrote letters to U.S. authorities offering to testify on his behalf.

The community was cohesive with recognized leaders and organized in a democratic but communal manner in which the internees were mostly equal and all had assigned tasks to perform.