Luis Torres Centina Jr. (August 21, 1921 – July 18, 2015) was a Filipino American author who served as a guerrilla leader in the United States Army Forces Far East (USAFFE) during the Second World War in the island of Negros in the Philippines.

“In recognition of [his] outstanding meritorious service in ground combat during World War II in the Asiatic-Pacific theater of operations," the New Jersey Department of Military and Veterans Affairs honored him with a certificate of appreciation on July 14, 2001.

On December 7, 1941, the Japanese Imperial Army launched a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, which drew the United States into World War II.

However, in the face of an impending Japanese attack on the island of Negros, Camp Magallon where he went to enlist was on edge and Army recruiters were distracted, creating an opening for Luis to present the X-ray results of a friend as his own.

He seized the opportunity to escape and sought refuge on the sugarcane farm of a friend, Eliodoro Ramos Jr., a private under his unit at Camp Barrett who refused to surrender.

His friend and brother-in-law Eliodoro was killed by a Japanese sniper during one of the fiercest battles in late 1944 leading to the liberation of the island the following year by American, Filipino and local guerrilla forces.

[4] As a guerrilla leader, Luis was promoted to staff sergeant and led eighteen enlisted men and a number of Civilian Volunteer Guards in the intelligence unit of the 7th Military District of Negros island.

The Philippines badly needed schoolteachers to provide economic development through education in a country devastated by war and newly granted independence by the United States in 1946.

Before being diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2008, Luis left copious notes in long hand about his war experiences, which were incorporated into his Search article and published as a book.

The nonfiction work tells the story of a young man caught in the cataclysm of a global conflict, and how he found love and met his destiny against the backdrop of the Second World War.

As the drums of war grow louder, he finds love within the vortex of horror and deprivation unleashed upon the Philippine archipelago by the invading Japanese Imperial Army.