Filipino soldiers pray for their president, cheated by death from return to homeland.

Filipino soldiers pray for their president, cheated by death from return to homeland. Acting as candle bearers, a group of Filipine Soldiers kneels in the sanctuary of a Catholic Cathedral in Australia, during a solemn Pontifical High Mass of Requiem for the late President Manuel Quezon of the Philippines. The President died on Aug. 1, 1944, at the U.S. home where he had taken refuge since his country fell to the Japanese. Had he lived but three months longer, he would have been able to fulfill his supreme ambition, which was to return with the forces of U.S. General Douglas MacArthur to help drive out the enemy. The General announced on Oct. 20, 1944, that President Sergio Osmena, Mr. Quezon's successor, had landed with the American and Filipino forces of liberation, and with members of his cabinet, was re-establishing the Government on Philippine soil.