“A Christmas Story”, read by Benedict,
Christmas play Umeda Bunsho, Christmas Day, 1943

It happened in a prison camp in nineteen-forty-three;
The Christmas door was opened by a spirit with a key.
To every man he made his way and laid his hand on each;
A very special lesson to them he had to teach.

He took all growls and smirks and sneers,
little worry devils and grudges and tears;
He tied them all together and burned them to an ash.
Then he brought a lot of smiles and things, with a special spirit -- cash.

He replaced the things that he had swiped with things to make men gay;
For he was just determined to have a perfect day.
All arguments and petty feuds he brought to a sudden end,
and into each man he did inject a tonic of spirit blend.

When his job was finished he settled back to see just how gay and Carefree this crowd of men could be;
All through the day good will did flow from the heart of every lad;
Every man was filled with joy, not even one was sad.

Then Christmas it did fade into another day;
The spirit smiled unto himself, and then did drift away.
By Benedict, Christmas Eve, 1943

--?--
‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the flat not a creature was stirring, not even a rat;
The Foos were all muted by the spell of the night;
The watch stood silent under shaded light.

Men lay dreaming of loved ones at home, and wondering why they ever did roam.
Before them rose visions of cheeses and cakes --
And then came a clatter that gave men the shakes.

A spirit, walking and giving advice to sippers of soup and eaters of rice.
“Tomorrow is Christmas,” the spirit did say. “Good cheer and kindness must fill the whole day.”
Some men were stopped on the way to the head, and given good dope by a ghost dressed in red.
“Forget all differences, be every man’s friend, and silent prayers to your folks you can send.”

Then the ghost did laugh for he had seen a sight -- a Phil and a rat were having a fight
over a box of cheese from a Red Cross Box that the Phil had wrapped in a pair of sox!

Away ran the rat, a-cursing his luck, so blinded by anger that he ran a-muck.
He sprang a trap and ended his life, leaving five kids and a hungry wife.

But the Phil had his cheese and Christmas had come,
And the men went on dreaming of cakes soaked in rum.

December 25th, 1943
Rather a nice Christmas Day. No Red Cross boxes, but a good day anyhow. The company gave us a few small presents. Church Services in the morning, an “Old Scrooge” play applied to life in the Umeda Bunsho. (Afternoon) Some personal packages have been received in the past month, about 40 on the day before Christmas. So far, no mail or packages for occo, but there are some regular Red Cross boxes knocking around Osaka and we may cash in on that. Also some mail is coming in the next few days.

Rumors are scarce now, but the last ones tell of an American landing on a northern Jap island (Shushima). Also that the nips lost as many as 20,000 men in one day’s fighting down south. Men much less optimistic now about when it all will end, but even more confident of getting home when it is. Attitude quite cheerful and morale good. Up till now weather pretty good. Cold at night, but warms up during the day.

Christmas ends uneventful; 1944 is the Year.

It was New Year's Day, or just before New Year's Day, 1944. The (Japanese) army came out to investigate, and there was hell to pay. They wanted someone's neck, and they went looking for that sugar. As far as I know, they did not find any sugar, but they did find unpolished rice in Hashimoto's house. They also found it in the Nigger's house. He was our personal honcho. These two were arrested. If the rice was unpolished, it meant that it was not rationed. They were in big trouble. The thirty-five year old wife came and asked us why not tell the kimpi that you stole the sugar; they cannot do anything to you because you are already prisoners. We looked blankly at her and said, "Wakare masen", "I don't understand." We kept saying this. We later found out that they went to jail, one for three years and one for one year. I found this out after the war was over.

Monday, April 12 (1944) -- Boy! (Tocsan) chow tonite. Canteen cupful of rice, three teacups of lima bean soup, 2 teacups of gravy made from some of the Red Cross stuff, best meal since Christmas of ‘42!

One other occasion, when Krebs and I were trying to get something for all of us to drink, we found that there was a carload of beer on the tracks. We thought it would be a carload of bottled beer, and we went there with our trusty little steel bar and opened the door. It was a swinging door and swung out. When we opened it, a barrel of beer fell out in our hands. It was too large to put back, and we did not want to put it back. We laid it on the ground, and rolled it and hid it under rice pads and straw. The shack had a number of tracks, I suppose eight or ten, running along our freight lines. Some were passenger lines and some were just sidings. Under our end of the tracks, it was all enclosed. The stairway was enclosed with tarps. It was not a very secure area, no locks on the doors or anything like that. It was adequate for us because we had the tea hidden and sometimes we were doing things that were not permissible.

On the occasion when we got the barrel of beer, it was evening, and we had it there overnight. The next day was Shogaats -- this is New Year's Day. The year was 1944. Rather than leave that barrel in that shack overnight and have it discovered, we decided to put it in a carload of empty soy sauce barrels near our shack. We did this, but the problem was that it was two inches too tall. The soy sauce barrels were all the same height except the one with our barrel in it and it was two inches taller. So we couldn't do that. We found that if we stomped the bottom out of the barrel, it could sit in the barrel and the barrel would hide it from the public view and all the barrels would be the same height. We left it that way over the weekend. When we came back the next workday, it was New Year's Day and no one was around. The Gonzagas that took us out there, they disappeared. They had their own celebrating and they did not think that we would do anything bad, anyway. We were able to get the beer and open it up and thirty-five of us sat around and had a merry old time. We weren't even able to drink it all and when nightfall came, we still had some in the wooden bucket. By the next morning, we still had the bucket. Hashimoto found out about the sugar. He came into our shack -- it don't know if he was looking for it or venting his anger -- but he tore the tarpaulin down and broke up whatever there was to break up and, incidentally, he did not even notice the bucket of beer. But he did break it up. That was the end of the beer incident.

I remember the good things that happened the best. I don't remember the bad things that much. I guess it is a protective mechanism. Another thing that I remember while at Tenoji is that I was working one day and a little Japanese came up. He was a railroad checker and was in uniform. He was a railroad policeman, a uniformed personnel guard. I said, "Nani?" which means, "What do you want?" And he said, “Arukruho bosho san hakko juni.” This means, "alcohol in space number 312." I told him, “Arigato gazaimas.” (That's great; thank you.) I headed toward the benjo and then veered off and got to space number 312. I looked around and did not find any alcohol. I saw household goods and rice sitting there. I also saw a thirty-five gallon drum, all black and oily, there amongst the other stuff, but that was all I saw. I thought what he told me was not true, or else that I did not understand what he had told me. So I went back to work and forgot about it.

A couple of days later, the checker came back to me and said, "Hai, Beeru honcho – arukruho domi des?" This meant, "What's the matter? Isn't the alcohol any good?" I said, believing that there was no alcohol, “Anatano sindin honcho”. (You are a propaganda boss – liar – there is no alcohol there).

He said that yes there is, and come with me. We walked over to number 312 and I proceeded to stack some straw around this drum and this was to make a hiding place, and I could knock the bundle out of here. I had a siphoning hose, and it was not very good. There were many holes in it, and you had to cover them all with your fingers, like playing a flute, but when you got them covered and drew on it, the alcohol would keep running until the container was full. We had containers by the thousands and they were big bottles and held a couple of quarts. These were also used for soy sauce. I crawled under the shelter and knocked out the bun and got myself a couple quarts of alcohol. I stuck the container under my belt and covered it with my apron and went back to the work shack where I tested the alcohol. We were very concerned about drinking something that might be poisonous.

We had a number of tests; actually, the Navy guys had the tests, the first being that if you put the alcohol in clear water and it wiggled down and stayed clear, it was drinkable, but if it turned the water white, you could not drink it. Our alcohol failed this test. It turned the water fuzzy white.

The next test was to burn it in a spoon, and if it burned with a blue flame, it was drinkable, but if it burned with a yellow flame, it was not to be drunk. Our alcohol failed this test, too.

We had a dog, though, a little mascot. It was a little mongrel, friendly dog. We had fed it and kept it. Someone suggested we give some to the dog. So we figured the amount for a little animal like that, shook the alcohol in some water and poured it down his throat. He had to drink or drown, so he drank. After a few minutes he started to act up and was even more friendly than usual and licking everyone's hand. Pretty soon, his rear end fell over, and then the rest of him fell over. He lay there, whimpering, unconscious; we were waiting for him to either die or wake up with a hangover. But he didn't do either one.

We had a man with us who had been in Asia for twenty or twenty-five years. He was about fifty years old and tough-looking. His name was Kassel and he was a chief bolsam's mate. He had been sitting there, watching our tests, and watching the dog, and drooling for some alcohol. Finally he said, gruffly, "Give me some of that goddamned stuff!" So we mixed him up some of the potion. We figured out about one part alcohol to eight parts water or so -- it was two hundred proof. Kassel drank the potion, and we waited for him to either get drunk or die. And he got drunk, and he got happy. And he did not die or get sick. With this, our ultimate test, the alcohol passed muster.

There were fifty-five gallons of the two hundred proof alcohol, and totally accessible. No one was watching it and the railroad policemen had told us to take it. I spent days doing this. Instead of working, I would crawl under there with a bottle and get it filled up. I don't remember how many bottles I took out of there -- fifteen or twenty-five at least. I had them stashed in a number of places. I had them in the shack and outside the shack. In-between the railroad tracks I would dig a hole, put in a bottle, cover it up with a thin layer of rock. We had enough alcohol to last us for a long, long war. Each guy had a pop bottle. We would pour about one inch into the bottle and fill the rest with water. We would add sugar or if we had something different, we would add that, too. If we had nothing else, we would have water and alcohol. We would stick that in our belt, and we would go to work. When we worked, we had a good time. It helped us pass the time of day. Of course, we would have to be cautious and not get too stoned so that one could not walk in and count off at night.

We all did that except one guy. One guy over indulged, and that was Kassel. He came in and he was drunk. They caught him. They could not understand how this prisoner could be that drunk. They tanned his rear end with six-foot long bamboo poles just like he was a baseball. They beat him until he got sober. Within five or ten minutes, he was sober.

I told you about my health before, and how I had finally built up the strength to walk over to the scale and at that point had weighed 89 pounds. At this time, I want you to know, that the guys here called me "guts". I was so fat, I was overweight. I was strong, and I have a picture of when I came back a few months later when the war ended, taken in Tokyo and I weighed about 185 pounds there. I had just about doubled my weight. I had doubled it while working very hard. My muscles were strong from carrying heavy loads. Sometimes we carried over four hundred pounds. These were loads of cowhides. Four or six men would lift a bundle and they were draped from your head down to your rear end.

The times I'm describing now were the times when the war was winding down. Japan was under B-29 air attacks all the time. The American forces were burning down city after city. One night the air raid sirens went off and they had burned a portion of Osaka. The city was about the size of Chicago, and one third was burned down. About forty- to sixty-thousand people died. Luckily they did not hit our barracks, or some of us would have died, too. Another night, they come over again. They were flying very high and I could clearly hear the engines. It was raining, and they burned down another portion of the city. I think I read sometime later, that there were eighty planes in these attacks. Now two-thirds of the city was burned down -- and we were still there. The area that Tenoji was servicing was burned down. I don't know the exact date, but we were no longer necessary. They decided to take us out to a city on the west coast of Japan called Tsuruga.

Tsuruga was a port that was handling goods that were shipped from Korea: soy beans, artillery shells, corn, etc. We worked there and at first we lived at the waterfront, a couple of steps from the tracks. There were about a hundred Indonesians with us also. We lived in a wooden building, and it was very crowded. I was one of the first men in the building, and the first guy in the building gets his choice of where he will be. So I saw what looked like a very good spot, and I jumped up there and claimed it. Some other guys came by and claimed nearby spots. On that level, there must have been ten or fifteen people. We did not investigate what was underneath us or behind us. Later on we found out it was the benjo. Even so, once you're there, you're there.

We worked at Tsuruga carrying beans and corn. In Tsuruga, like everywhere we worked, we did sabotage that we thought we could get away with. I mentioned before the waybills like wavy red lines on the side of the rail cars. It tells where the cars are destined to go, where they came from, and what they were carrying. A train would stop on the main line, take cars out of our yard and put some empty ones in, or something of that sort. They would do switching. While they were switching cars, we would be switching cars (waybills) and putting them in and saying that it was full of soy beans and destined to go to a different place in Japan. I don't know why we never got in trouble over this; it must have caused a great deal of confusion. They were all going to the wrong place. To a certain extent I checked up on it because when we were working in Tsuruga, we were loading cars that were going to Tenoji. Sometimes we were loading what was supposed to be soybeans, 410 bags, I think. They were 92 kilos each.

The Japanese have great admiration for strength. We had a particular guy who was very strong -- Muccacciario was his name. Because he was so very strong, the Japanese gave him the job of counting. He was an assistant checker, and he counted the bags that were going into the car. He was stationed at the door and he would say, "Okay guys. No one's looking. Go out and get something else." Sometimes we would run out and steal something like a piece of a drill press and throw that in there, and sometimes corn. If there was corn that was already sprouting and molding, we would throw that in there. The car was supposed to be filled with soybeans, and it was filled with molding corn. Sometimes we were even so bold as to just build a wall of bags along the door and throw about 30 bags along the other door. The railroad checker would come along and he would say, " --------------------------- ?" ("Is it full?") We would tell him was and the checker would mark "410". It would be closed and put a waybill on it and it would

leave with perhaps fifty sacks of soybeans in it. We would put on there anything we could steal, even lumber. We would do this especially when we knew it was going to Tennoji.

For Record
Last entry December 25, 1943; Date now 21st May, 1945.

Now located at seaport camp of Turuga, Japan. Stayed at Umeda Bunsho until 20th. In best of health, now 82 kilos. Have had enough to eat for the past year, four Red Cross boxes since Christmas ‘44. Everyone in best spirits now; expect the best to happen before the end of this summer. From available information it seems all POW camps are shifting around to get away from danger areas. This building is a new low in inconvenience and unsanitary conditions.

I thought I knew the Japanese very well by this time but even I was surprised. It is useless to try to describe the stink and dirt and darkness. To try to imagine quarters would tax the most nimble mind. There are a few Javanese Dutch here and some US Army from Tanagawa.

Friday, 13th and 14th June, 1945:
Air raid alarm sounds at about 10:55. Before short blasts of incendiary bombs dropping in area, bunsho hit early in raid, burns down, no loss of life, about twenty casualties. Prisoners commended for calmness during raid and for helping to save several women and children from burning. Next day move into bean warehouse on the dock parallel to where slips moor for loading and unloading, extremely dangerous spot. Air raid warnings frequent now in Turuga area but no raids on this town.

I want to tell how we came to know that the war was at an end. Nearly every place we had been, the friendly Japanese would say that the war would be over pretty soon. The guards would say, “Jot to mai mo skoshi – Sensoo shamite.” (Wait a little bit; the war is at end). I don't know if they thought they would win or that they would give up. We were beginning to think so, too. The Americans were successfully bombing all over. In Tsuruga there would be planes almost every day. There seemed to be a certain route. Air raid sirens would go off but nothing would happen. If it was urgent, there would be short sirens, but we always heard long sirens. We called the B-29-er pilot "Photo Joe." We just figured that he was plotting a course. In my mind, now, I realize that that was exactly what he was doing.

June 29 -- Still living on the mooring dock at Turuga. 29-er flew directly down the track this morning, no eggs. My health still good -- 81 kgs. Eight letters came to camp today dated as late as May, 1945. Fifty men a day are building another barracks about 2 ½ mile from here.

One day, a bright, sunshiny day, I was unloading rods, and Photo Joe came over and the siren went off. And it seemed urgent. They saw that there were bomb bays open. The people at the brickyard saw a large yellow bomb. The cotton mill was right across the road from the brickyard, and the bomb hit in the cotton mill. It was highly explosive. It might have been a ton or a two-ton bomb. When it exploded, it just tore the power plant of that mill to pieces. Almost the only people working at that mill were young girls. They came running out of there, and they needed medical treatment. Some were burned, and some had their clothes burned off. They treated them at the prisoner of war camp. We never knew how many were killed. We are sure that Photo Joe was planning a route for the bombing of Tsuruga.

One night in our wooden barracks near the waterfront, it was raining so hard you could barely see your hand in front of your face. You don't expect to get an air raid in that weather. But the siren went off, and it was urgent. The next thing we knew, bombs were coming down all over. Our barracks were on fire in a short time. It was wooden, and burned fast. There were four hundred prisoners in it, but I was on the first floor by the benjo, and got out easily. The prisoners on the third floor, where the space was so low and small, even they got out. Only one person, that I know of, was injured. He had been sleeping with his hand open, and the bomb came in and took off part of his hand. Almost immediately everything was on fire, and everyone went outside, in the rain. My recollection is that we were happy to see it burning, but somebody got the idea that our chow was in there, so we went back into the building and rescued our rice. We had to rescue it more than once, though, because the bombs were falling and the jelly gasoline would splash onto it. Then it had to be put out again. This gasoline is not nearly as bad as people say. I saw people get it splashed onto their clothing and it would start to burn. But if you would roll them in wet dirt, it would go out.

Photo Joe had done a pretty good job. I say this because Tsuruga had about thirty thousand people in it and it was spread out pretty much. On one side was a high hill without any houses on it. The bomb pattern that they laid down there took two-thirds of the town and the other took the hill. By one-quarter more of a mile, they would have taken the whole town. As it was, there was not much left. Every house was completely burned down; there might be a chimney left standing. Every house had an artesian well. It would be cement or clay tile, filled with water just beautifully clear. Frequently we would break ranks and go over and drink the water. We continued to work at Tsuruga and they were telling us that there was no work at the docks. We knew that they were lying because we had stacked up a mountain of soybeans, stacked in the open. We knew that the rain would spoil them and that they should be in boxcars. That made us very suspicious. Pretty soon, some of the braver souls would try it. Someone would raid a garden. Green onions seemed to be the first things that got stolen. The forays got longer and longer, and pretty soon, everyone was riding around town on bicycles. They were trading their scivvy shirts for sake, and were getting smashed! I got a bicycle and rode all over town.

I was way over to the part of the city that was not destroyed, and I saw an airplane fly over. It was only a few hundred feet high, and looked as wide as a football field. It was a B-29, and it was looking for our prison camp. When it found the camp, it dropped supplies into the camp. Some of the parachutes did not open, and some went into the cotton fields, and hurt some people over there. I knew then that the war was over, because you couldn't fly a plane that low unless you knew you would not be shot at. We were very happy.

The next day the planes came over again. Nearby, there was a Japanese army training camp. There were lots of people there. When the plane went over, they must have thought. "This is it!" because they pulled the string and all the supplies dropped onto that Japanese training camp. So we went over there. We figured, the war is over and this is our stuff! The Japanese officers organized their soldiers and they sent them out to wherever the stuff fell and made them pick it up and put it on trucks, and they were not allowed to have any of it. I saw a Japanese carrying a case of strawberry jam that must have come down pretty hard, because it was leaking out of the box. The Japanese carried it on his shoulder and he was scooping some up in his hand, and eating it. A Japanese officer saw him eating it and he hollered at him, "Kura!" Then the officer hit him with a wooden sword on the butt and denied him from eating it even though it would go to waste anyway. The Japanese brought it over to our camp. I remember I got a pair of pants and a pair of shoes. My shoes came down pretty hard, but they were wearable shoes.

August 16, 1945 - Living 2 ½ miles from the dock area now in an old brick factory. This is a new low. We remained in warehouse until July 30 when we were raided from the air by 30 or so Grumann fighters. They bombed and strafed docks and warehouses; damage slight, a direct hit on our building; blew the roof. We are forced to move, no casualties among the prisoners, but we saw a damn good air show. A week or so ago a Patrol 29-er dropped a big egg across the road from this building in a large cotton mill, quite a few casualties.

The cotton mills had good quarters for a number of people. It was after this that the American officer said to the Japanese that he wanted to have some space for the prisoners to live there. There was no place in the brickyard and we had been sleeping out in the rice paddies. The cotton mill manager said no, because he had all the young girls there. We told him that if he did not want to move his people out, leave them in, because we were moving in anyway. It was satisfactory with us, either way. We moved in, and we did see some damage in the barracks of the mill from the stuff that had been dropped. The supplies that had been dropped for our use had landed on the mill. It caused some broken doors and holes. I stayed there for a night or two, and it was from there that I took off for my tour of Japan.

10th -- Today is yasumi day and the spirit and enthusiasm is running high. Some even believe that a peace is being made or already is in existence. This optimism is due to several things, most of them without much basis. One of the Goons keeps repeating “you will go home soon.” We have already learned about the Reds being in the fray and some believe that may decide the Nips to throw in the towel. Also, there have been almost no air alarms in the past five days.

August 16, 1945 -- Rumors flying thick and fast. We have heard from several sources that hostilities have ceased. Two of the staff and also a couple other nationals have told us. Nearly everyone in camp believes it is over or at least that there is some sort of armistice. We are not working again today and some details are supposed to go to the Mty storeroom to get our rice. We presume that we are preparing for another camp shift. Everyone here wants to believe it, but we’re still afraid to raise our hopes just in case that it is a false alarm.

August 17, 1945 -- 10 AM. The Jap interpreter called Sgt. Gregory over to the nip office a while ago and told him that the war had stopped four days ago and that four days from now this camp would break up and head for Osaka, and thence to Yokohama. What kind of peace is supposed to have been made we don’t know yet.

August 21, 1945 -- Still in Turuga; no great change except we don’t work and we go swimming every day. We are let to walk around as if we were free for a change instead of counting us about 50 times a day.

September 3rd, 1945 -- Here we are still in Turuga. The planes have been here twice and dropped food and clothing. Yesterday we officially raised the American flag in Turuga. We had a beautiful altar with Army, Marine and Navy flags arranged around Old Glory.

All this was made out of the parachutes the planes have dropped. We have left the old place in the brick kiln and have taken over the nipponese barracks. We have a truck now and radios. Today we will arm our patrols. We still have some opposition from the nips when we take what we want, but we just tell them if they don’t turn over what we want we will take all they have, so they kick in.

Last night I heard a news broadcast from America that told about the terms of the unconditional surrender. All we need now is for those Yanks to come in on that train. All the guards gone now, and gonzokos had hailed out too. Although the Pig is still here. We still have not had any communication with the invasion forces, but expect to every day.

When the war ended, I didn't wait for the Americans to come and get me. When we found out the war was over, we just got on trains. We were competing with the Japanese for space, and we went all over Japan. I eventually wound up in Kyoto. I have mentioned Mucacciario before. He was no friend of mine. He had punched my nose more than once. We had a continuing feud -- me with my mouth and he with his fists. I kept on talking too much. He had punched me many times. In my travels after the war, I came to Kyoto and found out that the prisoners have occupied an entire hotel. Moochie is the honcho, like the head of the Americans. He goes down to the freightyards and simply steals a truckload of rice and then he sells it. He gets a ton of money for it, because rice is really expensive. That is what he was running that hotel on. The hotel was for prisoners. But when I found out it was Moochie there, I decided that I could not stay there. I moved back to Osaka.

I found an American in charge that was not a prisoner, but a free American. He had the New Osaka Hotel. He had commandeered it. He flew in on a DC 3, two-engine Douglas Aircraft, and quite a good one. He was a captain or a major. He was from Cleveland. He owned a taxi company. He invited everyone to come over and visit him.

He ran this twenty-three-story hotel in the downtown section of Osaka. He supplied food, help, and all the necessities. Any Americans that came in got free room and board.

One of the things the Americans thought they needed was firearms. Before I got into it, some of the fellows had gone down to the kempi headquarters. This is a very large building, about ten stories tall and it occupied about a half a block. It was near the Osaka castle, a very old building about a thousand years old. We went into the kempi building and thought we could get some firearms, too. The radioman that had flown in with the guy from Cleveland borrowed the pilot's bars and he, myself, and Herman Still, and there may have been one other person, we went to the kempi to get some firearms.

We walked in there and there was a young girl that I had met before. She worked at the kempi, and she saw us coming. She was a young Japanese woman, but born and raised in Seattle. She was quite good-looking. She had been trapped and caught in Japan when the war started. The military did not trust her so they wanted to keep an eye on her. She was put to work at the kempi. When she saw us coming in, she asked us what we were up to. We told her that this was an American Officer and we were there to commandeer some armament. We went through such an hilarious act, we could hardly keep from laughing. We were kow-towing and bowing to this corporal with captain's bars and lighting his cigarettes, and we got shuffled from one Japanese officer to another.

Finally, we got to one who was a colonel and he said he would give us armament. They ushered us back to a room that was about as big as our kitchen (10 x 12 feet) and it was filled right straight to the top with pistols, rifles and all ammunition. There were at least a couple of truckloads there. We found what we wanted. I found a good little pistol and a sword, but we wanted more than that. We wanted trading material. We took about twenty pistols, and a sword, and walked out of there. We did not fool the little Japanese-American girl. Her name, I believe, was Tami, or something like that. We were giggling, and she knew what we were saying. She told us that she knew what we were doing, and she said she would not tell. The colonel had the so-called officer sign the requisition that said the American Armed Forces required twenty pistols and sundry arms, and he signed that with his own name. As we were walking out, we realized that we had all these pistols, but we had no ammunition. He was going to have us sign and add that requisition to the other. We said okay, but then we realized that he put his own name on it. He got scared, and instead of signing it, he pretended to sign, but instead he tore the corner off where his original signature was. He folded it and handed it to the colonel, and we walked out. We prayed all the way down the stairs.

We had gotten over here by a car that we had commandeered from the Osaka Manichi, which was the biggest newspaper in Osaka. This car burned wood blocks for fuel. You put them in a container in the back of the car and as they get cooked and get hotter and hotter, they fall down and release gas. Methane. When we came out, the car was not where we had left it. There is a person standing there, and he said, "Driver says to wait for him; he has to get some more fuel and will pick you up." We wanted to get away from that kempi office fast! This is a large square area about a block in each direction, or maybe more. We saw a car coming right down the middle of the square, and we were going to take it. We stood in front of it with our arms spread apart, and it stopped. There was a high-ranking Japanese officer in it, and he wore a beautiful braided sword. We opened the door and said, "If you please." He stepped out and we stepped in and threw the pistols in and took off. Then we returned to the hotel, and we unloaded the ammunition.

I love that story. It just seems like it couldn't happen, but, I guess, the most improbable things can happen. Then it seems like I volunteered to stay in Japan, about two months. I could have left for home right away, but I stayed at the hotel as a radioman or assembling former prisoners. The guy from Cleveland asked me to do it.

Another incident I remember was that this corporal was acting as if he was an American officer. He said that he had to load a jeep onto a plane, and he wanted us to help him. We went to the airport where the DC-3 was (C-47, in those days), and we had to shove that thing through the side doors -- and it worked. Then this corporal asked if we would like to take a fly. We said we would. We asked if he could fly, and he said no.

But he said he could short-taxi it. He cranked up the motor. This field in Osaka had broken Japanese airplanes all over it. We taxied all over that field. We went this way and that way, between the airplanes, and it was fun.

Once I got to Osaka, I got the idea to go back to Tennoji. I wanted to visit where I had worked the longest in Japan. I went there, and it seems that I had someone with me, but I don't remember who it was. We had a conversation with some people and told them that we had gone to Tsuruga and asked if they had ever gotten some soybeans from there, and they said that they had. I asked if they remembered Mackenzie and they said that they did. Mackenzie was a personable fellow and he knew Japanese.

In fact, Hashimoto's wife had taught him the Japanese. We told them that Mackenzie and us had gone to Tsuruga. We asked if they had gotten some rotten soybeans from Tsuruga, and they said yes. We also asked if they had gotten some that were half-empty, and they said yes. I asked if they remembered Mucacciario and they did. We told them that that was his idea, and they really got a kick out of that. It was on this visit that I found out that one of the fellows, Hashimoto or the Nigger, that one got three years in prison and the other one year in prison. One was out already. The one that got one year had done very badly in prison and was very emaciated. Their prisons are not very good. Neither are their prisoner of war places, except the one I got was not too bad. The one in the Philippines and the two I got in Japan were not that bad. One in Japan was not very good.

We were eventually told that we would get on a train and go to Tokyo, and we eventually left the country.

I want to relate an incident that happened in Osaka. We were in the middle of town near the railroad station and there was a contingent of British prisoners moving right through town. They found it convenient to stop off at Umeda. They put them up overnight and proceeded the next day. To make room for them, we moved to the top two floors and the British took over the bottom floor. We were not supposed to have any communication with them. The benjos were on the first floor so we had to go to the first floor sometimes. Somehow, one of the British men got into the third floor. When he saw our surrounding, he said, "This ain't no bloomin' prison camp. This is a bloomin' hotel!" I suppose compared to the other prisons, this probably looked good. We all looked pretty well fed. Even on weekends we were getting enough food because we would trade off our meat rations during the week for rice during the weekend.

However, I think back to the time when I first came to Osaka. I was still a sick man. I probably had gained some weight by that time, but I don't remember how much, maybe 125 pounds, possibly. There was a colonel that was sent around to evaluate the work force, and he examined each man very briefly. When he examined me, he asked,

"Why does this man not work?" Dr. Nel said that I had diarrhea. I had had diarrhea for maybe four months. The colonel said for them to give me sulfa Thiokol. Dr. Nel told him, "This man doesn't need it. There are other men who need it more." The colonel got really mad. This was something you just didn't do. They gave me the medicine. After I got the medicine, it was a matter of a day or two and I was just fine.

After this, I was sent out to work. I looked okay, but after four months struggling with diarrhea, I was not very strong. The first job I got was carrying rice. The rice bags weighed one hundred twenty-five pounds and when they put one on me, I went right to the ground. After a while, though, I was made a loader. This was a rather hard job. You would load right off the ground. It would make you quite strong. You would lift these bags about three feet off the ground. When we were feeling good and the weather was nice and there were no other problems, we enjoyed working hard.

Most of the things I think about are not the bad things. They are the good things.

I want to tell you about a Marine that went mad. It was a bad thing, but it was really kind of funny. He was the youngest one there of about four hundred prisoners. He apparently had been reading a lot of Buck Rogers. His mind was running on Buck Rogers kind of things. He was really crazy. When he lost his mind, the Japanese did not have a place for an insane person, so they built a cage at the bottom of the stairway.

They enclosed it with pine two-by-twos. He sat there, and he was not violent. But he would defecate in a bucket, and then dump the bucket over his head. He was like an ape.

I can't remember his name, so we will call him "Denny" for convenience. Denny sat there for a week. He would sit there calling, "This is Denny calling the Moon. Come in, Moon." One day a high-ranking Navy man decided to play a joke. When Denny called

"This is Denny calling the Moon", the Navy man called back, "This is the Moon calling Denny." Denny called back, "It is about time; I have been calling you for weeks!" He sat in the cage for months. He got a little better. I was returned to Chicago with him at Great Lakes. He had mellowed down to be a nice, simple person.

When I went back to Tennoji, I wanted to find out about Hashimoto and the cargoes. They told me about a B-29 raid in which Osaka was completely destroyed.

They told me about airplanes flying very high. Bombs were coming down. They told me this with sign language, mostly. They were telling me that when the bombs fell all over the freightyards they got too close to the alcohol, and the alcohol would explode. They got a kick out of that. (A-roo-kra-hoor!)

Stinky Davis was a good friend and an atrocious liar. He told me at Cabanatuan that even if he died, that he had lived a full life. He told me some of the things that he had, like a brand new Studebaker car, and I don't remember his other lies. He said that he was divorced. He had bought some kimonos in China. They were awful looking things.

He asked me, if he didn't make it, to take the kimonos back to his home. Every place I went, during the prison camp, I had those kimonos. Everywhere I went I had to find a place to hide them. Usually, I would loosen a board and place the kimonos under it.

Sometimes the board would be up in the ceiling. I would put the kimonos far out of reach.

One time the Japanese, 1944, seemed to be not in a good nature. They started hazing us. We had to go through the military commands. When I got to Osaka, I hid the kimonos. The Japanese would look for things like that. A Jap got up there and reached in and missed them by about on inch, or two inches. I was able to take those kimonos back to Davis' family. Then I found out that he was not divorced at all. He simply ran away and joined the Marines. He had lived in southern Indiana. I found his father and his sister-in-law, wife of his younger brother, living on a farm. The father and sister-in-law were really nice people. Her husband had done the same thing. I gave the kimonos to them.

Sometimes late at night the Japanese would come in a start hazing us. Everyone could do it except one guy from the South, and his name was Morgan. He was a real racist. We used to tease him by saying, "Morgan, when you get back to the States, some black nigger is going to tell you to clean up that mess." He used to tell us that no black nigger is going to tell him anything. He was a real redneck. After all these years, Morgan got by, doing what the other people did, maybe a little late, but he managed.

Everyone else learned the commands, but he didn't. The Japanese could not believe that anyone could be that dumb. They would give Morgan a command and he couldn't do it and we would laugh, and then the Japanese would smack us. This was very late in the war.

Once I got hold of a book. When I was at Tennoji, I could save up enough rice rations. There was a pill detail. They would make a package of pills. They would place them in a box. If you were too weak for loading, you could do this job. We would switch off and on. I got the book Quo Vadis. Our back stairway was closed off because of Red Cross packages. I found a nice shaft of sunlight and I was sitting there reading Quo Vadis and I heard a sound and I knew I was sunk. I didn't even look up. I just kept on reading.

There was a sergeant whom we called "Sgt. Crumb" because his uniform was always wrinkled and dirty. He was the meanest, and now, he was angry. He yelled, and I said, "What?" He told me to go to him. He started hitting me. He really gave it to me. He took me to the guardhouse where there were more soldiers and I could tell that he was telling them about me sitting down and reading a book. So they all started hitting on me. They passed me around and I kept getting hit. One soldier told me to kneel down in front of the guardhouse, where the men pass to get back to the barracks from work. About 5:30, they started coming "home." They saw me kneeling in front of the guardhouse and someone said that Rodenburg was going to get shot. A little later a regular soldier told me to get out of there, it was about chow time. And that was the end of it.

I first mentioned Dr. Nel when I talked about staying topside on the ship. That worked out all right. Later on, he was the American doctor in Osaka. There were four hundred prisoners with only three stairways, and that meant a lot of walking up and down during the night, especially on a rice diet and the water we drank. Dr. Nel decided that no one would use the back stairway. My bunk happened to be on top of the back staircase. I didn't want anyone telling me I couldn't use the back staircase. So I used it, but I was not quiet enough. I clacked down the staircase one night, and I heard Dr. Nel calling me. I went to him and he let me have it. He knocked me off my feet. I came up with my "go-aheads" in my hands, and I got him right in the head. He did not say anything about it at that time. But sometime later, I caught pneumonia.

I caught pneumonia and went to the sick bay, and I was really sick. They sent me back, but the next day I had a high fever and some thought I wouldn't live to the next day. I was in sick bay. The corpsman that talked me out of dying before (Meyers) told the doctor that I had swallowed my tongue. Dr. Nel said, "Let the son-of-a-bitch die." The corpsman rolled me to my side and pulled my tongued out, and I survived. There was one other occasion that I had to do with Dr. Nel. When I was working at Tennoji, I got an ailment, blindness, which he diagnosed as a lack of vitamin A or B. What he did was to take a large syringe, bigger than my thumb, and inserted it in my spine. He took out that much ( ) spinal fluid. He left it in and inserted something else in it and inserted something in my spine, some fluid. This was on a Sunday. The next morning, I went to work with a terrible headache. I worked throughout it and this was a series of shots. Dr. Nel called me to the sick bay for another shot and I sent word back that I would rather die than get another shot. That was the end of that.

I came back to San Francisco in 1945 and within a short time I came home to Illinois. I was not yet discharged. I went back up to, or was promoted to, Technical Sergeant. I was paid all during the war as a corporal. I was paid by the Japanese company for my work there. I was paid by the State of Illinois and some disability from the Federal Government. I was discharged in 1946 on the same calendar day as I had enlisted, six years before. After I was discharged, I went back home to Hazel Crest. I was not adjusted to civilian life. I drank a lot and couldn't stand people or myself. My sister, (Jo or Nel) was interested in my welfare. She called the Veteran's Administration and made me go down. I took psychiatric treatment. (She also advised me to talk to a minister for help, which leads to chapter two).

I suppose I was suffering from a letdown of some sort. The doctor told me to go back to school. I was rather astonished. I returned to high school and they told me that there was a test that I could take. I took the test, at Bloom Township, and I got a diploma. I then enrolled at Thornton Community College in pre-law. I did two years of pre-law in one and a half years. I went to University of Chicago, first. I decided that was a little too much, so then I went to DePaul University. I went for two and a half years in a three-year course. After two and a half years, I quit. After a couple of weeks, I started thinking, "What am I going to do now?" I couldn't do nothing, so I returned to DePaul. I told the dean that I wanted to come back. My books, as I had laid them, were still on his desk. He seemed to know that I would be back, and he handed my books to me.

There are tales of horror and tragedy; there are scenes of blood and gore; but the sights we’ve seen have turned many men green on Bataan and Corregidor.

On the eight day of December, nineteen-forty-one,
A bloody crew of Japanese swept down with the sword and gun;
The Fil-Americans were outnumbered man for man.
So they chose a jungle refuge deep down in Bataan.

You’ll forget that native girl, your siestas and your rum;
For you’re going down in Bataan, and you’re going to man a gun.
Your back will be against the wall, there will be no retreating.
You are going to Bataan to fight, and maybe take a beating.

There will be no lavanderas, no house-cooks and no boys;
There will be no touted help to come, but there’ll be a lot of noise.
For you’re journeying to Bataan’s jungle fever heat;
You’re going to make a last stand, there’ll be no retreat.

So you better fight your heart out in the battle yet to come;
Give them hell, shell for shell, and pray it may be won.
So twenty-thousand Americans were caught across the sea to fight for life, mid blood and strife, against the Jap army.

They formed a line across North Bataan, a line too weak to hold;
and fought that savage, yellow horde as was done in days of old.
The horde had come to annihilate, and did their level best;
The American-Filipino foe proved to be a hornet’s nest.

Men who go to battle usually get a few days leave to shake the dirt, drink and flirt, and spend a short reprieve;
There’ll be nothing such for you, my lad, no place to have a time;
You’ll carry on and on, or die, mid sweat and dirt and grime.

Four long months that sparse line held, through hunger, fever, shells;
Four long months that line survived, through sickness, death and hell.
Our men are dying, can’t get food -- our line is bound to snap!
Of all the spots on God’s green earth, we’re in this devil’s trap.

They upheld through bomb and shells the virtue of a nation,
and now must share the dues unfair of death and desolation;
The Japs are throwing everything -- they’re breaking through our line;
you may live to see their treachery, for the end has come this time.

There is no relief, no food for life; my God, what deprivation;
Such heat, such pain, it can’t go on, untold emancipation.
And there, eight-thousand miles from home, across the ocean seas,
a fighting crew who’d lived in hell were battered to their knees.

And now must lie in prison for how long, God only knows;
tragic rains, morbid heat, dead bodies piled in rows.
Flies, filth, dirt and dust, malaria, dysentery;
the strong may live, the weak will die of starvation and beriberi.

Those who lived to realize the horror of it all wished many a time that they had died before that fatal fall;
And so ‘tis months and years to come before they hope to see the land they fought for, and bled for -- The Land of Liberty.

W.B. Denine
Lyle E Smith
Box 1375 Lincoln Neb.
J.H. Still
844 ½ W. 65th St.
Los Angeles
(Last diary entry).

CHAPTER TWO

Harry graduated DePaul law school, passed the bar exam on his first attempt, became the city attorney for Hazel Crest (his home town), married the beautiful and artistic daughter of a prominent Christian Reformed minister, and then put up his shingle in Lansing, Illinois, where he became a well-respected home town attorney.

He was elected judge for the Markham district of Cook County, Illinois, had eight children (his first when he was already 37 years old and the last when he was 58), and has always done everything his own way. He still does.

Harry turns 87 years old on December 8, 2004. Harry and Pat (nee Monsma) celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary on September 25, 2003. Their eight children came home to Chicago from as far away as Florida, California, Wyoming, and even Germany to celebrate the event. Extended family from as far away as Washington State and Oklahoma attended. It was, as Harry is inclined to say, “Quite nice; really rather nice.”

:

back to Men