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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.
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