First Into Nagasaki (12 page)

Pharmacist John Luther (Orleans, Nebraska):
“I got these shin ulcers from falling down in the mine due to weakness, not from beatings. Some Jap bosses saw that I was not well, and gave me a break.”

Pharmacist William Derrick (Leesville, Louisiana):
“The Korean straw bosses were decent to us except when the Japs were around, who frightened them.”

Gene Letspech (Floydada, Texas):
“Beriberi from undernourishment gave me heart trouble, but I’m gaining now.”

Thomas Rayburn (Bogalusa, Louisiana):
“I was beaten myself only twice, but I was section leader and often had to watch my men being beaten while sick.”

Ivy Spears (Arvin, California):
“It’s no exaggeration to say I’ve been beaten twice weekly for the whole two years and five days I’ve worked in the Mitsui coal mine.”

Leland Sims (Smackover, Arkansas):
“Many guards could speak English. One who we called Long Beach, because he was educated there, caught me smoking and said, ‘It’s all right with me, but don’t let the other guards catch you.’”

Clarence Griffiths (Fall River, Massachusetts):
“In two years in the mine I’ve been beaten almost weekly. The guards we nicknamed the Mouse, the Pig, and the Screamer were toughest on me.”

Dick Lavender (Lewiston, Idaho):
“I gambled by hitting back the first Jap who hit me, and had peace that way for the first nine of my twenty-six months underground. Later a new boss called Smiley began beating me daily. I stood him for two weeks, then threatened to beat him back, and he stopped just like the first one.”

Sergeant Floyd Johnson (Drumright, Oklahoma):
“For nine months I’ve been getting easily two stick beatings a week, often by a young kid we called Pretty Boy.”

Theodore Berez (Bay City, Texas):
“For twenty-six months I was beaten daily by the guards we called Big Stoop and Gold Teeth.”

Ronald Hutchison (Las Vegas, Nevada):
“In two years I’ve been beaten often, but mostly brought punishment on myself by not hurrying when the Japs tried to drive me.”

Harold Newton (Eldorado, Kansas):
“In my five months in the coal mine I had only one real beating, but that was with a four-foot club and put me in my quarters for nine days.”

An American Indian,
Henry Reed (Shawnee, Oklahoma):
“In two years, by working hard, I got beaten only once, by a Jap we called Wingy for his crumpled arm.”

Tervald Thorpson (Wadena, Iowa):
“I managed to go a whole year without being beaten. Americans worked hard in the mine, but some had difficulty learning Japanese, and misunderstanding commands got them beatings.”

William McConnell (Arcata, California):
“In two years I got two beatings, for losing or misplacing tags. Once I was beaten with a
naraki,
or five-foot pole, till I had to go to hospital. I got pneumonia and ended up spending a month there.”

Corporal Louis Muller (Alexandria, Louisiana):
“In seven months in the mine I got slapped around enough but got only one real beating, from the Fox. I couldn’t understand what he wanted, and the Fox hit me with a shovel and kicked me when down.”

Thomas Bohn (St. Louis):
“For two years we’ve had a bunch of overmen who amused themselves underground by beating someone chosen at random each lunchtime.”

Jesse Tomes (Liberty, Kentucky):
“I caught bad luck only once, when an overman named Sikimato San, who we called Blinky, thought an Aussie and I were carrying a roof timber too slowly and socked me. It took three weeks for my wrist to recover.”

Alf Buchanan (Geraldine, Montana):
“I was never beaten much because the overmen saw I was too weak from diarrhea to work hard.”

Sam Blank (Monticello, New York):
“In twenty-two months I was careful and I got only one beating—for turning in my cap-lamp before roll call, instead of after. A soldier hit me across the back with a pick handle and I went down. It took me two days to recover.”

Joseph Bayles (Little Rock, Arkansas):
“I got a couple of beatings in five months underground. Once for using wire instead of rope to pull timbers through low tunnels. And once an overseer made an Oklahoman named Dale Pope and me fight each other. When we failed to hit hard enough, he beat us both.”

Redheaded
Ernest Arnaud (Great Falls, Montana):
“In two years underground, I used to make the coal conveyor belt break down in order to give my friends working in tunnels a little rest. Sometimes the conveyor broke itself. Either way, I got beaten.”

Thomas Gurley (Milan, Tennessee):
“I got about three bad beatings in twenty-two months, including once having an eye almost knocked out by an overman we called the Greyhound for going into another tunnel at lunchtime and staying too long.”

Carlton Wilder (Manchester, New Hampshire):
“In ten months I got only one severe beating from the Mule, because I was too weak to carry heavy things. I had to stop work for six days.”

Corporal John Peterson (Big Timber, Montana):
“For twelve of my sixteen months I worked for a sadist named Flangeface or Yotojisa, who beat me three times weekly with hammers, pliers, clubs, and his fists. You could not do anything in a way that would please him.”

Edward Martel (Lynn, Massachusetts):
“In eighteen weeks underground I got worked over so often by the Fox and the Screamer that I had phobia. We’d hold our breath at work assignments, fearing to draw those two.”

Sydney Snow (Haynesville, Louisiana):
“I escaped working underground through having lost one eye at Bataan. But I caught four beatings from soldiers on the surface: once for eating before rice time, once for not keeping my fingers straight at my sides, once for being too weak to lift a sledgehammer, and once for not understanding orders.”

Earl Rose (Kansas City):
“In six months I’ve been beaten half a dozen times, especially by the Pig and the Screamin’ Demon.”

Julian Court (Stafford, Texas):
“I’ve been on the shovelling shift for two years and it’s been tough working barefoot down there in the winter. I got one bad beating for not working, when the guards knocked me down with kicks and hit me with rifle butts. Another winter night a soldier who caught me going to the latrine only in my shorts kept me at attention for half an hour, slapping me in the face about forty times.”

William Smith (Huntsville, Alabama):
“I weighed 103 pounds on the day when I was incapacitated by an accident. But I hope someday to weigh 190 again like the old days.”

Harry Staunton (Henderson, North Carolina):
“I got heavy beatings, not including slappings, about twice monthly in the past two years because I was always too weak to carry out what they called
hayako—
that’s a rush job.”

Displaying a scalp wound with two stitches,
Luis Lopez of Espanola, New Mexico,
said: “I got that wound from a beating by the Rat.”

John Yovetich (Butte, Montana):
“In two years I’ve been beaten several times, especially by a two-striper called the Pig who uses a bamboo stick loaded with red clay.”

Alfred Langley (Monette, Arkansas):
“I worked six months in the mine until I lost a finger and the Japs let me come to the surface.”

Cecile Parrott (Weiser, Idaho):
“In three months here, I’ve been beaten only lightly. But in the Fukuoka camp I was hit fifteen times in the jaw by a guard who was later removed for killing a Dutch prisoner.”

Harry Sater (Englewood, California):
“I used mostly to get beaten for using pieces of old wire instead of rope in order to haul roof timbers.”

Sheridan Prendergast (Sauk City, Wisconsin):
“I had an overman with an explosive temper who used to attack us with a hatchet. One day a faulty ceiling fell and broke his back. In two years I’ve been beaten with everything from a pick and a shovel to a hatchet.”

John Mason (Graham, Texas):
“I’ve been a year underground with the Nips and all I can say is, they’re funny people. They’ll beat you one day and give you a cigarette the next. Screamin’ Demon was the worst, for me.”

Pharmacist Earl Gordon (Oakland):
“I worked for nineteen days underground until a Jap we called the Sailor beat me with a six-foot club. After four blows I passed out, because he was hitting me too high in the small of the back. And now I have nephritis of the kidney.”

John Hixon (Miami):
“I spent twenty-two months in the mine, and my heavy punishments were often for the last thing you’d imagine. Once a soldier clubbed me in the face with his shoes, and I was often slapped for not understanding.”

Louis Voros (Cleveland):
“My clearest memory was seeing a lieutenant who worked on Commissioner Sayre’s staff shot in his garden at Cabanatuan, without any reason, by a Japanese sentry. The first shot hit him in the chest, then the second killed him.”

Sergeant James Palone (Minerva, Ohio):
“When the guards and Colonel Fukuhara beat to death an American we called Mother for his kindheartedness, I saw Mother’s eyes open glassy, and I am certain they beat him long after he was actually dead.”

Harry Simms (Butte, Montana):
“I was knocked cold several times by an overman called the Bull for his bullfrog voice. My weight then, due to malnutrition and dysentery, was 102. But I escaped, because the last time the Bull broke my glasses, so I could no longer see the coal face for work.”

Sergeant William Glenn (Salinas, California):
“In two years I only got kicks and slaps, except once when a whole Jap cable car company turned to me and beat me up because I had crowded them in a tunnel. Technically, they were justified.”

Clifford Schamberger (North York, Pennsylvania):
“In two years I’ve been knocked around but never really beaten. I used to cuss Japs right back and they passed around the word that I was crazy. I’ve watched them give the water punishment on Bataan: tie a chap’s hands behind him, pour him full of water while lying on the ground, then jump on his stomach till he dies.”

John Sullivan (Preston, Mississippi):
“In eighteen months I was twice beaten up with a club by Toko-san or Billygoat for breaking one of their bum, patched-up drills. The second time I was sensible enough to fall, and he slacked off.”

Virgil Darurs (Mena, Arkansas):
“In eighteen months in the mine I was twice beaten heavily: once with a tamping rod by an overman who, when I failed to lift heavy things, made me do push-ups and hold two big lumps of coal at arm’s length for ten minutes; and the second time by a soldier with a billy club, for slowing down.”

Acting Chaplain Marvin Denny (Fort Worth):
“Whenever Americans died, I read from First Corinthians, 15th chapter.”

Billy Campbell (Vincennes, Indiana):
“Since September 1943 I’ve been continually beaten by the Pig, the Devil, and the Turtle, with severe lickings about every three weeks.”

Bruce Watson (Muscatine, Iowa):
“A fellow we called Flutterbutt was my worst enemy. I got a double hernia from heavy lifting.”

Aristotle Romero (Tinnie, New Mexico):
“I had a leg and arm broken in a cave-in, but Captain Tom Hewlett did a beautiful job of skin grafting.”

Henry Moore (Tyler, Texas):
“For two years the Jap overmen, chiefly the Wolf, beat me across the face with a club due to my contradicting an order from another overman. I was also beaten by surface soldiers when, coming off my shift with swollen feet, I stopped to rest on a bench that was not authorized for sitting.”

Sergeant Robert Aldrich (Capitan, New Mexico):
“I was in the mine ever since it opened, but I was more fortunate than most because I learned Japanese, thus avoiding beatings due to misunderstanding.”

Zachary Kush (Albert, West Virginia):
“We saw the Hiroshima bomb cloud over the mine shed roof, and the Nagasaki cloud shaped like a white spinning top with many colors.”

Sergeant Charles Basham (Louisville, Kentucky):
“I got only a glimpse of the Nagasaki cloud, because we were marching out of the mine and the Jap guards kept pushing us. But what I saw seemed rosy and beautiful.”

James Copenhaver (Salem, Illinois):
“The atomic cloud looked like a thunderhead, and I argued that it would bring rain.”

Omuta, Japan—Friday, September 14, 1945 1200 hours

Allied Prison Camp #17, Omuta, Kyushu

Headed by flag-draped American, Dutch, Australian and British coffins, the first columns of released prisoners marched singing this morning to a train and to freedom from Kyushu’s largest and most notorious prisoner of war camp. The British were in the van, followed by the Dutch, while the Americans were forming up this afternoon for departure. The Australians are slated to bring up the rear. A Navy medical party, headed by ex–Yale football coach Lieutenant Commander Mal Stevens, were in charge of approximately one hundred patients already waiting at the train. Many of the latter were emaciated to the point that they resembled inmates of Nazi prison camps.

The Dutch column was headed by gray-haired chaplain Captain J. Carl Hamel of the Dutch Reformed Church and the Netherlands Indies Army. Only four national coffins were carried, which bore within each one several rows of wooden boxes containing the ashes of a total of about 120 prisoners, most of whom had died from malnutrition, overwork or mine accidents. Included were the ashes of five Americans who were beaten or starved to death by the Mitsui Company’s soldier guards.

The coffins were draped with homemade flags, sewn together from panels scissored from multicolored parachutes dropped by food-carrying B-29s. Hamel, who has accompanied Dutchmen through years of building the Thailand railroad, said services over three Americans and one Aussie who have died since Japan surrendered, too weak to await liberation. By noon tomorrow the last American Navy medicos will leave, and what was probably Japan’s largest and most remote prison camp will be deserted. Most former overmen and camp commandants are temporarily lying low, though Baron Mitsui has agreed to produce them on demand by the American authorities. The Sixth Army is expected to reach here about ten days hence.