Death on the Hellships. Gregory F. Michno
and Lisbon’s captain, Kyode Shigeru, discussed what to do with the POWs. Wada said it would be impossible for his small guard force to supervise the transfer of so many men. His solution was to leave the hatches closed and tow them to shore. The captain protested, saying that the ventilation was very bad and in case of another attack the ship would sink with needless loss of life. Not until 2100 did Wada make up his mind; the POWs would remain under closed hatches. They were his responsibility and the captain should not interfere.
Conditions worsened through the night. Hold three was slowly taking on water, and the prisoners had to man the pumps for their lives, although lack of food, water, and air meant a man could only manage about six strokes at the pump before fainting. By 0400 on 2 October, they could pump no more. The many men with dysentery and diarrhea had already fouled the entire area. Niimori, with a sick sense of humor, temporarily opened one tarp and let down a bucket of liquid. The men thirstily grabbed for it but quickly found it was filled with urine.
At dawn, about twenty-four hours after being torpedoed, Lisbon Maru gave a lurch. It was apparent she was in imminent danger of sinking. The captain requested permission for everyone to be allowed to abandon ship. He was refused. In the holds the prisoners felt the ship stop, probably when the tow lines were cut. It was time to take matters in their own hands. One of the soldiers somehow produced a long butcher knife, climbed the ladder, and sliced through the tarp. Lieutenant Colonel Stewart organized a small party to try to break out. Still hoping not to antagonize the Japanese, Lieutenants Howell and Potter, with a few other prisoners, calmly climbed through the opening and walked toward the bridge to negotiate their release from the holds. Seeing the ship nearly abandoned, they realized at last what a predicament they were in. Instead of talking, however, the Japanese guards began to shoot. Lieutenant Howell took a mortal wound. The men ran back to the hold.
Had the ship gone down then, almost everyone would have drowned, but the shallow water gave them a few more minutes. Lisbon Maru’s stern sank, but hit bottom on a sand bar. Panic set in. There was no more holding the prisoners below decks. They came tearing through the tarps, swarming on deck, and diving overboard while the Japanese fired on them from above. The men aft were in the most danger, since the water was about to pour into the number three hold. Lt. G. C. Hamilton of the Royal Scots led men in cutting the tarp and removing the timbers. They formed lines and climbed out in as perfect order as possible. It was not fast enough. The sea reached the now-open hole on the deck and rushed in. Many drowned. Lieutenant Hamilton heard gunfire. He saw some small islands about three miles away, dove in, and began swimming.
Four small Japanese boats were nearby, rope ladders dangling from their sides, but they were only picking up their countrymen. Prisoners were kicked off as they tried to climb up. All of the survivors would probably have drowned had it not been for a number of Chinese junks and sampans that came to the scene. Seeing some prisoners swimming to the nearby islands and realizing that there might be escapees to tell the story, the Japanese had a change of heart and began picking up survivors. After swimming for half an hour, Lieutenant Hamilton noticed a Japanese craft rescuing British soldiers and he swam over. Someone threw him a rope. He spent the next three days on the patrol vessel with a number of other prisoners, sheltered by a tarp on deck, until taken to Shanghai.
About two hundred British prisoners managed to escape the Japanese net and reach the nearby islands. They were fed and cared for by the Chinese until Japanese destroyers came during the next few days to collect them all. Even so, three were hidden by a villager who arranged their escape to Chungking.
By 5 October, the survivors were collected on a Shanghai quay to resume the journey. Of the original 1,816 POWs, 842 had drowned or been killed. They were brought in piecemeal, destitute, nearly naked; some had waited on the pier for three days. Except for what some of them had been given by the Chinese, they had not been fed until the morning of the fifth. Niimori was there to further harass them, telling the guards to beat those who could no longer stand at attention.
Thirty-five seriously ill or wounded men were left in Shanghai, and 3 were still in hiding. The remaining 936 were loaded aboard the Shinsei Maru, a 4,476-ton supply ship. Before they embarked, Niimori ordered them to hand over all that was left of their clothing. One sergeant refused and Niimori viciously kicked him in the testicles. Once at sea, Niimori spoke to his charges, leaving them in no doubt that their survival was a great disappointment to him. “You should have gone with the others,” he said. Five more POWs died during the trip to Moji. Of those left behind in Shanghai, or distributed among the POW camps in Japan, about 244 more would die. Thus, only about 40 percent of those who embarked on Lisbon Maru and Shinsei Maru would live to see freedom in 1945.43
In early October, 5th Air Base personnel and 268 “specialists” from the 14th, 28th, and 30th Bomb Squadrons left Camp Casising, Mindanao, for a march north to the harbor at Bugo. The Japanese had called for a group of men with a variety of technical skills for “special” projects in Japan, a promise the men had heard before.
Capt. Alfred B. Dreher was commander of the 440th Ordnance Company. His unit had spent much of its time at Del Monte Plantation and had been forced to surrender after the fall of Corregidor. As “specialists,” they were rounded up and loaded on the Tamahoko Maru, a 6,780-ton passenger-cargo ship built in 1919, originally named Yone Maru, and now owned by the Kaiyo Kisen Company. It was 425 feet in length with a 53-foot beam, and driven by a single propeller capable of a maximum speed of twelve knots. Tamahoko Maru left on 3 October for a three-day trip to Manila. It was not crowded and was not nearly as bad as subsequent hellships. The prisoners were quickly unloaded, marched to Bilibid Prison for one night, then hurried back to the docks the next morning. There, Dreher found more than one thousand additional prisoners gathering to board another ship.44
The chief of staff of the Kwantung Army (Manchuria) had made a plea for fifteen hundred prisoners with technical expertise to help run the Manchurian Machine Tool Company, a plant involved in aircraft production. A new POW camp would be opened nearby to house the workers. They hoped to have the operation up and running before winter and wished to expedite the transfer.
At the Cabanatuan camps, rumors abounded. Most men thought they would be going to Japan and that anything had to be better than the treatment they were receiving in the Philippines. Those with no experience at all instantly became mining engineers or airplane mechanics. Assembling on 6 October at Pier Seven in Manila were about 31 officers and 1,930 enlisted men. They boarded the 5,973-ton Tottori Maru, built in 1913 by Russell and Company in Glasgow, now owned by the NYK Line and operating out of Dairen. It was 423 feet long with a 56-foot beam, and its coal-burning power plant and single screw could generate a cruising speed of eleven knots.
Most of the prisoners were funneled into two large holds, which were soon filled to capacity. The remainder of the Americans had to stay on deck, actually not a bad deal given the conditions below. Army Air Force private Sigmund Schreiner, who kept a secret diary, said it was so crowded that “you couldn’t put a piece of paper between the bodies.” The holds were divided by horizontal wooden sleeping racks with very little headroom. Wooden latrines were constructed and draped over the sides off the top deck.
Tottori Maru. U.S. Navy
They waited all day in the harbor. The ship’s steel sides grew hot, and the air in the far corners was almost unbreathable. Once in, few could get out in time to use the latrines. The stench became so bad that Joseph A. Petak, a photographer in the 228th Signal Corps, forced his way to the center, prime real estate, directly under the open hatch. In the morning, about one thousand Japanese troops were placed in an upper central hold. On 8 October, the engines finally started and they got underway.
Captain Dreher’s men from Bilibid were some of the last to board and spent the next thirty-three days on the open deck. They were given cardboard boxes, each containing three buns, but the buns tasted like soap. Dreher timed the lines: one hour and twenty minutes to get food and forty-five minutes for water. Below, the men were unable to get out to use the latrines, and a relief pattern developed. They urinated in the corners because no one could breath in the unventilated nooks nearest