Death on the Hellships. Gregory F. Michno
into zones, avoiding the central morass of feces and the regions next to the hulls, which were awash with pools of urine. Petak had to abandon his central real estate.
The odor was so bad that the Japanese troops in the central hold complained about the smell. Petak wondered at the way the Japanese planned things. He thought they had screwed up handling the men on Bataan. It was almost as bad on Corregidor. The O’Donnell fiasco was worse, and the Cabanatuan move was horrible. It was no wonder the Japanese could not take the Philippines any faster. “The poor bastards couldn’t plan properly,” Petak thought.
Petak and his cousin, Johnny Urban, could take it no longer and fought their way topside, shouldering a place against the outer rail. The air and sun revived them. At sunset, they got in line for some food, which consisted of a small cloth bag with a few sugar balls and hardtack crackers, the latter promptly dubbed “dog biscuits.” Each man was given one canteen cup of water. Petak was thankful he had gotten out. He slept uncomfortably on the steel deck, hearing the constant moaning from the hold. One man tried to cut his wrists and commit suicide but was stopped and patched up. Already there had been more than twenty bodies removed and thrown overboard. Fighting broke out after midnight, and the Japanese guards threatened to shoot into the hold. A cool wind with rain developed during the night, and finally the majority drifted off into a fitful sleep.
Petak awoke with the sunrise. He and Johnny exchanged places with two other men to give them a place at the rail. They pretended to cook breakfast, flipping pancakes, pouring syrup, and savoring every bite. Those around them figured they were crazy and gave them wide berth.
After “breakfast,” Petak was trying to relax when he heard the shout, “Torpedoes!” He did not know which direction they were coming from. He looked around the deck wildly. There were no life jackets.
Perched high on a winch and wearing nothing but a G-string, Sgt. Angelo H. Sakelares of the 200th Coast Artillery stoically sat and watched the torpedo approach. Cpl. Cone J. Munsey of the 200th had a similar reaction: “I felt if this was the way it was to end, I would welcome it.”
Pvt. Wallace R. Phillips, also in the same unit, didn’t know which way to run. “Then I decided it wouldn’t matter,” he said, “so I went to watch them coming. They were shallow, and as they’d cross a trough, they’d make spray. Three were coming at us, and another far off.”
Joe Petak climbed on the hatch cover, looking east. He could see two frothy trails approaching. Finally, men on the starboard side began to scramble to port. A bell clanged and the ship’s whistle shrieked. Japanese troops emerged. Many of the men in the holds heard the commotion and began clawing their way topside. Some remained. Sgt. Russell A. Grokett and a buddy sat in their wooden berth and watched prisoners run by in panic. They decided to open and eat a can of food they had been saving. If they had to go into the water, they might as well have a little strength. As they ate, someone shouted, “The ship’s going to be blown up. Why are you just sitting there?”
Grokett replied, “Tell me which end will be hit by the torpedo and I’ll be on the other.”
On deck, Phillips could see the captain on the bridge. “He was a little fellow in a navy-blue suit and white whiskers. He waited until he saw the divergence of the torpedoes, then turned and backed into the widest space, so they went on either side.”
The ship heeled hard to port and the deck tilted. To Petak, it seemed that everything was moving in slow motion—the torpedoes, the turn, the men running as if slogging through molasses. He saw the wakes pass by on the port side and disappear.
“One didn’t miss us more than eight feet,” said Phillips. “That maneuver saved our bacon.”
Prisoners and Japanese whooped and hollered, applauding the captain. From the bridge, the whiskered little man turned and bowed. Petak was astounded. “Believe in Fate if you wish,” he said, “but somebody up there sure had something to do with it.” He recorded the time as 0815 to 0830, 9 October, and said, “If I find any guy that was on that sub I’ll buy him a drink.” There would come a time on later hellships when men wished the torpedoes would hit.45
When the excitement died down, the Japanese responded by shoving all the men off the decks and into the holds. The situation became even more intolerable, but there were no more submarine attacks. Joe Petak managed to get into the central hold, where the Japanese troops were berthed. He had been studying Japanese and wanted to practice what he had learned. He didn’t know how his intrusion would be received, but he managed to strike up a tentative conversation. It turned out that the soldiers he met weren’t bad fellows. They appeared to get a kick out of teaching an American their language. Once, while talking and bumming cigarettes, a shot rang out, echoing in the steel hull. When the commotion subsided, Petak asked what had happened.
“It is in the prisoner section,” a soldier answered.
“What prisoner section?” Petak asked.
“We have prisoners,” the soldier explained. Joe learned that the troops were also guarding a number of their own men who were being returned to Japan for various offenses. One had wrested a gun from a guard, and to prevent the disgrace of going to prison, he had shot himself. It was an honorable way out. There were no condolences. Everyone returned to his own business.
The eleventh of October was a rough day. The weather was making up, the seas heavy, and many were seasick. On deck, Captain Dreher held on as giant waves broke over the bow and spray cascaded over them. They seemed to have lost the other ships in the convoy; word had it that the ship had a bent prop and could only make five knots. One Japanese guard forced Dreher to trade his wristwatch for a boiled duck egg. The threat of a bayonet sealed the deal.
On 12 October, to everyone’s relief, Tottori Maru pulled into Takao. They remained in the harbor four days, and most of the Japanese troops disembarked. The men began fighting over rations, for they received only one eight-ounce can of milk for forty-five men and a pail of rice and seaweed for every thirty men. Johnny Urban was sick with malaria and dysentery and was getting worse. Once again, Petak used his Japanese on an officer to plead for help. He couldn’t believe his luck, for the next day, hospital orderlies came to take Urban and three other very ill men ashore, and Joe got to accompany them to the hospital.
The Tottori Maru took on coal and water and headed north once more. Half way up the Formosa coast, she turned around and headed back to Takao, docking again late on the sixteenth. No one knew what the problem was—engine trouble, waiting for another convoy to form up, avoiding U.S. submarines, or just typically poor Japanese planning. Dreher saw Tamahoko Maru and the hospital ship, Manila Maru, in the harbor.
They sailed again on the eighteenth, but only as far as Bako in the Pescadore Islands. There, storms and rough seas kept them at anchor for eight days. Dreher was in misery; cold, wet, hungry, sick—and to top it off, a filling fell out of one of his molars. He saw at least three men die topside, and one Japanese noncom committed suicide. On 27 October, they finally sailed, but back to Takao once again.
This time all the POWs were offloaded while a crew of Korean laborers boarded to scrub and fumigate. They commented about the ship being one giant benjo and wondered how men could be kept in such unsanitary conditions. The prisoners were given soap and water and allowed to scrub down. Everyone had body lice, and most of them shaved their heads. They tried to clean the bugs out of their clothes and blankets, and although they were unsuccessful, they felt better. Sadly, however, Petak learned that his cousin had died in the hospital.
When they pulled out on 30 October, the latest word was that they were going to a very cold country to work in a factory. All correctly assumed it was to be Manchuria. In no time, the holds became almost as bad as before. The only saving grace was that they were now in a temperate climate and the heat was not so overwhelming. “Sig” Schreiner noticed an increase in diarrhea and intestinal problems. The reason for it, he said, “was discovered when someone happened to glance into the water tank and saw a pair of dirty shorts floating around.” The tank was cleaned, but they had no medicine to help those who had become ill. “A few men died,” Schreiner said, “and were thrown over the side with a piece of scrap iron tied