Death on the Hellships. Gregory F. Michno
Dreher felt better because they were now getting two meals a day of rice and fish soup. Unfortunately, there were worms in the soup. Petak, assigned to a chow detail, had managed to steal some onions, which were bought, sold, and traded like gold. Japanese noncom Suzuki Yukinoro, from whom Petak had been learning the language, suspected Petak had been stealing but refrained from turning him in. He was thinking about the future. One night while talking, Suzuki suggested that their families visit after the war was over.
“Japan will win,” he said. “We must win. We are small and China is full. No place to go. Korea . . . cold. Only place to go is United States. . . . Japan is very old. More than three thousand years. We know what to do to survive. United States young. Not very smart. We will make a colony there. We have plans for the next hundred years. We will go there.”
On 9 November, Tottori Maru finally docked at Pusan. A large group, about 14 officers and 1,288 men, received winter clothes and were sent by train north to Mukden, Manchuria. About 580 Americans, including Dreher’s men, were placed back aboard, and, after a stop at Moji, Tottori Maru reached Osaka, Japan, on 11 November. They were sent to Kawasaki and Omori to work in chemical plants and steelworks. More than 50 men had been left in the hospitals of Takao and Pusan, and about 30 had died on board. Many more would not survive the subzero winter of Mukden.46
Other ships carried prisoners to Japan from various islands. The 16,975-ton liner Tatsuta Maru brought two hundred laborers to Wake Island on 12 March 1942. The 9,816-ton Heiyo Maru took off two hundred civilian contractors from Wake in July, and the 1,772-ton Tachibana Maru, built in 1935 and requisitioned as a hospital ship, steamed to Wake in September. She was there to pick up two hundred more civilian contractors. They sailed off on 20 September without incident, arriving in Japan about 1 October.
Japan reached as far south as the Celebes to bring men with technical expertise to the empire. Many officers had been sent in April, but now the Japanese demanded information on everyone in the Makassar camp. About 1,000 men—25 American, 225 British, and 750 Dutch—were selected because they supposedly had special skills. In answer to complaints that the men had no warm clothing for a northern climate, the Japanese sent a party through all the Dutch homes in the area to clear out the closets. The prisoners donned trousers, pajamas, tropical suits, lightweight shirts, and even sarongs, looking like “as fine a group of scarecrows as one could wish for.” It did not matter to the American and British POWs that they were leaving, but Makassar was home to many of the Dutch, and the sounds of weeping women tore at their hearts.
The Op ten Noort was still anchored in the harbor, along with several other ships, the largest being the transport Asama Maru: 16,975 tons, 583 feet long, with a cruising speed of seventeen knots. It had been a luxury liner before the war, with berths for 680 passengers, and it still made a favorable impression. The British and Americans were slated to have third-class accommodations, but the Dutch got to the Japanese and persuaded them that it would be better to put the British and Americans in the hold because there were fewer of them and they would have more room. The Dutch plan did not last. Finding the holds “hotter than hell,” the British enlisted men forced their way into the Dutch area. If they couldn’t have rooms, they would bed down in the passageways. The Dutch protested to the British officers, but were told that if they didn’t like it, they would have to throw them back into the hold by force. Both sides backed off in an uneasy truce.
Officers of all nationalities were given “state rooms.” As the only American officer, Lt. John Michel roomed with the British, where eleven of them shared six bunks and a transom—not a bad deal, all things considered. Michel saw to it that the twenty-four American enlisted men under him stayed out of the hold and had them camp on the companionway near a ladder leading topside. Before they left, Michel instructed them to always remain together. He had a bad feeling that they might be torpedoed and saw to it that they got life jackets. He hoped that if the worst happened, they would all be plucked from the sea once again.
They sailed before sunset on 10 October, following a small steam frigate. The next morning they were fed rice and stew, a rather tasty fare. At times they even received fresh scallions and considered it quite a luxury. When the weather got rough, the British and American sailors collected food from seasick Dutch soldiers. They had never eaten as well during the past half year at Makassar.
It still remained hot below decks, and the men were given permission to go to the forecastle for fresh air, and there was plenty of water for drinking and washing. Lieutenant Michel and British lieutenant Geoffrey Blain did have one complaint: they had to share their washroom with a crated Komodo dragon on its way to the Tokyo Zoo. The huge lizard, which was fed live chickens by one of its handlers, ate better than the men. Said Michel, “The stench was overwhelming, and we prayed regularly that the awful thing would die and be tossed overboard.” But the reptile remained healthy the entire trip, smelling worse every day.
Some believed they would make a stop in the Philippines, but they sailed on, making a steady fifteen knots with few course changes. The temperature became cooler, and they began to don and layer the assortment of clothing given them at departure. The last day before arrival, cold winds buffeted the ship and the men shivered too much to fall asleep. Peering out of the portholes they could see uninviting islands shrouded by cold mists. On 23 October, Asama Maru dropped anchor outside of Nagasaki, and the next day ferry boats came alongside to take them to shore. Most of them were destined for Camp Fukuoka No. 2 and the Zosen shipyard. They were exhausted and demoralized, and, said Blain, “that caused us to lose more people that first winter, mostly from pneumonia, than we did during the rest of our time in Nagasaki.”47
After depositing her human cargo, Asama Maru promptly took on supplies, sailed to Yokosuka, then headed for Wake Island. Reaching there about the last day of October, she picked up the last twenty servicemen who had been wounded or too sick to make the trip on the previous ships. They were served sugar and rice, all they could eat, and actually got to use the ship’s swimming pool. They sailed to Yokohama, then went to Ofuna Camp, and, after one month of questioning, ended up at Zentsuji. This left about 168 civilian contractors who remained behind to strengthen Wake’s defenses. They were worked so unremittingly, with a lack of nourishment and medical care, that about 45 of them died by December. The Japanese had another surprise planned for the survivors.48
The prisoners from the Nishi Maru deposited in Singapore on 18 September were moved in to a vacated barracks that once housed Indian troops. Changi at this time housed the remnants of six divisions, including the British 11th and 18th. Since many thousands had already been shipped north to Burma and Thailand, conditions were not crowded, and Changi appeared to many as a haven. Lieutenant Johnstone hardly saw a Japanese guard. “What a restful, peaceful camp it was,” he said. The worst problem was in walking between divisions, when one had to be escorted by the sometimes brutal Indian Sikhs. The idyll came to an end in three weeks when they were told to be ready to move to a new overseas destination.
The initial RAF party was joined by some British soldiers, increasing their number to about 810. Flt. Lt. Peter E. Lee thanked their 18th Division hosts, especially for sharing some of the recently received Red Cross packages, and they smartly hiked to the wharves. Through the afternoon of 9 October, they sat on the dock in the hot sun and watched a large passenger liner, painted white with a large red cross on the side, sail through the harbor. The guards said it was loaded with diplomats and internees returning to Japan after an exchange for British and American civilians. The ship was likely the Teia Maru on a return voyage from India.
Late in the afternoon they boarded “a big, dirty, rusty cargo ship,” an old ex-British freighter of about six thousand tons. Japanese medical orderlies had the newcomers drop their pants and bend over. Those not quick enough were cracked in the head with batons. The glass-rod-in-the-anus routine was greeted by ribald laughter and cheering from the twelve hundred POWs already aboard the ship. They sailed to Singapore Roads and anchored for the night, sailing on the morning of 10 October. At sea, the Japanese told them that their destination was Borneo.
Lieutenant Lee thought that conditions were better than on the Nishi Maru; it was less crowded, but the facilities were fewer. There was little drinking water and none for bathing. The 810 RAF