Death on the Hellships. Gregory F. Michno
and food plentiful. B Force, under Lt. Col. A. W. Walsh of 2/10 Battalion, boarded Ume Maru, a 5,859-ton cargo ship built by Kawasaki in 1919. The prisoners filed into three holds—340 in the forward, 760 in the center, and 400 aft—and sailed on 7 July. Pvt. Tom Burns, 2/20 Battalion, wrote in his diary that there were only two water tanks, about two square meters each, at the bow and stern. In three days they were empty, and the men had to scrounge water from the winches or Japanese supplies—both prohibited. The ship had recently carried coal, and between decks everything was covered with fine black dust that seeped into every pore of the body.
“It reminds me of those pictures of the slave ship days,” Burns wrote. “Well I say that nothing can compare with this dreadful boat.” Noticing that they had no escort, and seeing very few sailors or guards, the prisoners discussed the possibility of taking over the ship, but the senior officers decided to wait for a better opportunity.
William Young, a sixteen-year-old private in 2/29 Battalion, AIF, had a presentiment. He couldn’t help but feel that Ume Maru was a ghost ship and the passengers only spirits embarking on their final journey. He knew it would be a one-way trip. They were crammed together like sardines in the holds, the men trying desperately to breathe in the humid steam. Finally, the Japanese rigged a canvas sail that scooped air into the holds. “Not wanting to spoil their record against humanity,” Young sarcastically commented, “they proceeded to feed us rice, green with lime and smelling of sulphur—making a most appropriate gruel for a hell ship.” Many came down with dysentery—the “squitters,” as Young called it. He said he finally came to know what was meant by the phrase “To shit through the eye of a needle.” The benjos (latrines), built over the sides of the ship, were too few and too far away. Many could not wait in line long enough, before the “bomb bays” opened prematurely. There was one consolation, however: they believed that the bad smell kept the guards away.
“My God, this is dreadful,” Tom Burns wrote a few days after sailing. “I am sure there will be a lot who won’t survive the trip, as most are very sick men just out of hospital.”
With a cruising speed of only nine knots, Ume Maru crept eastward along the equator. “Talk about the Slow Boat to China,” complained Young, “this thing we were on went backwards more often than forwards.” And it was hot. “If we had the eggs we could have fried them on the deck,” he said, adding, “Umm, if only we had the eggs, and some salt—perhaps some tomatoes and bacon?” Someone speculated that they were going to Japan, another said Sandakan.
“Where the hell is Sandakan?” one man asked.
“In Bloody Borneo!” came the reply.
“Borneo! Where’s Borneo?” said another.
No one knew for sure. Their first stop was at Miri, an oil town two-thirds of the way up the west coast. That night, Bill Young and Joey Crome stood at the rail in a niche between the benjos and a storage box. They saw the lights of Miri twinkling across the surface of a black, calm sea, and they talked about trying to swim to shore.
“Whaddya think? Just a bit of a paddle,” said one.
“Yea, piece of cake,” came the reply.
“You go first.”
“Naw, you go first.”
Just then the galley door opened and out came a Japanese cook with a bucket of swill that he cast overboard. The garbage no sooner hit the water than the sea boiled up with a hundred fish, streaking fluorescent trails, fighting over the meal. Then up from the depths came a great shark, scattering the small fry and making off with the prize. The two soldiers stood silent for a moment. The ghostly lights of Miri looked a little colder, and the ship’s hold took on a cozier glow. They went below.
The Ume Maru reached Sandakan on 17 July. The capital of North Borneo, Sandakan was home to only seventy Europeans, who were not incarcerated until May 1942, four months after the Japanese landed. They were then rounded up and sent to Berhala, a small island off the coast containing a leper colony. B Force unloaded. Tom Burns, black with coal, haggard, and unshaven, was glad to get out and stretch his limbs. He thought Sandakan was picturesque, framed by cliffs and interspersed with many single-story, red-roofed buildings. Native huts were built on pilings at the waterfront, while beautiful homes dotted the surrounding hills. They marched, singing “Waltzing Matilda,” about eight miles inland from the port, to an internment camp on what had been a British experimental farm. The site was first meant to hold two hundred Japanese residents of Borneo. With the tables turned, however, fifteen hundred Australians now occupied the camp. The prisoners were to build an airfield and a road to connect it to the port at Sandakan.28
The Japanese could find many uses for their prisoners, not all of them requiring muscle power. On 4 March 1942, a telegram was received by the Japanese War Ministry, sent by Gen. Itagaki Seishiro of the Chosen Army in Korea: “As it would be very effective in stamping out the respect and admiration of the Korean people for Britain and America, and also in establishing in them a strong faith in [our] victory, and as the Governor General [Taisho Minami] and the Army are both strongly desirous of it, we wish you would intern 1,000 British and 1,000 American prisoners of war in Korea. Kindly give this matter special consideration.” A reply was sent the next day that a thousand “white prisoners of war” would be sent to Korea. The appearance of British and American POWs in chains was deemed to be of great psychological value in winning the hearts and minds of the Koreans. Consequently, in May, Lt. Gen. Kusaba Tatsumi of the 25th Army in Malaya was ordered to hand over white POWs to the Korean Army.
On 12 August, fifteen hundred prisoners were marched to the Singapore docks. Lt. Tom Henling Wade of the East Surrey Regiment stood in line with the rest. His unit was one of many that had voted for the trip to Japan. The rationale: a temperate and healthier climate. Wade wasn’t convinced. He abstained from voting but decided to go along to keep the unit together. On the waterfront they were confronted by a rusty old freighter so low in the water that only the bridge and funnel were visible above the pier. They were supposed to fit themselves in among the loads of bauxite. Groans were heard. “You could sink that ship with a .303 bullet,” said one man.
Standing in line with the rest was Lt. Gen. Arthur E. Percival, the man who carried the stigma of having surrendered Singapore. About four hundred of the fifteen hundred men were high-ranking technicians, engineers, and officers. For three hours the generals vehemently protested that there was no way sixteen hundred men could be crammed into that ship. Surprisingly, they won their argument. The four hundred were put into the hold of the larger England Maru. As on most voyages of this type, there was a complete lack of privacy for basic latrine functions. Percival’s aide said he “felt terribly sorry for the General,” adding that he was also “bloody sorry for myself.”
Wade, with the eleven hundred remaining POWs, were put aboard the 3,829-ton cargo ship Fukkai Maru. It was ancient and rusty, built in England in 1898 with an extra-tall, old-fashioned funnel. Wade called it a “fumigation ship.” The men undressed, were disinfected and powdered for lice, then redressed and embarked. They were divided between the forward and aft holds. The upper part of each had been divided by a shelf, leaving about three feet of space above and below the tiers. No one could stand or kneel; they had to lie, sit, or crawl. It was four days before they got underway, and the men stripped down to their shorts and sat motionless on the straw matting. There was not much more room on deck, as it was crowded with winches, vats, rafts, crates, a cookhouse, an icebox, and a water tank. They were fed rice twice a day, with a thin soup made of flour and water. The big treat came when eighteen tins of Irish stew was divided among them. The contingent was all British except for about one hundred Australians. Wade was pleased to have the Australians aboard, for he loved to hear them sing “Waltzing Matilda” late at night. As the Southern Cross slowly dipped below the horizon, Wade dreamed of freedom and wondered if he had made the right choice.
The convoy made a brief stop at Saigon, then on to Formosa, arriving at Takao on 29 August. According to H. M. “Dutchy” Holland of 2/4 Battalion, “The trip was pretty rough, we ran into three typhoons in the China Sea. Food was fair, we were in the ‘dog houses’ in the hold; double tiered bunks with about three feet of head