Death on the Hellships. Gregory F. Michno
party of officers, which moved on to Heito. Percival noted the camp had “no redeeming feature.” They were paraded in front of the silent Formosans and forced to sign a “no escape” paper. Some stayed at Heito; others were sent to the east coast at Karenko, where they would meet other high-ranking American officers from the Philippines.
Those on Fukkai Maru were forced to work as stevedores, unloading bauxite, coal, and rice for a fortnight before continuing the voyage. Twenty-four seriously ill dysentery patients were left at Takao. The weather turned chilly and stormy. The food ran low, and the “icebox” was opened to expose its contents of rotten pork, bright with emerald patches. The cooks sliced off the worst parts and the rest went into the prisoners’ soup. Said Lieutenant Wade, “All eleven hundred of us developed diarrhea.” The lines to the six wooden latrines grew longer.
Finally, on 22 September, forty-one days after boarding in Singapore, they docked in Pusan, Korea. One ritual shared by almost all POWs landing in the empire was to drop his trousers and bend over, while Japanese doctors inserted glass rods up their rectums. No one was quite sure what was done with these “specimens,” but the procedure certainly resulted in no special medical care. Within two weeks, ten men died of dysentery.
After the prisoners pulled up their pants, they were photographed and given another going over by the Kempeitai, Japan’s secret police, an organization similar to Germany’s Gestapo. A whole company of them in their red pigskin boots, with ken hei (thought soldier) on their brassards, inspected the sorry prisoners, stealing their last few rings, watches, and personal items.
The Koreans of Pusan had been marshaled along the streets, and the POWs were lined up in columns of fours and marched up and down the main thoroughfares. Mounted Japanese officers rode at the head while guards walked alongside. They marched under the hot sun all day, only twice allowed to rest, both times near the playgrounds of schools, where children were allowed to spit on them.
The ordeal completed, they were taken to the train station and shipped to Seoul, where they once again performed the parade of jeers. Finally, they reached the camp that was to be their home for the next two years. Several of them died within the next few days. The Kempeitai was pleased with the public propaganda spectacle. Official humiliation of the enemy, which would become common practice in Japanese-occupied areas, went well.29
PRISONERS FROM THE BISMARCKS
Lying between the tail of the New Guinea “bird” and the equator, the Bismarck Archipelago was the scene of some of the toughest fighting in the Pacific in 1942–43. Simpson Harbor and Rabaul, on the east end of New Britain, was the major Japanese base in the area for two years. The initial landing came on 22 January 1942, with an amphibious assault under the Japanese Fourth Fleet, which had much the same composition as the one that attacked Wake. This time it was supported by Admiral Nagumo’s carrier force, and no Allied ships opposed it.
For years the only “defenders” of New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago, and the Solomon Islands were the Australian coastwatchers, a network of local volunteers under the auspices of the Royal Australian Navy who kept an eye on the vast unguarded coast. By 1941, there were more than seven hundred coastwatchers on the rolls, placed at one hundred coast watching stations along a twenty-five-hundred-mile crescent of islands. The station at Rabaul coordinated operations in that sector. These men were watchers only; any serious defense would need armed troops. With that in mind, 23 Brigade of the 8th Division was sent as a nucleus of forces to be placed at various islands north of Australia. The 2/40 Battalion, or “Sparrow Force,” went to Timor, 2/21 Battalion, or “Gull Force,” went to Ambon, and 2/22 Battalion, “Lark Force,” went to Rabaul.
Australia had neither the naval nor air power to support these forces in the event of a major Japanese thrust. There seems to have been no contingency plans to assist the battalions after being placed in such exposed positions. In fact, it was thought that their only function was to “put up a jolly good show.”
Montevideo Maru. U.S. Naval Historical Center
When the Japanese landed, they quickly punched a hole in the coastwatchers’ fence. The volunteers and about four hundred men of Lark Force either fell back into the jungle or retreated along the coasts back to New Guinea. The remaining eleven hundred men put up a brief fight, but the next day they surrendered the city and airfield. Thereafter they languished as prisoners at the Malaguna Road Camp until 22 June 1942, when they were separated into kumis of fifty men each, then bundled off to Simpson Harbor. Perhaps fearing an uprising, the officers were left behind, awaiting another ship.
About 1,050 men, mostly of 2/22 Battalion, together with 200 civilians, many of them Australian administrative personnel, were loaded on the Montevideo Maru. She was a passenger-cargo ship of 7,266 tons built by Mitsubishi in 1926 and was capable of eighteen knots, which was probably enough to outrun all but the latest fleet submarines in a surface chase. Subsequently, she was not escorted. Montevideo Maru cut through the dangerous “Red Channel” west of New Ireland, then northwest through the Philippine Sea, heading for Samah on the island of Hainan. Conditions were crowded, with little food, water, or amenities, much as on other hellships. However, no Australian soldier or civilian left a record of the voyage, for Montevideo Maru was fated to cross paths with the USS Sturgeon.
Late on 30 June, Lt. Cdr. William L. “Bull” Wright conned his submarine about sixty miles northwest of Cape Bojeador, Luzon. At 2216, lookouts sighted a darkened ship to the south. After a few minutes of tracking, it was decided that the ship was on a westerly course, running at high speed. Wright guessed the ship had gone through Babuyan Channel and was headed for Hainan. Sturgeon worked up to full power and headed west in an attempt to get ahead. However, logged Wright, “for an hour and a half we couldn’t make a nickel. This fellow was really going, making at least seventeen knots, and probably a bit more, as he appeared to be zig-zagging.”
It looked hopeless, but Wright hung on, hoping the ship would slow or change course. The range stayed about eighteen thousand yards, but sure enough, about midnight, the ship slowed to twelve knots. Said Wright, “After that it was easy.”
Sturgeon altered course to get ahead in good firing position, dove, and waited. At five thousand yards, Wright discovered the maru’s course was a little south of west, so Sturgeon altered her own course to compensate. With only three torpedoes left in the forward tubes, Wright maneuvered to expose the stern tubes. Even so, it was nearly four thousand yards to the target—a very long shot.
At 0225 on 1 July, the four stern fish were racing toward the darkened, unsuspecting ship. Perhaps all of the prisoners were sleeping in the holds; perhaps there were a few on deck who witnessed the approaching torpedo wakes. At 0229, Wright heard and observed an explosion less than one hundred feet abaft the stack. Finally, lights came on, but they soon flickered out as the ship lost power. In six minutes the bow was high in the air, and in eleven minutes the ship was completely gone. “He was a big one,” Wright noted in the log. Sturgeon surfaced at 0250, completed her battery charge, and proceeded unconcernedly out of the area, unaware of the human toll she had exacted.
On board Montevideo Maru, Japanese survivors indicated that two torpedoes struck in the number four and five holds and in the number five oil tank. Oil gushed into the engine room. Pumps were started but were unable to quell the rapid flooding. Holds filled, and the ship listed to starboard and down by the stern. Within minutes the captain ordered abandon ship. No one bothered about the prisoners deep in the holds. Three lifeboats were lowered, but all capsized, one severely damaged. After being righted, the two remaining boats searched the area until midmorning, then headed for the coast of Luzon, reaching there the evening of the following day. They set out on a trek to find the nearest Japanese base but were harassed and attacked by the natives. Not until 25 July did eighteen wretched survivors reach an Army outpost.
Sturgeon (SS 187). U.S.