Lester Tenney, who was forced to work at Mitsui coalmine in Kyushu, remembered that brutality of Japanese guards:
"I was hit with the swinging chain three times, all within a month or two and always for the same reason: the Americans had bombed one of the Japanese cities and killed some of the residents . . . When I was hit with the chain the first time, it fell across my lower back. I felt as if my back had been broken in two." The late Col. Melvin Rosen who survived the march stated that:
"Over 600 men crowded in a metal hold with no ventilation other than one hatch. There were no sanitary facilities. We did use some empty food buckets, but they were soon overflowing . . . men went mad from lack of water and food. They were completely crazed and were drinking urine . . . there were murders and drinking of blood. The conditions in the hold and of the people were beyond belief….The daily death rate . . . escalated from about 20 to 40. Now we were sailing in the East China Sea with snow coming in our open hatch. Men froze to death, died of starvation, died of thirst, and died of a myriad of diseases. Again there were no sanitary facilities, and so the hold was ankle deep in feces, urine, and vomit." |
Louis Read witnessed a killing of a POW when marching:
"One incident at Lubao shook me up. I spent my time during the day standing in line for the one water hydrant to fill my canteen. I was almost up to the hydrant when a Japanese officer came up, looked us over, and selected a ... soldier, who was just in front of me, out of the line. The officer, for no apparent reason, turned over this man to a group of soldiers who took him across the road, tied to a tree and used him for bayonet practice. From my place in line, I saw the whole thing. After he was dead they took his body and threw it into a large bamboo clump. Then, just as I got to the hydrant, the Japanese soldiers pushed me aside and washed the blood off of their bayonets." James Murphy described how P.O.W.s were treated at a copper mine in northern Japan:
"We were subjected to perilous working conditions and strenuous physical labor beyond belief. The guards and officials were trained to be barbarous and savage in their day-to-day exploitation . . . The [horrendous] act against us by the Japanese included beatings with clubs, rifles, shovels, picks and other objects. We were struck with fists and kicked with booted feet causing gashes and ulcers. Even though our conditions of malnutrition, starvation, and disease were plainly evident, the Japanese did nothing to remedy these. We were not fed; our illnesses and diseases were not treated; but they continued to work us harder and harder to increase copper mine production." |