Baa Baa Black Sheep (46 page)

Shortly after the first bomb was dropped, we prisoners, old or fresh—it made no difference—seemed to have a lot of new company, for the Japanese moved about a hundred college-boy soldiers, a sort of Japanese F.B.I., into the camp. They were to be found everywhere, listening and watching us. No matter which direction we turned, no matter where we were, we could see them lurking around in the vicinity—day, night, toilets, mealtimes, everywhere.

They tried to conceal the fact that they could read, write, speak, and understand English fluently. But we got wise to them over something very simple, and they became dead giveaways, even though none of us had any more than the remotest knowledge of the existence of the bomb.

One of my boys had picked up a coil while working in the bombed-out city and had taken it back to our cell for an express purpose. He had bared the electric-light wires and arranged the coil so that when he made contact, the coil would heat up red-hot, thus providing an excellent cigarette lighter. He had gotten sick and tired of asking a guard for a
“matchee”
and being turned down. We had been using this coil for some time and thought nothing about it, although we hadn’t advertised its use, naturally. But the first time one of these English-speaking F.B.I. fellows took a gander at our contraption he shouted for everybody in camp. This is when we knew how well they spoke and understood English. This poor jerk was positive that this innovation of ours, which looked like a Rube Goldberg affair, had some very definite connection with the atomic bomb. But even if it had, the Japanese had lost both secrecy and surprise in the battle royal that ensued over this petty contraption. Poor Mr. Kono, the prisoners’ benefactor, our friend, could not talk everybody into any semblance of order this time.

Kono, the person who explained the singsong-sounding Japanese prayer I couldn’t understand all those many months, was without a doubt one of the greatest men I ever met. He had been a wealthy importer, was around thirty years old, and had decided that the only way he could help matters was to act as an interpreter, or a referee of sorts. He wore a uniform but held no rank. I knew that he was a Christian,
although he never told me so. Kono’s heart was being torn out most of the time, a combination of pity for the ignorance and brutality of some of his own countrymen and a complete understanding of the suffering of the prisoners. But my admiration came, not from the way he felt, especially, but from the manner in which he handled himself with no outward fear of consequences—not even death. Yet he never violated the military ethics of his countrymen, as I saw it, while doing acts of kindness too numerable to mention. But if ever there was a man who could read between the lines in the Japanese orders and the Bible combined, it was Mr. Kono. This man’s courage in saving lives and preventing hardship will apparently go unrewarded in the ordinary sense—like medals from either Japan or the United States. But I can assure you that he will stay in the hearts of many men—for there was a far braver man than I.

Because the people of our own American cities have been spared so far the cataclysm of aerial bombardment we can only guess how our own people will behave when the time comes. We know how the English behaved, the Italians and the Germans, the French, the Russians. We know how some of these nationalities behaved differently from others. But our own American cities, being composed of a composite of races and nationalities, may behave accordingly. Some racial sections may go completely crazy; other racial sections in the same city may be calm. But at most we can only guess, too, how enemy prisoners will be treated immediately after being shot down during the heat of one of these catastrophes. People whose homes and families have just been destroyed will be wild then—and we can only guess what some Americans might do. Yes, we can only guess.

But we don’t have to guess how the civilian population of Japan behaved. Or at least most of us prisoners who were there at the time don’t have to guess. But to keep all things clear, I will limit these observations to just what I myself saw or underwent.

While in this second and last camp I really got to know the population of Japan quite well. In our daily work of removing the destroyed homes of the Japanese civilians, and even when they had lost members of their families, relatives, or friends, I did not seem to notice any belligerence toward us. I walked by the crowds of civilians, within three or four
feet of them, in rags and half starved, and never once did I have any occasion to fear them, before or after the B-29 raids.

Shortly after I was released, I read articles by correspondents who had gone into Japan, and they told about the surly mobs standing around. But I cannot understand this, the way I look at it, because, to the contrary, the majority of civilians were very good to us. We were not allowed to speak to them, and they were not allowed to help us in any way. Yet despite this order they risked beatings to help us out by giving us cigarettes and small pieces of food. I saw many of them punished for trying to help us. In fact, practically every day I saw at least two or three beaten by the guards who were standing on duty over us. Even the policemen had the right to strike civilians. If one were caught jaywalking, for example, the policeman ordered him over, the civilian would stand at attention, and the policeman would then strike his face, first with one fist and then with the other. When civilians came near us, one of them might say hello in their language, and the guard would call the civilian and have him stand at attention while hitting him repeatedly.

I never will forget one little old man with snow-white hair. I judged him to be about seventy. He came over to light his pipe in one of our trash fires. He had not spoken to any of us, yet the guard called him over. The little old man laid down his bundle and bowed three or four times, then the guard laid into him with his fists. He knocked the little fellow down, I would say, a half-dozen times. Finally the man’s face was bloody, and then the guard, when he was through, said a few more words to the old man, who bowed two or three times, walked over and picked up his bundle, and went on down the street.

The civilian population going to and fro on the street never even looked up while this beating took place. They were used to it.

Unlike those few educated Japanese I have mentioned who seemed to have a savvy about the outcome of the war, the majority of civilians had no idea that Japan was not going to win. Yet they still were kind.

There was one lady who lived in back of a partly demolished store. She had two or three daughters and an elderly father. In this instance we happened to have one particularly good guard on duty whom we called “Limpy” because he had half
of a foot shot off. Yet he was about one of the fairest and squarest guards I ever saw. He would permit this lady to cook up food for the eighteen of us when we were out working around where her store was.

Then one day the guard said that the lady, her girls, and the old man were going to leave. They had all their belongings packed up on a truck. I went over and in my politest Japanese bowed to her, just like old-home week, and told her how much we had appreciated the things she had done for us. She was all smiles and, speaking perfect Japanese, told me what nice boys she thought we were. Then, after they got all the kids and their belongings on the truck, the lady and the old man got on too, and as they started to drive off, the eighteen of us half-starved prisoners stood there waving good-by, just like you would wave at any friends back home going away on a train trip.

A few of the dried-fish peddlers around town occasionally would slip one of the boys a fish, and when we had these stews, cooking up the vegetables, we would throw in the fish to give the stew a little flavor. Any time the guards caught any of the civilians doing such things, or even talking to us, they invariably called them over and we had to witness the beatings.

One day while we were working out in a garden, a soldier came up to me and in perfect English asked me if I were an American or an Englishman. I told him, and he said: “You know that President Roosevelt died?” There was so much sincerity in his voice that I knew he was not joking with me. Then he told me that he was very sorry about it, and so forth. All of a sudden the guard with us came up and told me that I was not supposed to talk to any guards outside of our own camp, that I would be beaten the next time I was caught talking to any other guard. This meant, then, that I could not talk even to people in uniform from anyplace other than my own camp.

The women of Japan seemed to be especially kind. I never heard of any of them being ornery to the prisoners. As a matter of fact, even the people in bombed-out homes would give the prisoners, when nobody was looking, small portions of food salvaged from their own wreckage, or anything else they thought the prisoners could use—as long as the guards did not catch on.

Contrary to what people would think, the guards who gave us the most trouble on the whole were the young ones who never had left the mainland. Those who had been out to different parts of the world and had seen action, and even some of those who had been terribly wounded, seemed to be of much better nature than the young ones who had stayed in Japan. These were the fellows who administered most of the beatings.

Uniforms can do strange things to some people during their first weeks. Now I can appreciate even better why the Marine Corps wants to wear the newness off a boot’s uniform by sending him through boot camp prior to turning him loose on the public at large.

As long as people are still alive to talk about the end of this war, and before getting into the next one, each person no doubt will have his own version of where he was, what he thought, and what he did on the day hostilities ceased.

This was the case after the First World War, as we know; and, judging from our grandparents, it was the case after the Civil War; and so the whole thing must have continued this way right on back to Helen of Troy.

Under the circumstances, and because we
are
individuals, each person’s version must remain somewhat different, how he received the news and what he did immediately afterward. The end of a war suddenly can become such a personal matter, and all at once, that the only way we can be honest in telling of our reactions is by merely sticking to our own and letting others stick to theirs.

So, even if this chapter does seem personal, too personal, that is all I can do about it or should do about it. For, after all, I was only one of a billion who had his own feelings during those transforming hours.

The day hostilities ceased I was lying ill with yellow
jaundice on my straw mat back at camp. The guard on duty called me over to him. He was one of the elderly guards and had never given us any trouble, so I believed, more or less, what he said, although I cannot say that it quite dawned on me.

He told me in Japanese that the war was over. I stared at him. He repeated himself, saying: “Yes, the war is over. It was over fifteen minutes ago. Don’t tell anybody I told you, because if it is found out the officers will punish me.”

I really did not believe that the war was over. I thought that maybe there was some sort of a peace parley going on. I knew definitely that something important had happened. The rest of my gang had been working in a mine shaft and came home early that afternoon, and said that they were told to bring out the light equipment and take home all the tools.

A party of Englishmen who used to go down daily and work on the railroad yards all came home that afternoon. It was different from any other day we had seen them come home because this time they were all singing.

Every night and every morning we had to stand in formation. I would stand at the head and give the command to attention and so forth, and salute the Japanese duty officer and his staff as they came by. But this evening, after I had given the final salute, I said to my own people: “Hey, fellows, we don’t know whether this is over, but I would like to suggest something.”

They said: “What is it?”

I said: “Let’s stay in formation and all repeat the Lord’s Prayer together.”

We did, and after we got through one little prisoner said: “Oh, Greg, that sounds so wonderful, why didn’t we include that with every one of these formations?”

Although I have had my share of nightmares in my day, the remainder of this night was about the largest and longest real nightmare I ever hope to have. I don’t believe that I could stand a much longer one.

Looking back, in a different light, I am able to appreciate the utter disillusionment and hopelessness some of these poor Japanese guards must have felt. I can feel for them now but truthfully cannot say that I appreciated any part of it at the time it happened.

Resorting to alcohol to try to solve one’s problems, or to
try to attain peace of mind, was thoroughly familiar to me. And I can understand why the majority of the guards proceeded to get drunk. Furthermore, had I been invited, I probably would have gladly joined them in their drinking—but for the opposite reason. Any reason is a good one, though, if one happens to be an alcoholic, or emotionally immature.

All seventeen of us were awakened from sweet dreams, not by the drunken shouting coming from the various guard quarters at Omouri, but by the guard on duty at our doorway. He was trying to be calm and suppress his anxiety, saying: “The guards are getting very drunk. Some are threatening to kill all the American prisoners. Here is a hammer and some nails for you to nail your door closed. And don’t worry, because I’ll protect you with my life—because that is my duty.” So we proceeded to put the hammer and nails to good use without delay.

Before long we could recognize the drunken shouting of a non-commissioned officer we had always considered to be a right guy, and he said: “Let me at the captives. I am going to kill all of them. I’ll prove to them that Japan is greater than the United States. Let me at them.”

Through the cracks and windows we were able to see this drunken character staggering around outside. Our guard was restraining the drunk as best he could, trying his utmost to pacify him. The drunk would break away occasionally, and take huge slashes at the air with his double-handled samurai sword, such huge slashes that he almost fell on his tail each time he swung. Then he would beat upon our door until I thought that he would surely break it down, when all he had to do was walk through one of the windows. But a drunk never does anything the easy way, I know.