Cruiser (75 page)
Authors: Mike Carlton
Truman was told of the successful detonation on board
the cruiser
Augusta
on his way home from Potsdam. In Tokyo, some 700 kilometres from Hiroshima, no one knew what had happened, only that all communication with the city had mysteriously been cut off. A statement issued in Truman's name announcing that an atom bomb had been dropped â âa harnessing of the basic power of the universe' â had been picked up by the Domei newsagency, but it was not until the Japanese Army's Chief of Intelligence flew to Hiroshima that afternoon and reported the destruction he had seen that the Emperor and his Supreme War Council of six ministers accepted the unimaginable truth â that a nuclear catastrophe had struck.
Even then, for days they dithered, split between those willing to accept the Potsdam ultimatum, who included Hirohito, and the militarists fanatically intent on fighting to the last gasp. The Foreign Minister, Shigenori Togo, got it into his head that the Soviet Union might mediate with the United States and put out feelers, but he was no doubt grievously disappointed when Moscow responded by declaring war on Japan on 8 August. Puzzled by the continuing silence from Tokyo, the Americans dropped millions of leaflets over Japanese cities warning that more destruction would come if there was no surrender. Still with no response, Truman decided to drop another bomb.
On Thursday 9 August, another B-29, oddly named
Bock's Car
after a former pilot, took off from Tinian carrying a second missile code-named âFat Man' â a larger and slightly more powerful weapon than Little Boy. The target this time was Nagasaki, on the southernmost island of Kyushu. Just after eleven o'clock that morning, the clouds over the city parted and Fat Man was released and detonated in the air.
About 50 kilometres to the east of Nagasaki, across a wide bay, Bill Bee was at work at the Omuta Camp, wondering idly which might kill him first: hunger and disease or the American Army Air Force. The day was fine and sunny, âjust ideal for the bombers', he thought:
Most of the forenoon I spent outdoors in the assembly yard
where we sort out coal skips, work-completed and work-required types. I have clear recollections of louder than usual distant rumblings and later noticing a large pall of smoke hanging in the air in the general direction of Nagasaki. Apart from one of the Yanks remarking âsome other sonofabitch is coppin' it today', no special significance was attached to the occurrence and work went on as normal.
13
For various reasons, Fat Man was dropped some way from its aiming point, with the result that the destruction at Nagasaki was not so immense as at Hiroshima. Nevertheless, some 40,000 people were incinerated â among them an unknown number of Allied prisoners of war held at a camp near the city. On the same day, the Soviet Red Army launched an invasion of Japanese-held Manchuria.
This caused further consternation in Tokyo, but, amazingly, Hirohito and the War Council sat in catatonic indecision, fretting over an obscure Japanese political construct known as
kokutai
, or the national identity, which they hoped the Americans would accept as a means of preserving the majesty of the Chrysanthemum Throne even in defeat. It was not until 14 August that it occurred to Hirohito and his closest courtiers that the phrase âunconditional surrender' meant what it said. Shortly before midday, clad in military uniform and white gloves, the descendant of heaven summoned his final Imperial Conference of the war at the Kyuden and announced â to tears, to respectful howls of dismay and shouts of
banzai
â that he had decided to accept the terms of the Potsdam Declaration. The Emperor retired to a small room at the palace where radio technicians were waiting to record a broadcast that would announce the capitulation to the Japanese people and the world. The military commanders sped back to their homes or headquarters. Some would begin the destruction of evidence pointing to their war crimes. Others, the more fanatical generals and admirals, committed
seppuku
, the ritual suicide of the shamed or defeated Samurai warrior. The War Minister,
General Korechika Anami, bungled his attempt to slash open his stomach with a dagger and had to be despatched by his brother-in-law with a knife stabbed into the carotid artery.
14
At noon on 15 August, from public loudspeakers at city intersections and village markets, on radios in households, offices and factories around Japan and what was left of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, a high-pitched voice began to deliver the Gyokuon-hoso â the Jewel Voice Broadcast. The Japanese people had never heard their emperor speak before, and the language he used was so courtly and old-fashioned that many had trouble understanding him.
That the godly descendant of the sun should address them directly was startling in itself, but the message he delivered was so astounding that, even after translation into something more intelligible, many Japanese could not believe that the war was over. Hirohito's words had been a masterly evasion of truth and responsibility. There was no admission of defeat nor concession of victory, simply a suggestion that the war had been abandoned as an unfortunate mistake. Dripping with self-pity and slippery with euphemism, this speech laid the foundation for Japan's refusal, to this day, to confront the enormity of its wartime atrocities:
We declared war on America and Britain out of our sincere desire to ensure Japan's self-preservation and the stabilisation of East Asia, it being far from our thought either to infringe upon the sovereignty of other nations or to embark upon territorial aggrandisement.
But now the war has lasted for nearly four years. Despite the best that has been done by everyone â the gallant fighting of our military and naval forces, the diligence and assiduity of our servants of the State and the devoted service of our 100,000,000 people â the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage, while the general trends of the world have all turned against her interest.
Moreover, the enemy has begun to employ a new and
most cruel bomb, the power of which to do damage is, indeed, incalculable, taking the toll of many innocent lives. Should we continue to fight, it would not only result in an ultimate collapse and obliteration of the Japanese nation, but also it would lead to the total extinction of human civilisation.
Such being the case, how are we to save the millions of our subjects, and to atone ourselves before the hallowed spirits of our imperial ancestors? This is the reason why we have ordered the acceptance of the provisions of the joint declaration of the Powers.
We cannot but express the deepest sense of regret to our allied nations of East Asia, who have consistently cooperated with the Empire toward the emancipation of East Asia. The thought of those officers and men as well as others who have fallen in the fields of battle, those who died at their posts of duty, or those who met death otherwise and all their bereaved families, pains our heart night and day â¦
We are keenly aware of the inmost feelings of all of you, our subjects. However, it is according to the dictates of time and fate that we have resolved to pave the way for a grand peace for all the generations to come by enduring the unavoidable and suffering what is unsufferable.
â¦Let the entire nation continue as one family from generation to generation, ever firm in its faith of the imperishableness of its divine land, and mindful of its heavy burden of responsibilities, and the long road before it. Unite your total strength to be devoted to the construction for the future. Cultivate the ways of rectitude, nobility of spirit, and work with resolution so that you may enhance the innate glory of the Imperial State and keep pace with the progress of the world.
Across the prison archipelago, in Japan itself and throughout South East Asia, many captives detected subtle changes in the behaviour of their guards in those first weeks of August. It
was hard to put a finger on it. The bashings and the brutality still occurred, but in some camps there seemed a hesitancy, as if the guards had other things on their minds. For months, it had been obvious that the Americans held mastery of the air. No prisoner had ever heard of an atomic bomb, still less that one had been dropped on Japanese soil, but there was the occasional suggestion from a guard that something momentous had happened, which would produce a crackle of rumour. At Omuta, Bill Bee's friendly supervisor, Hakimoto-san, said to him, â
American skorki tuksan boom-boom
', which was prison-Japanese meaning there had been heavy bombing by American aircraft.
On the day of Hirohito's broadcast, the prisoners became acutely aware that something strange was happening. Their guards were at fever pitch and plainly distracted; in most places, after
tenko
, there was little or no work. Bill Bee had already begun to suspect the war had finished. There had been no bombing at Omuta for a couple of days, which was a good sign, he thought. He was in a camp workshop with an American mate, Pat Patterson, when Hakimoto returned from listening to the Emperor's message:
Being the most sceptical of pessimists, Pat stood transfixed on the spot as he watched Hakimoto approach me, extending a hand-shake with the words, âWar all finish â all men go back home.'
For three and a half years we had all been waiting and praying for this moment and now that it had arrived the suddenness of the occasion left everyone momentarily stunned. Nobody said anything for a while except look at one another in amazement. Not until we had all mustered near the main gate with the guards yelling the familiar âAll men back!' did things begin to sink in.
15
At the factory in Kawasaki, as noon approached, Frank McGovern, Vic Duncan and a handful of their workmates
were hustled into the air-raid shelter, which had them nervously speculating that an American invasion had begun and that their guards were about to murder them. McGovern shared the fear, widespread among the prisoners everywhere, that the Japanese would leave no witness to their atrocities:
About an hour later, they got us out of the shelter and we found they had doubled the guards. And they were army guards by the dozen â not the
fumen
, the quasi-military bastards we usually had, but proper army. They led us back to the camp by a different route to the one we usually took, over one of the few bridges left standing, and there was an old woman there, dressed in black. She was crying her eyes out and screaming and pointing her bony fingers. She wanted to get at us and tear us limb from limb, but the guards just pushed her aside.
They put us into the camp and closed the gates. We didn't have a clue what was going on, but there was a lot of conjecture. Then the Jap commandant came out â Captain Tanaka, a real smart, arrogant bastard in full uniform, jackboots and sword â and we were mustered before him. Through the interpreter, he said, âThere are peace negotiations going on between Nippon and America.'
We thought, âThis is good!'
Then Tanaka got up again and said in English, âNippon still strong!'
We thought, âYeah, bullshit.'
And as soon as he said that, we realised it was getting close to the money. And Vic Duncan said to me, âI think it's all over, Mac.'
16
In some camps, especially outside Japan, the commandants and guards could not bring themselves to admit to their prisoners that the war had ended in defeat and shameful surrender. For days â in some cases, even weeks â they continued with the prison routines as if nothing had happened. At other camps, the news was quickly given out by guards, who, snarling and brutal
the week before, now contrived to act as matey as could be. David Manning, one of the loaders from
Perth
's P2 4-inch gun mount, working as a labourer for a Japanese Army battalion at Chumphon in southern Thailand, was called onto parade in the midst of a rubber plantation. An army captain in full ceremonial uniform harangued the prisoners in Japanese, of which they understood not a word until it was translated. Then the officer astonished them by making a grovelling bow.
At Frank McGovern's camp, the prisoners were given paint and brushes, and they daubed the letters âPW' on the roof, ten metres high. A couple of days later, they heard the growl of a high-powered aero-engine and saw the flash of silver wings as a US Navy fighter made a low pass over them, then turned and roared back again. Some small packages tumbled from the cockpit, and the pilot threw the aircraft into a victory roll, soaring and looping above them in high triumph.
Only then did Frank really believe the war had ended.
THE DAY OF LIBERATION
For some men, the surrender came just in time. At Sungei Gerong in southern Sumatra, Tag Wallace was close to death, his body wasted to a skeleton by chronic beriberi and his front teeth smashed to their stumps by a guard corporal known as Bungo, who had bashed him with a lump of firewood. In June, weighing only 40 kilograms and unable to walk, he had been carried to a hut that served as a camp hospital. It was a vision of hell:
The far end had been woven into a barbed wire cage, into which the prisoners who had gone over the edge were locked together to tear at the barbed wire and each other, raving and screaming all day and night. Each side of the hut had raised bamboo slat platforms as a communal bed and we received only one meal a day. A few metres away was another smaller hut, into which the dying were usually sent to prevent a breakdown in morale. However, the death rate by now was so high that most men died right there in the âhospital'. When a man died, it was the normal thing to keep it from anyone, and the man each side of the body shared his rations until the smell became too much to hide.
1
Wallace lay there unable to move, with an Australian soldier on one side and a Royal Navy petty officer on the other. On 15 August, they heard rumours that the war might be over, but a few days later Wallace suffered what felt to him like a
heart attack, and he was moved out of the hospital to the death hut. Delirious, he was convinced that he was dying, until, on 26 August, he heard that the camp commandant had admitted the war had ended. That afternoon, an American B-17 Flying Fortress roared low over the camp, and aluminium canisters of supplies began tumbling from its bomb doors â a rain of boots, blankets and clothing, of canned food, Camel cigarettes and medical supplies, including vitamin B powder. Vitamin B was the sure cure for beriberi, and, within days, Tag could feel some of his strength returning, although his ordeal was far from over. Trucks arrived to take the hospital patients to another camp, but he and the British sailor were left forgotten in the death hut, without food or water for two days:
On the third day, a party of Japanese soldiers came walking along the sides of the big hut and I could smell the aroma of petrol as they splashed it around the walls, apparently under orders to destroy the evidence. I stayed quiet, for I thought that they would destroy us as well if they knew we were witnesses. Fortunately some of the remaining prisoners saw them and before they could light it, a violent fight broke out as they chased the Japanese away. I called out to them and when they came to the hut they found that the other man with me, the English petty officer, had died.
An ambulance came for me about two hours later and took me to a smaller hospital down by the river ⦠and here for the first time I received good food and medical treatment. The change was nothing less than dramatic. Within a week I was already up and about â¦
2
Wars are easier to begin than to end. In August 1945, the Allied governments confronted the task of dismantling the mighty war machines they had assembled. When the dancing in the streets had subsided, the clamour rose to bring home the millions of men deployed around the globe, many of whom had not seen their families for years. The government in Canberra, now led
by a new prime minister, Ben Chifley, estimated there were perhaps 20,000 Australians in Japanese camps who would need urgent medical treatment, clothing and nourishing food before they could be moved. It would require the help of the Americans and, to a lesser extent, the British, to reach these men.
A lot of thought had gone into this from as early as 1942. Well before war's end, the Allies had set up a command known as RAPWI â the Repatriation of Allied Prisoners of War and Internees â which began making plans to take control of the camps and care for the prisoners, to seize whatever Japanese documents might be found and to arrest guards suspected of war crimes. Intelligence had reported that the Japanese Commander of the Southern Army, Field Marshal Count Hisaichi Terauchi, had ordered the massacre of prisoners as the Allies advanced, and commando units were inserted into enemy territory ready to forestall any attempt to carry out that order.
In the third week of August, Lord Mountbatten's South East Asia Command launched Operation BIRDCAGE, airdropping tens of thousands of leaflets written in Japanese characters and warning that âall Japanese officers and soldiers will be held responsible for the good treatment, care and proper feeding of all prisoners of war and internees'. Those leaflets were quickly followed by others to the prisoners themselves:
TO ALL ALLIED PRISONERS OF WAR
THE JAPANESE FORCES HAVE SURRENDERED UNCONDITIONALLY AND THE WAR IS OVER.
We will get supplies to you as soon as it is humanly possible and we will make arrangements to get you out. Because of the distances involved it may be some time before we can achieve this.
You will help us and yourselves if you act as follows:
- Stay in your camp until you get further orders from us.
- Start preparing nominal rolls of personnel giving the fullest particulars.
- List your most urgent necessities.
- If you have been starved and underfed for long periods do not eat large quantities of solid food, fruit or vegetables at first. It is dangerous for you to do so. Small quantities at frequent intervals are much safer and will strengthen you far more quickly. For those who are really ill or very weak fluids such as broths and soups making use of the water in which rice and other foods have been boiled are much the best. Gifts of food from the local population should be cooked. We want to get you back home quickly, safe and sound, and we do not want you to risk getting diarrhoea, dysentery and cholera at this late stage.
- Local authorities and or Allied officers will take charge of your affairs in a very short time. Be guided by their advice.
Miracles happened. Gavin Campbell and Lloyd Burgess were moved from Tamarkan on the railway in Thailand down to another camp at Nakonyoc, north-east of Bangkok. Burgess was so weak that Campbell had to carry him some of the way. As Campbell recalled, they were ordered to begin building huts from bamboo:
More and more people arrived, until one morning, out of the jungle, came this Pommy commando, with a lot of natives behind him, all with sub-machine guns, and he said, âHey, the war's over, chaps. Who's your commanding officer?'
And we said to him, âHow the hell did you know we were here?'
He said, âWe've been watching you chaps for the last three weeks.'
Someone had a Union Jack and they hoisted it, and we sang âGod Save the King', and that was that. But they still kept the Japs on as sentries, mainly to protect us from the natives. Eventually, we were taken back to Bangkok, and when we got there we stayed there at the Oriental Hotel.
3
Similar scenes unfolded across Asia. To many of the prisoners,
accustomed to their own emaciated bodies and the smaller figures of their Japanese guards, the sudden appearance of an American or a British soldier was an awesome sight. Their uniforms were new and different and they carried automatic weapons the prisoners had never seen before, often with a knife and a pistol strapped to a muscular thigh for good measure. Fit and healthy, striding into the compounds with a commanding presence, they looked like warriors from the gods, there to deliver them from evil. The prisoners marvelled. The Japanese shrank before them, with good reason. Tag Wallace recollected that at his camp the first soldiers who arrived âwere so disgusted by the conditions that they simply pulled the nearest five guards out onto the road and shot them'.
4
With their genius for logistics, the Americans took control of liberating the camps in Japan. The Liberator bombers and Superfortresses that had devastated Japanese cities were now pressed into service as transports, their bomb bays filled with supplies that tumbled from the skies in such profusion that the prisoners could barely cope with the deluge. At Omuta, Bill Bee watched as parachutes of red, green and blue fell from the belly of a B-29:
One parachute failed to open, allowing its load, a 44-gallon drum of foodstuffs, to hurtle to the ground unchecked. It burst on impact close to an air raid shelter, causing quite a commotion for those standing nearby. Food flew in all directions, with one unlucky Yank being hit in the head by a can of peaches. Unfortunately this guy didn't make it back to the States, either.
Another package burst in mid air, with the contents being scattered all over the camp. These items included footwear, clothing, cigarettes, reading material, etc., and even messages of greeting â¦
Parachutes were gathered in abundance and very soon the local women were venturing into the camp to cadge the silk ⦠a number of these women would offer to make us shirts and shorts in exchange for the material â¦
5
The prisoners had often talked with relish about the punishments and reprisals they would inflict on their captors when freedom came. In a few camps, this did happen: kangaroo courts were set up, and some guards who had been particularly vicious were strangled or drowned or shot out of hand. But this was far from the norm. The great majority of the captives had endured such brutality for so long that they wanted no more part of it, and when liberation brought the opportunity for vengeance they simply did not take it. âWe won't lower ourselves to the Japs' level,' they told themselves. Their one desire was to get home. Hesitantly at first, then with increasing curiosity, some of the
Perth
men in Japan would leave their camps and walk into nearby villages for a look around, revelling in the long-forgotten freedom of coming and going as they pleased. Ray Parkin got hold of a sketchbook and crayons and wandered along the shores of a little local harbour, drawing the boats and landscapes as he had so long ago in the Caribbean, the Mediterranean and the Pacific. Frank McGovern and Vic Duncan, at Kawasaki, were moved by the plight of the local people, who were bombed and hungry:
There was that much food dropped to us we didn't know what to do with it. So we got a few tins of fruit or something, put them in a bag and went out for a look around the joint. We went into one place where there was a woman and her husband and they had a photo there, edged in black, probably of their son who had been killed, just like any other family. We realised they'd been bloody well browbeaten and starved. They had a couple of mementos there and we were going to trade, but in the end we just gave them a couple of tins of fruit and left.
6
Buzzer Bee did something even more extraordinary. He decided to repay the kindness shown by his old
bunti-jo
, Hakimoto-san. Loading up a bag full of American supplies, he found the man's house still standing in the ruins of a nearby village and turned up unannounced on the doorstep to a startled emotional welcome:
After bowing profusely, he accepted the bag of
sabis
(presents) and then ushered me into what would be the family room where his wife and other members of the family had already gathered. Hakimoto's short introductory speech brought a stunned silence from the onlookers who obviously had never expected a visit such as this. He then gestured that I tip the bag and empty its contents, which I promptly did because not only was I beginning to feel somewhat embarrassed, but I had hoped that the presentation could have been effected without too much drama.
As cigarettes, chewing gum, chocolates, cookies, canned meat and fruits and also woollen socks spilled out onto the matted floor, muted feelings gave way to exclamations of curiosity and disbelief â¦
I found it hard to contain my composure during all the
arigatos
(thank yous) and gestures of humility that were heaped upon me, so I decided to depart the scene as soon as the opportunity presented itself.
7
The conquerors began arriving at the Atsugi Airbase south-west of Tokyo just after dawn on 28 August, the US Army's 11th Airborne Division touching down in wave after wave of C-47 transport aircraft. Two days later, a four-engined C-54 named
Bataan
, the military version of the Douglas DC-4 Skymaster, swooped low over Mount Fuji to land at Atsugi. From it stepped General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, who, ever aware of the waiting newsreel cameras, paused theatrically at the top of the ladder to display his noble profile and to light his corncob pipe. A motorcade took him to the dilapidated splendour of the New Grand Hotel in the bombed ruins of Yokohama, along a route lined by a division of Japanese soldiers. From the sea, the US Navy's Third Fleet, under Admiral William âBull' Halsey, began to enter Tokyo Bay, with an armada of ships from the Allied nations, for the formal surrender. Ten warships of the RAN, including the heavy cruiser HMAS
Shropshire
and HMAS
Hobart
, the sole surviving sister to
Perth
, took their places in the anchored lines of grey stretching out of sight.
Early on Sunday 2 September, under a grey sky, a small fleet of destroyers came alongside the American flagship, the battleship USS
Missouri
, discharging Allied generals and admirals in glittering array. MacArthur would formally accept the Japanese surrender on
Missouri
's quarterdeck, in a broadcast to be heard around the world. Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser, Commander of the British Pacific Fleet, would sign for Britain. Blamey was there for Australia. Britain's General Arthur Percival, thinner than ever from his imprisonment after the surrender of Singapore, took his place not far from Vice-Admiral Conrad Helfrich, the Dutchman who had accused Hec Waller of failing to sell his life expensively at the Java Sea.
At nine o'clock, the Japanese appeared. The new Foreign Minister, Mamoru Shigemitsu, in top hat and morning suit, limped along the deck with the aid of a walking stick, followed by the Chief of the Army General Staff Yoshijiro Umezu, a fanatic who had wanted to fight on but had been personally ordered by Hirohito to sign the document of surrender. A rather tinny recording of âThe Star-Spangled Banner' crackled from the battleship's loudspeakers; then MacArthur appeared with his naval co-equal and rival, Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz. It was MacArthur who spoke: