D)3rd Section: Ryojin Nikki (Prisoner’s Diary)
September 1945 ~ December 1946
Life as a prisoner of war and returning home
San Carlos
An officer exchanges a Rising Sun flag for some cigarettes with an American soldier on foot patrol
Not sure if this is a good idea.
In San Carlos
Captain Takeda forgets about bathing
And tries to trap some frogs
But unable to do so
San Carlos
Under an awning in the heavy rains
Looks like rice paddies
Nowhere to sleep
So we spent 2 nights on wooden mats
–
All of the hills
Are covered with ants
So we had no choice
But to do this
Landing warship (approximately 200 tons)
Up to the beach
This is the kind of vessel that we were transported in.
I was surprised to see that this huge vessel was able to come up on land.
Nothing compares with watching tanks and automobiles being unloaded out of the mouth of this behemoth.
June 30
For once, they gave us our meal on one plate, so I decided to hold a talent show at the camp.
The best part about it is that we could watch it laying down.
–
To be a good son is as good as being atop Mt. Fuji
…
…
…
When Yoshida walks by, the girls invite him upstairs
–
She wears a Kanoko furisode
…
Yoshitaro Oka, the narrator
Yoshida tells the story
The Leyte Relocation Camp Palace (60~70 people sleep here)
They even have some dogs and cats as pets
Something you don’t see very often in Leyte
Emaciated humans
Begging for kitchen scraps
Lumber for the drainage ditch
Ever since the Philippines gained independence, the number of workers had decreased dramatically, so we were forced to work in the sawmills that were formerly worked by Filipinos.
Usually, the Americans at the drainage ditch are a bunch of no-gooders, but the American that’s there today is very calm and gets naked and works with us POW. It feels good to work with him.
The So and So Incident
A local woman looking over the men standing in a single file line.
Walking quickly past the woman
It would be a big ordeal if the woman recognized one of us
An uncomfortable experience, regardless of whether one has any knowledge of the event, or not.
We suddenly start walking quickly as we walk past the woman
“Wait, wait,” – being recognized by her would be a big ordeal
Having 3000 young men standing in a line like this, it’s probably a dream come true for this woman.
Is she an old hag? Or Princess Sen (Note: In Japan, Princess Sen is a synonym for a beautiful woman)?
Evening of the memorial service
There was a huge talent show on the evening of the memorial service.
People don’t get too into it, until the actor that plays the female roles comes out.
Cadet Umino’s “Female Boatman,” “Sumidagawa,” dance, and singing by Mr. Sugie and Mr. Sekine, both from our camp.
“Rain”
Torrential rains can be problematic, but I am thankful for soft rains that remind me of spring rains because we don’t have to work in the field. These days are more common during the rainy season.
“Field workers must wait in the camps until it stops raining” – no problem!
“I thought it was a little loud to be rain, but it looks like someone is pissing in the gutter of the camp”
“Flush toilets are convenient”
“I thought the milk we had for breakfast today was watery – I’ve been pissing all day. This is my 4th time.”
“Just go to the bathroom when you have to shit”
“OK”
Rain
And tomorrow’s Sunday so we have it off, too.
It’s great when it rains for 10 days
It would be good if it rained for 10 days
We’re off today, too. I wouldn’t mind having everyday off.
Rain is like pearls or fog at dawn
Let it rain, let it rain, mother and snake eyes are the only ones that welcome it.
Let it rain, let it rain.
POW, good night.
“When work is easy, we start thinking about home, and it gets hard to fall asleep. That’s no good. POW, good night.
He’s already talking in his sleep.”
“Nom, nom”
“I’m so hungry I can’t sleep”
“I guess I’ll dream about going home”
“POW, good night.”
We hear about some soldiers deep in the mountains who are willing to fight at a moment’s notice (Daisuke Yamamoto)
April 19, 1946
Received notice that the captain, in addition to 22 members of his navy unit, believing that their homeland would win, is fighting for their country at Inampulugan Island, which lies between Negros and Panay Island. Staff Aritomi and Lieutenant Yamamoto are forced to surrender during a suicide mission. They are committed into the Leyte concentration camp on the 20th (via airplane).
Military regulations are very strict. It’s a relief to see the Japanese military return.
I’m grateful that while my strength has weakened, my spirit is still high.
“Preparing to fight for 3 years with enough rations”
Shipping vessel
Inside the hatch…the ship’s hatch
The kids on the streets of Canlubang
Throwing rocks
Jerk!
Thief!
Pouring water over the monkey
Entering the detention barracks
Lieutenant so and so
Gifts
Strictly
Forbidden
POW exercising at the #2 Canlubang Relocation Camp
Canlubang Relocation Camp
The scene is of someone scrounging for kitchen scraps and empty cans
Receiving kitchen scraps
Selling wooden clogs in Luzon
Licking empty cans in Luzon
Collecting swollen cans in Leyte
For leftover kitchen scraps
For empty cans
(A bird’s eye view of the Luzon Island #12 Work Camp)
There are about 45 different campsites within the stockade.
Personnel number: approximately 500
Capacity of the camps: 14
At the entrance of each camp is a banana tree
It feels good to walk outside of the fence
Next door is the American soldiers’ basketball and volleyball courts
American soldiers’ baseball field
Guard
Bringing in radios and phonographs, and lazily observing? Reading? Taking a nap?
Sleeping at night?
Bath, laundry room, bathroom
Toilet
Barber (3 barbers)
#14 Camp… our home
Power generating station
Southern Cross (Endless trouble)
The first time I saw this star, faintly, was in July of 1939, in Taiwan on the evening of an air raid drill.
I was told that if I went south, I would be able to see the star better.
So it became somewhat of a longing for me.
When I was living in Negros, the star was shining brightly above Mt. Canlaon.
After the surrender on September 1, it appeared every night above the barbed wire fence at the stockade.
I want to go home to the country where this star isn’t very visible. Southern Cross (Endless trouble. Note: “Southern Cross” sounds like the Japanese phrase that means “endless trouble”) – what an appropriate name for the star.
“A carpenter’s work site”
“What an idiot, taking a break facing the sun”
“Take a cigarette break.”
The most frighteningly strong sumo wrestler in the stockade, Nihonkai, handing out rations of a thin slice of cheese to go with an equally small piece of bread.
This is supposedly what international law has deemed to be “POW food,” and when we asked the stockade chief to increase our rations, he said, “there is a worldwide food shortage. POWs aren’t the only ones that are going hungry.” I’m not sure if this is true, or not, but I hate going hungry.
Sunday Menu (6/23)
Breakfast: Slop consisting of potatoes (dried) and meat – 2/3 of a cup
Lunch: Green peas and 2 pieces of sausage – 1/3 cup
Dinner: 8 biscuits, 1 ladle full of simmered egg and sausage
Monday Menu (6/24)
Breakfast: the slice of bread and cheese, shown in the drawing on the right
Lunch: Bean soup – ¼ cup
Dinner: 6 biscuits, one cup of cabbage and tankon soup
“If we at least had 1 more slice of bread.”
“Transporting Onoda Cement at night”
At night, we unloaded Japanese military’s Onoda Cement off of huge trucks. Each bag weighed 50kg, and there were 250 bags to carry. There were 2 or 3 trucks, each with this many bags, which exhausted the POWs. And we had to keep our mouths closed because of the dust.
According to an American soldier, “Japanese cement is no good.”
The reason, “because it cracks easily.”
“A carpenter’s work site”
“It’s ok, it’s ok.”
Level “raise it a bit”
“Hey, Fuku, the spot for this hole isn’t off like it was yesterday, is it?”
“I’m not sure.”
[Field workers converge]
At 7 in the morning
The POW’s day starts
Just thinking about how
The sun will be scorching above
puts me in a bad mood.
“Let’s go, let’s go”
“Damping carpenter, please hurry”
“Carpenters from the 2nd Platoon, please get in these 5 lines.”
“Thank you for working so hard in the heat.”
“The rations are a lot less this week.”
“Sundial”
At 9 and 3, the actual clock and the length of the shadows are the same. So, in the field, 11:30 and 4:30 are when we go home.
“Isn’t it time to go home yet? My stomach is saying that it’s past time.” “30 more minutes. Get back to work, get back to work.” “Fuku, all you think about is going home.”
Long term battle
The talk of us returning home by 7/15 has been called off unnoticed. We don’t know when we’ll get to go home. At the stockade, a full-fledged theater has been built.
On 7/18, the opening day of the theater, American soldiers came in droves. As soon as an actor playing female roles comes out, they would yelp for no reason.
The actor who played the female roles in Tokyo Ondo and Kiso Bushi were very popular.
They would yell, “come on, come on,” in the scene in “Shimoda Shigure” where Okichi cries, which makes me believe that the America soldiers are not very well educated.
“In the medical office, treatment scene”
Every morning, someone yells, “patients who need to see a doctor, gather around” from the medical office, but from the camps, it sounds like “dead patients, gather around,” to which our response is “dead patients can’t possibly see a doctor.”
“Ever since I had diarrhea, my back has been hurting.”
“Have you ever had pleural lesions?”
“We don’t have any medicine for that, so just ask for a day off,” – that’s one of the better outcomes.
“You have to come at least 3 times a day or you won’t recover.”
“Excuse me, do I have any rashes on my ass?”
Food storage warehouse
Bell announcing “meal time”
Kitchen
When the meal time bell goes “ring,” even people who are pretending to nap grab their tableware and run out the door
“I don’t have a lot of people to serve – must be because I give tiny servings.”
“What are they serving today?”
“I forgot my meal ticket. Is it forgetfulness from the heat?
“The server in the middle line gives small servings.”
Rations of staple foods
“Boy, you’re quick when it comes to meal time.”
Rations of side dishes
Going to get tea
Calorie Calculation List at Prisoner’s Camp
“We received this week ration as follows.”
“Inside the camp on a Sunday”
Playing with Japanese cards, Go, laying down and singing [from Yoneyama-san], everybody is doing their own thing
I didn’t have any paint, so the medical offices gave me some medicine, which I used for color. Atebrin for yellow, Mercurochrome for red, and so on.
I used a board from a desk for a palette, I used the stem of a match for a brush, which I covered with absorbent cotton.
The paintings came out all right.
“Clouds are coming from Yoneyama-san – we’ll get sudden rains soon”
“Yoneyama-san, it’s going to rain, so pleas stop singing.”
Cup
Tableware
“No, no.”
“Hold on a minute.”
Clothing bag
Blanket
Soap
“Admiring the strength of the bulldozer”
Picking up 2 cubic feet worth of dirt on its own, and then transporting it to a desired location. What a convenient piece of equipment.
Road construction should be a piece of cake.
“I’m getting tired of doing this.”
“These bulldozers, which look like a rhinoceros beetle, are quite impressive.”
“We used a shovel, a cross and a straw basket to build airports and roads, and it took about 1000 workers to do it, but if we had this bulldozer, it would’ve taken a day? Half a day? Amazing.”
Rains make the drainage ditch diggers cry
When it rains, construction workers and channel construction workers both have the day off, but the group of 40 who are digging drainage ditches are forced to continue working, regardless of whether it’s Sunday, or night, whether it’s sunny or rainy during the day.
The material storage area is like a muddy field, so it’s not a good idea to walk through this while carrying materials in the rain.
When it rains, the carpenters rejoice, but the drainage ditch diggers cry.
*****
Pouring water over the monkey
Entering the detention barracks
Lieutenant so and so
Gifts
Strictly
Forbidden
POW exercising at the #2 Canlubang Relocation Camp
Canlubang Relocation Camp
The scene is of someone scrounging for kitchen scraps and empty cans
Receiving kitchen scraps
Selling wooden clogs in Luzon
Licking empty cans in Luzon
Collecting swollen cans in Leyte
For leftover kitchen scraps
For empty cans
(A bird’s eye view of the Luzon Island #12 Work Camp)
There are about 45 different campsites within the stockade.
Personnel number: approximately 500
Capacity of the camps: 14
At the entrance of each camp is a banana tree
It feels good to walk outside of the fence
Next door is the American soldiers’ basketball and volleyball courts
American soldiers’ baseball field
Guard
Bringing in radios and phonographs, and lazily observing? Reading? Taking a nap?
Sleeping at night?
Bath, laundry room, bathroom
Toilet
Barber (3 barbers)
#14 Camp… our home
Power generating station
Southern Cross (Endless trouble)
The first time I saw this star, faintly, was in July of 1939, in Taiwan on the evening of an air raid drill.
I was told that if I went south, I would be able to see the star better.
So it became somewhat of a longing for me.
When I was living in Negros, the star was shining brightly above Mt. Canlaon.
After the surrender on September 1, it appeared every night above the barbed wire fence at the stockade.
I want to go home to the country where this star isn’t very visible. Southern Cross (Endless trouble. Note: “Southern Cross” sounds like the Japanese phrase that means “endless trouble”) – what an appropriate name for the star.
“A carpenter’s work site”
“What an idiot, taking a break facing the sun”
“Take a cigarette break.”
The most frighteningly strong sumo wrestler in the stockade, Nihonkai, handing out rations of a thin slice of cheese to go with an equally small piece of bread.
This is supposedly what international law has deemed to be “POW food,” and when we asked the stockade chief to increase our rations, he said, “there is a worldwide food shortage. POWs aren’t the only ones that are going hungry.” I’m not sure if this is true, or not, but I hate going hungry.
Sunday Menu (6/23)
Breakfast: Slop consisting of potatoes (dried) and meat – 2/3 of a cup
Lunch: Green peas and 2 pieces of sausage – 1/3 cup
Dinner: 8 biscuits, 1 ladle full of simmered egg and sausage
Monday Menu (6/24)
Breakfast: the slice of bread and cheese, shown in the drawing on the right
Lunch: Bean soup – ¼ cup
Dinner: 6 biscuits, one cup of cabbage and tankon soup
“If we at least had 1 more slice of bread.”
“Transporting Onoda Cement at night”
At night, we unloaded Japanese military’s Onoda Cement off of huge trucks. Each bag weighed 50kg, and there were 250 bags to carry. There were 2 or 3 trucks, each with this many bags, which exhausted the POWs. And we had to keep our mouths closed because of the dust.
According to an American soldier, “Japanese cement is no good.”
The reason, “because it cracks easily.”
“A carpenter’s work site”
“It’s ok, it’s ok.”
Level “raise it a bit”
“Hey, Fuku, the spot for this hole isn’t off like it was yesterday, is it?”
“I’m not sure.”
[Field workers converge]
At 7 in the morning
The POW’s day starts
Just thinking about how
The sun will be scorching above
puts me in a bad mood.
“Let’s go, let’s go”
“Damping carpenter, please hurry”
“Carpenters from the 2nd Platoon, please get in these 5 lines.”
“Thank you for working so hard in the heat.”
“The rations are a lot less this week.”
“Sundial”
At 9 and 3, the actual clock and the length of the shadows are the same. So, in the field, 11:30 and 4:30 are when we go home.
“Isn’t it time to go home yet? My stomach is saying that it’s past time.” “30 more minutes. Get back to work, get back to work.” “Fuku, all you think about is going home.”
Long term battle
The talk of us returning home by 7/15 has been called off unnoticed. We don’t know when we’ll get to go home. At the stockade, a full-fledged theater has been built.
On 7/18, the opening day of the theater, American soldiers came in droves. As soon as an actor playing female roles comes out, they would yelp for no reason.
The actor who played the female roles in Tokyo Ondo and Kiso Bushi were very popular.
They would yell, “come on, come on,” in the scene in “Shimoda Shigure” where Okichi cries, which makes me believe that the America soldiers are not very well educated.
“In the medical office, treatment scene”
Every morning, someone yells, “patients who need to see a doctor, gather around” from the medical office, but from the camps, it sounds like “dead patients, gather around,” to which our response is “dead patients can’t possibly see a doctor.”
“Ever since I had diarrhea, my back has been hurting.”
“Have you ever had pleural lesions?”
“We don’t have any medicine for that, so just ask for a day off,” – that’s one of the better outcomes.
“You have to come at least 3 times a day or you won’t recover.”
“Excuse me, do I have any rashes on my ass?”
Food storage warehouse
Bell announcing “meal time”
Kitchen
When the meal time bell goes “ring,” even people who are pretending to nap grab their tableware and run out the door
“I don’t have a lot of people to serve – must be because I give tiny servings.”
“What are they serving today?”
“I forgot my meal ticket. Is it forgetfulness from the heat?
“The server in the middle line gives small servings.”
Rations of staple foods
“Boy, you’re quick when it comes to meal time.”
Rations of side dishes
Going to get tea
Calorie Calculation List at Prisoner’s Camp
“We received this week ration as follows.”
“Inside the camp on a Sunday”
Playing with Japanese cards, Go, laying down and singing [from Yoneyama-san], everybody is doing their own thing
I didn’t have any paint, so the medical offices gave me some medicine, which I used for color. Atebrin for yellow, Mercurochrome for red, and so on.
I used a board from a desk for a palette, I used the stem of a match for a brush, which I covered with absorbent cotton.
The paintings came out all right.
“Clouds are coming from Yoneyama-san – we’ll get sudden rains soon”
“Yoneyama-san, it’s going to rain, so pleas stop singing.”
Cup
Tableware
“No, no.”
“Hold on a minute.”
Clothing bag
Blanket
Soap
“Admiring the strength of the bulldozer”
Picking up 2 cubic feet worth of dirt on its own, and then transporting it to a desired location. What a convenient piece of equipment.
Road construction should be a piece of cake.
“I’m getting tired of doing this.”
“These bulldozers, which look like a rhinoceros beetle, are quite impressive.”
“We used a shovel, a cross and a straw basket to build airports and roads, and it took about 1000 workers to do it, but if we had this bulldozer, it would’ve taken a day? Half a day? Amazing.”
Rains make the drainage ditch diggers cry
When it rains, construction workers and channel construction workers both have the day off, but the group of 40 who are digging drainage ditches are forced to continue working, regardless of whether it’s Sunday, or night, whether it’s sunny or rainy during the day.
The material storage area is like a muddy field, so it’s not a good idea to walk through this while carrying materials in the rain.
When it rains, the carpenters rejoice, but the drainage ditch diggers cry.