The men who wanted to be the dancing girls were all homosexuals. In the years we men were incarcerated at Camp 17, we knew who the gay men were, all eight of them, but we who were not gay just ignored those who were. Many evenings we could see a few of the gay men caressing their lovers and stroking their hair, but it did not involve us, so we overlooked their sexual preference. I must admit I could not see this “lovemaking” without feeling a little sick to my stomach. I had never been exposed to this lifestyle, so it did offend me. As far as the show was concerned, however, I knew their lifestyle would not interfere with our putting on a good show. The men who took the part of the dancing girls became an integral part of the show, and by the time it was over, my feelings about them changed. I saw them and spoke to them as individuals. Once I understood what their lifestyle was all about and once I realized they were just like me in every way but one, I became more tolerant.
The night of the show, I was as nervous as a cat on a hot tin roof. I worried about how it would go over and what the men would think of it. I also hoped the Japanese would accept the jokes making fun of some of their commands and movements. This was one of the parts that I had volunteered to play, and before putting the sketch in the show, I had asked one of the Japanese officers if he thought it would be all right. After giving him a preview of what I was going to say and how I was going to act, he laughed and said, “Yeroshi” (very good).
The show opened with the song, “A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody,” and when the “girls” came dancing out, dressed like real Ziegfeld girls, it brought the house down. All of us who worked on the show were so thrilled when we got a standing ovation. To my surprise, our Japanese camp commander had invited a few of the higher-ranking Japanese officers from Tokyo to attend our performance. These officers brought with them Baron Mitsui, the owner of the coal mine in which we were working.
At the end of the night, we knew the show was a hit. Everyone loved it, and they showed it with their clapping, whistling, and yelling. To this day I am not sure if the show was that good or if the men were simply that starved for entertainment, but either way, we accepted the accolades with grace and dignity. Immediately after the show, I was introduced to the baron, who informed me that he had asked the Japanese high command to give me a special privilege: I would be allowed to send a message home to my family as my reward for producing and directing the show. The following morning, the Japanese gave me a piece of paper and a pencil and told me to write down whatever I wanted to say, with certain limitations. They said they would broadcast my message over the radio, and most certainly it would be picked up by our government for relaying to my family within a few weeks.
I wrote the following message, which the provost marshal general of the United States received on June 17, 1945, almost a year after I was granted permission to write it. He, in turn, sent the telegram to my mother and father in Chicago. In addition, the message was also picked up by half a dozen shortwave radio enthusiasts in the United States and aboard some of the U.S. Navy ships at sea. My family received a few copies of my message that people forwarded, the most interesting of which was a phonograph record of the message as read by a Japanese announcer.
Washington, D.C. June 17, 1945, 9:49 A.M. Following enemy propaganda broadcast from the Japanese Government has been intercepted, quote.
Dear family: Hope this message finds everyone in the best of health. I am feeling fine. Glad to hear about Louis’ new son. Tell Laura I still love her as much as ever and I hope she is waiting for me. Inform Mrs. M. Martin of Maywood that Bob is with me and is in good health. Also notify Mr. K.J. Bashleban of Parkridge, the same. I hope to hear from you soon. Write and send pictures. Closing now with all the love in my heart to all and give my regards to relatives and friends. Your loving son. Lester . . . Fukuoka, Japan.
Of course, I did not know what happened to this message until I returned home, but when I wrote it, I felt real good that I could let my parents, Laura, and my buddies’ parents know their sons were OK. Bob Martin and Jim Bashleban were also from Company B, my outfit, and when I had the opportunity to write home, all I wanted to transmit was that at the time of the message we were all right.
With the Great Ziegfeld show out of the way, we began planning for the next show. We had hoped to put on a show of some kind every off day, or rotation day, which came every ten days. During the next fourteen months, we produced thirteen shows; at least nine were musicals, and all of the men were able to sing along with the performers. The continued planning, rehearsing, writing, directing, and creating new ideas allowed me, along with many others, to forget the day-to-day tribulations of being a prisoner of war. My work in the mine continued as before, and I continued trading not only with the Japanese in the mine but with the guards in our camp as well. One thing had nothing to do with the other. Although I was engrossed with the work of the entertainment program, survival was still my top priority.
One necessary element for the human body’s survival is salt. The Japanese never gave us any salt in all the time we were in Japan even though we sweated profusely while working in the mine for them. Our camp health committee—Doc Hewlett, Major Mamerow, Lt. John Little, and Lt. Steve Jenkins—decided that we should build a salt-gathering contraption, whereby we would bring in sea water and, through a series of operations, would end up with sea salt.
Our camp was located on the edge of the bay, so saltwater was going to be easy to obtain. We built a desalting plant that consisted of a trough to bring the water into camp, a fifty-five gallon empty drum to boil water in, a fire pit, and a series of wooden ladders down which the water would dribble, leaving the granules of salt behind on the wooden steps. After the first successful week of “making” our own salt, each man in camp was given a spoonful to put on his rice or soup. Unfortunately, some of the fellows traded for more salt and got heart palpitations from ingesting so much salt at one time.
While trying to get enough food and at the same time build his financial empire, a prisoner would trade cigarettes for rice that would be collected at some future date. It could be for as soon as tomorrow or as far away as two weeks. I played this supply-and-demand game. It worked like this: when cigarettes were in great supply, the trading value for rice could be as high as ten cigarettes for one ration of rice. As time wore on and the cigarette supply was literally going up in smoke, one cigarette would buy one bowl of rice. Then when a pack of ten cigarettes was issued by the Japanese, the value of a ration of rice went way up again. This fluctuation showed supply and demand at work. When one ration of rice would trade for ten cigarettes, that was the time to sell rice. Conversely, when cigarettes had not been issued for five or six weeks and one ration of rice could be bought for only one cigarette, that was the time to buy rations of rice.
Next came the hard part. First, I figured out how I could save or store rice for five, ten, or more days without it becoming sour and inedible. By trading rice for one day or more in the future, I could keep my investment intact and at the same time keep my rice hot and fresh. With maybe ten rations of rice to trade it was necessary to offer “rice today for rice tomorrow.” If that failed to get action, I would offer “rice today for rice next week.” If I also felt that it was necessary to get “interest” on my investment, I would offer “rice today for rice and soup next week.”
Second, after I had accumulated sixty or seventy cigarettes, I had to find a place to store them for safekeeping while I worked in the mine. We had to hide our valuables because a few men in camp turned to stealing in order to get more to eat. I hid mine under my barracks, near my sleeping area. Even if the tobacco got stale, it still had a market value of one cigarette.
Of course, there were always some men who would trade their future meal of rice without any idea how they would pay back their debt. If they could not pay back the ration when due, they would end up being harassed, beaten, and deprived of food by those to whom they owed that meal. Often a man who ended up owing more than he could repay would seek
what we established as “bankruptcy protection.” To many of the men in camp, it seemed like the mafia at work, but food was more important than money could ever be. When a prisoner gave someone his ration of rice, he gave the recipient his very existence, his lifeline; and he had a right to expect the debt to be paid as promised.
Our bankruptcy laws were different than those back home. First of all, the bankrupt person had to pay back everything he owed. Nothing was forgiven. Second, while he would have to give up one meal a day until he had paid his debt, he was allowed to eat two meals a day without fear of being molested by those to whom he owed rations. Our informal bankruptcy court would put out a notice to all barracks announcing the name and number of the person who had just declared bankruptcy. Then anyone who had rations due him from this person would come to headquarters at a specified time and face the bankrupt person for proper identification and acknowledgment of his debt. Once the preliminary details were completed, the court prepared a list specifying the day and the meal (breakfast, noon, or evening) that would be paid to the person (s) owed the ration (s). Because some of the men to whom bankrupt men owed rations would still try to strong-arm their way into collecting their debts, we established a system whereby a guard, usually one of the bigger men, would walk through the chow line each meal with the bankrupt person. The guard prevented anyone who was not on the list for that day or that meal from getting the ration of rice. The guard got paid one ration from the bankrupt person’s food rations every ten days for providing protection and for administrating the list of rations due.
Everyone in the camp knew who the bankrupt person was. Anyone trading with the bankrupt person from the date of bankruptcy was told that he would do so at his own risk. He would never be able to file a claim for food from the bankrupt person.
After doing so much trading during the year, I decided to do something different. Even after my twelve-hour stint in the mine, I had to keep active. I put together a raffle. As the prize, I wanted to offer the unusual: an entire Red Cross package. To locate all of the items would keep me challenged for a month or more.
I had enough cigarettes stored away to be able to trade for just about anything, so my first stop was the barracks of the Javanese prisoners. I told them that I was looking for one of everything normally found in a Red Cross package and that I would pay in advance with cigarettes. Within three days, I had located and negotiated for at least half of the items I sought.
Knowing that I was on my way to success, I started to sell tickets for the raffle, which would be held in thirty days. I obtained the numbered tickets from a Japanese civilian I was trading with. The writing on the ticket was in Japanese, but the numerals were Arabic. Because the tickets could not be duplicated, the probability of cheating was greatly reduced. Each ticket, or each chance for the Red Cross package, cost the buyer one package of cigarettes. I was gambling on the idea that every one of us wanted a full Red Cross box, and I encouraged the men who did not have a full package of cigarettes themselves to team up with other men who also did not have enough cigarettes for a wager.
During the next thirty days, I located every item normally found in a Red Cross box. My total purchase price for the entire contents of this box was 420 packages of cigarettes.
In the thirty days that I sold raffle tickets, I collected 675 packages of cigarettes. I hid cigarettes all over my barracks, and I gave more than one hundred packs to Doc Hewlett for the men in the hospital ward. My close friends in camp shared the remaining profit from this unusual adventure.
We held the raffle on one of our days off. At our noon meal in the mess hall, the number was pulled, and the winner jumped up on one of the tables. He shouted, “I’ll live now, my dream’s come true! This is the second thing I ever won in my entire life—the first was being drafted!”
I also shared the cigarettes with about ten kitchen helpers and cooks. At the evening meal, I traded for all the rice and soup I could eat. I felt real good about the whole episode. As I was enjoying my soup and rice, all of a sudden I felt an excruciating pain in my jaw. I pushed my food aside and made my way to the medics’ barracks.
Doc Hewlett was still there. He took one look at my mouth and told me I would have to go into town and see one of the local dentists. Doc did not have any provisions for any type of dental work. That night I just sat up and bit down real hard on a piece of cloth. I could not sleep the whole night.
The following morning, upon my arrival at the medics’ building, I was told to wait outside and that one of the Japanese guards would drive me to town to see a dentist. The truck and driver arrived about an hour later and drove me into town. The ride only took fifteen minutes, and when we arrived the dentist was waiting for me. His office was old and filthy, and the dental chair looked like something out of an old western movie. The dentist motioned me into the chair. After I had opened my mouth, he said, “Tooth out, OK?” I did not believe he was actually asking me a question; he was just telling me what he was going to do.
As he gathered his instruments on the tray in front of me, I saw that he was not going to give me a shot of Novocain. He was just going to pull the tooth. He grabbed his forceps, and without any warning, he proceeded to pry the tooth loose. With one mighty jerk, he pulled the tooth out of the socket. The pain was awful. I clutched the arms of the chair until my knuckles turned white. I must have moaned and groaned, even yelled a little, but I do not remember what I did when he pulled my tooth. I was so happy when the dentist showed me the tooth and said, with a big grin on his face, “Finished. You can go now.” I climbed out of the chair, bowed slightly from the waist, and said “Arigato goraimasu” (thank you). Then the guard pulled me out the door and down the steps to the waiting truck.
Upon arriving back in camp, I was immediately put into the next group of workers going to the mine. The Japanese were not going to allow me a day off work and wait for my regular group just because of a toothache.
CHAPTER 13
“WE HONOR YOU WITH HEAD CUT OFF”
I had returned from my twelve-hour shift in the mine, eaten on the good side of my mouth, and retired to my bunk for a little rest, when all of a sudden an American runner from Japanese headquarters dashed into my barracks. He hollered, “Tenney, you’re wanted at headquarters on the double. Let’s go!” I grabbed my shoes and started to put them on while walking, as the runner hollered, “Make it snappy. This is no laughing matter. Mamerow told me to inform you to tell them everything; they know it all.” What in the hell was he talking about? I started to run as fast as I could, thinking, what can they want me for? What have I done? Then right before I got to Japanese headquarters it dawned on me that someone may have told them about my trading with the workers in the mine.
We entered the headquarters building, and the runner escorted me to a large room with only a small desk, a chair, and a lamp. Sitting behind the desk was our Japanese camp commander. Standing alongside it was the camp interpreter. At the door stood two Japanese soldiers, with their rifles cocked and aimed at me, as if they were needed to protect the commander from the likes of me. I walked into the room, stood at attention, and waited for instructions.
Within a few seconds, the commander spoke to me in a soft, pleasant voice. The interpreter said, “The commander wants to know your name.” As the question sank in, I realized that no one had ever asked me that before. The only time anyone had asked for my name was when I met Riley, the guerrilla leader, and then he only said, “What’s your moniker?” Tenney was all I told him, and that was all he wanted to know. (Only the men from my own outfit knew my name. During the march, no one had cared who anyone was. In Camps O’Donnell and Cabanatuan, we were all so tired and sick that no one bothered to ask a man his name, not even the doctors. When Moto San had asked my name, I had simply told him Tenney San.)
Here I was in the Japanese commander’s office, and he wanted to know who he was talking to. I replied, “Lester Tenenberg, sir.” He then asked me a series of innocuous questions, such as h
ow old I was, if I was married, and where my home was in the United States.
Then, out of the blue, he asked, “Do you know anyone in this camp trading American goods for Japanese goods?” Without blinking an eye, I said, “Hai.” The commander said to the interpreter in Japanese, “Donata desu ka” The interpreter looked at me and demanded, “Who?” I quickly replied, “Me, sir.”
I could see that both the commander and the interpreter were taken by surprise. They blinked their eyes, moved closer to each other, and looked at me as if I was crazy. With wide open eyes, they asked, “Did you not know it was against Japanese law?” I answered, “No sir, I didn’t know it was not permitted.” Then they asked who I traded with and what I traded. I said that when a Japanese man asked me if I could get him a tube of toothpaste, I just said I could. I did not even know who the Japanese man was; I was just trying to do what he asked.
“When did you do this trading?” they asked. Remembering the runner’s instructions from Major Mamerow—whom I trusted—to tell them everything, I made up my mind to do just what he recommended. I answered, “I have been trading for about five months.” Next they said, “Tell us everything.”
I began by telling them that I traded because I was hungry and the work in the mine took more of my energy than I could get from my ration of rice. I told them I did not know any of the Japanese guards or civilians by name and that I could not even identify them because it was dark in the mine. I did say that I traded with more than one or two Japanese, but I stopped there.
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