Pacific Alamo

by John Wukovits

  Each evening the officers assembled for an inspection by the guard commander, Capt. Toshio Saito. They had to line up in neat rows, then respond instantly to orders given by Saito or any other Japanese to avoid a beating. Many of the men, including Hanna, endured slaps to the face for not understanding orders given in a foreign language. During one of these inspections, the Japanese took Commander Cunningham’s Naval Academy class ring that he had managed to hide from previous searches.

  Twice a day, a cabin boy brought food into the room. The fare usually consisted of water and a meager handout of rice or barley, sometimes supplemented with bits of fish, an olive, radish, or pickled seaweed. The men learned to eat everything to maintain their strength, no matter how foul-tasting or -smelling.

  One day the Japanese cabin boy brought in something other than their meal. With a boastful attitude, he handed around photographs of the devastation at Pearl Harbor taken by Japanese aircraft. The images stunned the gathering and caused morale to plummet. Lieutenant Kinney recalled later that “We had heard that the damage at Pearl Harbor had been considerable, but the destruction revealed in the pictures was numbing. The capsized and burning battleships alongside Ford Island seemed to dash any hopes we might have had for a short war.”5 Left alone with his thoughts and time on his hands, each officer faced the numbing realization that before help could arrive, their nation had to rebound from what appeared to be a resounding defeat. That meant that their involuntary stay in Japan or wherever the ship headed could be measured in years instead of months. As the Nitta Maru chugged westward, a sense of hopelessness cut through the men.

  Captain Platt, who relaxed his men on Wake with an ever-present cheerfulness, restored a semblance of morale by his demeanor during a beating. The Japanese had grown lax in enforcing the no-talking regulation, but one day they burst in and grabbed the affable Platt, who had been one of the most audible violators. They hanged him from ceiling pipes and severely beat him with clubs, expecting to make an example out of the vocal American. When Platt refused to cry out, the Japanese struck him harder. Platt gritted his teeth and remained silent. After the Japanese departed, Platt told his fellow officers, “Twarn’t nothing.”6

  Platt’s example heartened the Americans. They had seen that even though they could no longer battle with guns and hand grenades, they could fight the Japanese with attitude. Lieutenant Kinney remembered this incident well after the war and wrote, “The manner in which Captain Platt withstood this punishment set an excellent example of resistance for the rest of us to follow during our period of captivity. We must never give in. We must always show our enemies that we were stronger—at least in spirit—than they were.”7

  As bad as it was in the mail room, it did not compare to the miserable conditions for the men in the Nitta Maru’s hold, where sweltering air, mixed in with the odors of diarrhea and vomit, hung over everyone. The Japanese packed the men in so tightly that they all could not lie down to go to sleep. In the cramped conditions, they had to take turns stretching out on the metal deck while the others knelt. Standing would have improved the situation, but the Japanese forbade anyone from taking a position higher than kneeling.

  Five-gallon buckets in each corner served as the lavatory facilities. When one was full, a prisoner had to take the container to the middle of the hold, where the Japanese hoisted it up and dumped the contents overboard before returning it to the men waiting below. Their “meal” consisted of a cup of gruel and a cup of water once or twice a day.

  “There were no Japanese guards down there,” stated Corporal Marvin. “You could see them standing above in the passageway, looking down. Every once in a while they would come down and tell us they were winning the war. They sank the Enterprise three times! They sank all our battleships over and over.”8 Even though the war news sounded too fantastic to believe, men like Marvin and Goicoechea could not casually dismiss it. After all, the Japanese had overrun Wake and smashed Pearl Harbor, feats once unimaginable.

  Like the officers in the mail room, the civilians and enlisted had orders to remain silent. Like their officers, they often ignored it. Most of the time the Japanese stayed away, for few had any desire to enter such a stinking, depressing place as the hold, but sometimes their captors hurried down, selected a man, and beat him senseless. A friend of Hans Whitney came back after a beating and exclaimed, “Those damned bastards don’t pull any punches!”9 Goicoechea noticed that the Japanese most often vented their anger on tall, light-haired, light-complexioned men.

  The men never knew when the Japanese might select someone for punishment. As retribution for talking, the Japanese took Pfc. Jacob R. Sanders and Pfc. Robert E. Shores over to some pipes. “Shores was told to reach up and grab onto an overhead pipe,” Sanders wrote after the war. “They then proceeded to flog him with a club about the size of a baseball bat. I watched this and thought I had a good idea. I decided that when it came to be my turn, with my hands up on the overhead pipe, I would be able to bend away from each blow, thereby lessening the severity of the beating. Boy was I wrong! Our captors weren’t stupid and quickly caught on to what I was doing. Another Japanese sailor then stood in front of me with the tip of his saber right at my navel. I then had to lean into each blow so that I wouldn’t get gutted by that sword!”10

  Some of the men suffered nightmares about the Nitta Maru’s hold for years. They could not move without the cooperation of those next to them, and traveling to and from the buckets in the corner to relieve themselves was an experience in itself. Men had to step over and squeeze around other men on their way to the buckets, where an overpowering stench assailed their senses. Diarrhea and vomit turned the deck into a slippery obstacle course.

  In the early days of the voyage, the men prayed that Japan was not their final destination. They believed that a camp in China or any other Japanese-controlled area would be preferable to being confined deep inside Japanese home territory. As the Nitta Maru churned its way toward her destination, though, hopes dissipated when the hull turned progressively colder. That seemed to indicate a northerly destination—the same direction as Japan.

  The weary days blurred into an indistinct stretch of time, framed by defeat on Wake at one end and incarceration in an unknown location at the other. Few men panicked and screamed, but every individual faced those moments when he wondered what the outcome would be. Ironically, some worried that they might even die at the hands of fellow Americans, for some of the men swore they heard submarine torpedoes zing by the hull.

  Corporal Johnson kept track of time by counting the cups of water—every two cups meant one day at sea. To keep a strong mental edge, he consciously thought of his school days. “I transplanted my mind to football games at Chaminade College or the tea dance at Sacred Heart Academy, an all-girls’ school in Saint Louis. I tried to think of things that were pleasant to get my mind off things.”11

  “We Wondered What in Hell Was Going to Happen to Us”

  After six days of hell aboard the Nitta Maru, the men felt the ship slow, then halt. Their concerns intensified when a group of Japanese sailors removed a small number of Americans while keeping the rest in their confined quarters. Other sailors placed a large box at the entrance and ordered everyone to deposit any remaining possessions into it. Watches, rings, and money disappeared into the container, after which the men were thoroughly searched. If anything other than a toothbrush was found, the item would be confiscated and the man punished.

  As the prisoners would soon learn, the ship had pulled into Yokohama, a port city immediately south of Tokyo. The vessel remained in port two days, long enough for the Japanese to transfer a handful of prisoners and to use others as propaganda tools. The Japanese permitted Commander Cunningham, Dan Teters, Commander Keene, and Lieutenant Kahn to wash their faces and comb their hair, then led them above decks, where a waiting line of Japanese reporters and photographers snapped their pictures and scribbled notes of the incident. Since the Japanese wanted the world to think that they treate
d the Americans decently, the photographers waited until a prisoner smiled to snap his picture. This initial Japanese propaganda attempt only confirmed fears back home for the men’s welfare, however, when a close examination of one photograph showed all four Americans looking relatively healthy, but weary.

  The Japanese next allowed these four and a few other Americans to record radio messages for broadcast to the United States. Everyone knew the propaganda purposes, but the men happily accepted an offer that permitted them to make contact with home and loved ones. Lieutenant Kinney sent a message to his family and to his girlfriend. Civilian Harold Sutherland tried to slip a subtle message through to his family by saying, “So far we have been treated fine, I think.”12

  Cunningham, fresh from witnessing Platt’s beating, painted a positive picture so that his wife and child back home would not worry. “To my wife in Annapolis, I wish to send my best greetings and hopes for her welfare and that of our child, and I also wish to assure her that I am in perfect health and expect to stay that way for a long time.”13 Cunningham then added greetings to President Roosevelt and praised his men for the stout defense they mounted, but Japanese propagandists cut this portion from the broadcast.

  Ham radio operators in the United States picked up the transmissions and relayed them to the government and families. This news from the Pacific did not contain much information, but at least some of the families knew their loved ones survived. For the parents and wives of the other prisoners, however, the suspense continued.

  In a separate action, the Japanese removed eight officers and twelve enlisted men at Yokohama for interrogation, hoping to pry out information about American codes and communications before sending them to prison camps located in Japan. All had been involved in aviation, such as Major Putnam and Lieutenant Kliewer, or in communications, such as Major Potter, Ensign Henshaw, and RM3c. Marvin C. Balhorn.

  The men staying aboard the Nitta Maru, which constituted most of the Wake Island defenders, breathed a sigh of relief that they had not been selected for removal, for Japan was the last place in which they wanted to be confined. If their final destination was China instead of the Home Islands, they would at least be closer to friendly Chinese forces and freedom.

  On January 20, the Nitta Maru departed Yokohama and headed toward the Japanese-controlled Chinese port at Shanghai. During the voyage, the Japanese committed an atrocity that no Wake Islander learned about until later.

  Glenn Tripp, Cunningham’s yeoman, watched the Japanese drag away two men near him, S2c. John W. Lambert and S2c. Roy H. Gonzales. Two hours later the men returned, obviously frightened by what had occurred, and told Tripp that the Japanese had accused them of lying and that they were to be punished. The shaken men had no idea why they had been charged, and the terrified looks on their faces emphasized the worry they had about their treatment. After a few moments a guard came and took the two topside.

  Neither Tripp nor anyone else ever saw them again. In fact, they did not learn what happened to Lambert and Gonzales until after the war. The Japanese led the pair, plus S2c. Theodore Franklin, M.T.Sgt. Earl R. Hannum, and T.Sgt. Vincent W. Bailey, to the quarterdeck, blindfolded the five, and tied their hands behind their backs. As 150 Japanese sailors crowded around to watch the proceedings, Lt. Toshio Saito stood on a box, drew his sword, then read a proclamation stating the five Americans would be executed as revenge for the many Japanese killed at Wake.

  A Japanese sailor who gave an account after the war claimed that the prisoners did not know the fate that awaited them until guards shoved them to their knees. The most muscular members of Saito’s prisoner guard, wearing the traditional Hachimaki headband indicating a desire to do their best, stepped behind the Americans and readied their swords. A guard bent over and brushed aside the long hair that blocked the first victim’s neck, raised his sword, and decapitated the individual. The sailor told a war crimes investigating commission that “After the first victim had been executed, it is my personal belief that all the other remaining four victims knew what was going on. The sword as brought down on the neck of the first victim made a swishing noise as it cut the air. As the blade hit and pierced the flesh it gave a resounding noise like a wet towel being flipped or shaken out. The body of the first victim lay quietly, half across a mat and half onto the wooden deck. Plenty of blood was around the body.”14

  Other Japanese guards then executed the four remaining Americans. Crew members mutilated and bayoneted the five bodies, then unceremoniously dumped them overboard. All this occurred while Goicoechea, Hanna, and the rest huddled below, oblivious of the crime.

  On January 24, the ship pulled into Shanghai, where a small group of interested Chinese civilians and a few reporters noted the ship’s arrival. The Nitta Maru headed down the Whangpoo River to the port at Woosung, a Chinese village ten miles from Shanghai. On a cold, blustery day, 1,162 Americans filed onto the docks, where members of the Japanese Army waited to take them to the Woosung Shanghai War Prisoners Camp, their first prison camp.

  As a Japanese officer harangued the men in Japanese, the vociferous Joe Goicoechea impetuously muttered something within earshot of a soldier. When the guard turned and smacked Goicoechea hard on the head with his rifle butt, the civilian realized he had best exercise more discretion in the future.

  The five-mile march to camp tested the endurance of men already weary from the exhausting weeks on Wake and the arduous ocean journey. The hungry, tired men huddled close together to ward off the snow and biting winds, a difficult task since they all were ill dressed for winter. They had boarded the Nitta Maru in the tropics, wearing lightweight shirts and pants, or shorts, and now they had to rely on the paper-thin accoutrements to shield them from winter’s sting.

  “It was cold, by God!” stated Corporal Marvin of the trek to Woosung Camp. “There was a drizzly rain, and everyone was just in khaki, and we wondered what in hell was going to happen to us.”15 Groups of Chinese peasants quietly watched as the stream of American prisoners wound by, some Marines wearing shower togs as shoes. When the Japanese ordered the men to quicken their pace, even though their leg muscles were cramped from being confined so long, the men drew upon inner sources of strength to comply.

  “Our Misery Started”

  Wake Island defenders languished in many prison camps in China, Korea, and Japan. While they all shared common features, each location also displayed unique tendencies. To simplify matters, I have divided the prison camps into two sections—those outside Japan and those inside Japan. The main difference between the two was the severity of treatment.

  Since most of the men captured at Wake Island were first confined at Woosung, then the nearby camp at Kiangwan, eight miles outside of Shanghai, those camps provide an accurate glimpse into prison existence outside the Home Islands. Consisting of seven wooden, unheated barracks surrounded by two rings of electrically charged fences, Woosung was a former Chinese cavalry camp taken over by the Japanese to house prisoners. In freezing weather, the 1,162 men walked through the gates around 4:00 P.M., then stood at attention while the commandant, Colonel Yuse, stepped onto a chair to address the throng. For more than one hour, the officer shouted at the Americans, but since he spoke in Japanese, none of the men understood his words. From Yuse’s demeanor, however, they grasped that he issued warnings about their behavior.

  A camp interpreter followed Yuse and spoke to the men in broken English. Civilians, like Forrest Read and his nephew J. O. Young, who had been accustomed to taking orders only from their foremen or from Dan Teters, and military personnel like Private Laporte, trained to obey their officers, now had to listen as an enemy officer, handling himself with the arrogance that sometimes comes with victory, recited a list of rules. “You will obey orders or be shot,” ominously commenced the lengthy list. The interpreter also cautioned, “Do not touch the fence because it is full of juice and will make you died [sic],” “When you hear the voice of the ‘clarinet,’ get out of bed,” and “Do not drink water unles
s it is made hot or you will be died.” The proud Japanese interpreter then ended with the admonition, “You will remain here until Japan has beaten America.”16

  Shivering against the cold and depressed with the interpreter’s “suggestion” at the length of their stay, the men collected the pair of thin, musty-smelling blankets, a cup, bowl, and spoon handed out by Japanese soldiers and headed toward their barracks. The wooden structures, one hundred feet long and twenty-five feet wide, each housed around 288 men. Each of the five barracks—the other two comprised officers’ quarters and a hospital—was divided into eight sections with thirty-six men forming a section. Instead of beds, the buildings sported six-foot-wide sleeping platforms that extended from the sides about two feet above the floor. Large enough for eight men to a platform, the wooden planks provided little comfort and no privacy. Each man slept on a one-inch-thick cotton mattress stuffed with straw and a pillow of the same composition, and ate their meals while sitting on the platform’s edge.

  As the seemingly endless day neared an end, the men gulped down the “soup” dispensed by the Japanese—little more than tepid water containing a piece of gristle. With that first meal, the men stretched out on the platforms, huddled against each other for warmth, and settled in for what they hoped would be a decent night’s sleep. In his barracks, Lieutenant Hanna and seven other men slept spoon fashion for warmth and to maximize the space. In another building, Joe Goicoechea and the civilian next to him placed one of their blankets on the platform, slid close to one another, then shivered under the other three threadbare blankets. Finally alone with their thoughts at night, the one time when the men could evade the Japanese tormentors, most slept fitfully as thoughts of home and family flooded in.