spongebob
22nd May 2011, 11:41
I have touched on this story three years ago with my post “Bill-A marine engineer” and this prompted other people with knowledge of and personal connections with this event to contact me and offer further information that is now included to make a more complete account.
The story is, never the less far from complete and it is to be hoped that this edition may rouse the attention of others that can add information from the past.
The length requires posting in three parts to stay within the SN site limits and I trust that readers will not find the story too long
Bob
MV HAURAKI - A World War Two Story
As time marches on and memories start to fade, that greatest of wars ever fought, the 1939 to 1945 World War 2, has now reached a stage where most of the soldiers, sailors and airmen that took part in active service are no longer with us and some of their comrades in arms are becoming frail as witnessed by less and less old servicemen at ANZAC Days and similar observance occasions.
The history made by these armed service men and women has, in the main, been well documented by Government record, by war historians, and even by television and film dramas and documentaries that allow all of us, and especially the descendants of these brave people, to source all manner of documentary information about their forebears via so many official and internet sources.
But what about those that served in theatres of that war but in civilian roles?
There were many, such as Allied Merchant Navy personnel, Hospital ship crews and staff, civilian medical support groups, air raid wardens, fire fighters and Ambulance personnel plus many others that served under extreme duress and often under fire as they carried out their activities that were vital to the support of the front lines.
One of the biggest groups in this category was the Merchant Marine of the Allied countries, those men that manned the cargo ships that shipped both war material and sustenance cargos from all around the world to the British Isles
Cargoes of Butter, cheese, meat, wool, fruit and vegetables and other essential primary products from Australia and New Zealand, wheat, munitions, explosives, small arms, aircraft and tanks from Canada and cargos from the United States of machinery, steels, alloys and other raw materials to supplement Britain’s strained supply resources for the manufacture of their squadrons of Spitfires, Lancaster bombers, Churchill tanks, small arms and bombs. All the very weapons of destruction that were sorely needed to defend against the similar armaments of the aggressive German and Japanese foe. The United States both built and manned no less than 2700 Liberty ships with 41 civilian crewmen required to man each vessel
All the crewmen manning cargo ships from all corners of the allied world endured all the hardships of warfare but without any or the most meagre means to retaliate.
While Allied Navies often provided convoy escorts, the merchant ships were mostly sitting ducks for capture, enemy bombing or torpedo attack to the extent that the records show that over 14 million tons of Allied shipping was sunk by U-Boat and other enemy actions representing over 2800 ships and with the loss of over 30,000 lives. Over 5000 seamen were taken prisoner, and some of these men, the crew of the New Zealand Union Steamship Co ship MV Hauraki, are the subject of an account to follow.
But first, more comment about attitudes toward these non-combatant forces during those times.
On the 30th of October 1945 after the war had ended the British House of Commons passed the following resolution;
“That the thanks of this house be accorded to the Officers and Men of the Merchant Navy for the steadfastness with which they maintained our stocks of food and materials, for their services in transporting men and munitions to all the battles over all the seas, and for the gallantry with which, through a civilian service they met and fought against the constant attack of the enemy”
But still the seamen had their pay stopped immediately when their ship was sunk!
Various Allied countries treated these “semi-Combatants” or “Civilian seamen” as being privately employed by the shipping companies and therefore outside of state responsibility when matters of repatriation, rehabilitation and compensation were brought up and in many cases it has been a long and bitter struggle by many war time seamen or their dependents to get any sort of recognition for their efforts and ordeals
The Australian Government’s initial response about Merchant Mariners is highlighted in the attached extract from the book “This war never ends” by Dr. Michael McKernan about the Australian Prime Minister John Curtin’s years during WW2
Quote
“And were merchant seamen on active service? Take William Angus Todd, first officer on MV Hauraki, a ship of the Union Steam Ship Company.
Hauraki left Fremantle on 7 July 1942 en route to Colombo; on war service, was intercepted by ships of the Japanese navy in the Indian Ocean and Bill Todd, with all the other crew, became prisoners of war. Bill Todd died in captivity on 19 April 1944 after nearly two years working from a prison camp in Japan. His name is not on the Roll of Honour. The military-minded men on the Memorial's Board of Trustees in 1967 decided that the Roll would be limited to those who had died 'on or as a result of active service' and that, therefore, there should not even be a plaque at the Australian War Memorial to merchant mariners who had died at war.
Nurses and patients on the hospital ship Centaur, lost off the Queensland coast, would be on the Roll but not the merchant mariners who crewed on the ship.
General Thomas Daly explained that merchant seamen could not be regarded as 'servicemen in the true sense of the word'. They were paid higher wages, he said, by way of 'danger money and penalty rates of one kind or another'. And so they were forever excluded.”
Unquote
It is believed that official attitudes have since been softened by public opinion and some of these anomalies modified but many a bitter pill was taken by many men and women in the intervening period
.
Having provided a brief background to the sacrifices made by the Merchant Marine during World War and to the reluctance of most men that have experienced the horrors to elaborate on their involvement I now highlight fragments of a story, never completely told, about the plight of this one particular New Zealand registered ship and her crew.
For the technically minded details of MV Hauraki are as follows
MV HAURAKI
Registration No 146533
Built 1922 by William Denny and Bros Ltd Dumbarton Scotland
Gross tonnage 7113
Dimensions Length 137.25 metres, Beam 17.74 metres, Draught 9.57 metres
Service speed 12.5 knots
Engine specifications Twin screw oil, 2 x 8 cylinder 4 stroke SA 936 nhp
Engine builder North British Diesel Engineering Works Whitehall
Built for Union Steamship Company of New Zealand Ltd
She was the Union Steam ship Company of New Zealand’s first diesel powered vessel, and was designed primarily for cargo work but with accommodation for twelve passengers.
She worked extensively on the Trans-Pacific run, mostly Melbourne, Sydney to Vancouver via the Pacific Islands during the 1930’s and in 1936 she had the distinction of carrying the first Douglas DC2 as deck cargo from the USA to Melbourne for Holman Airways.
In 1940 after the out break of WW2 she was requisitioned by the British Ministry of War under the command of Captain AW Creese and manned mostly by New Zealanders and Australians, for use on wartime ‘special services’.
Hauraki, laden with war supplies for the Middle East, sailed from Wellington via Sydney, to Fremantle for re-fuelling, then left that port on 4th July 1942 bound for her destination via Colombo.
Eight days out of Fremantle and while in the Indian Ocean she was ambushed by Japanese armed Merchant Cruisers Hokoku Maru and Aikoku Maru and being unarmed and unescorted she was not able to resist being captured.
The ship was forced to sail under armed guard via Japanese occupied ports to Singapore where the passengers and non- essential crew members were placed in camps and prisons such as Changi Jail while the engineers were made to steam the ship up to the Mitsubishi Dockyard in Yokohama Harbour. Yokohama is the sea port for Tokyo and was a very large base for both the Naval and Merchant ships of the Japanese fleets
The Hauraki then had some modifications and repairs done, some to rectify the sabotage damage inflicted on machinery by the NZ crew, before being re-named Hoki Maru and sent to sea on the task of carrying defense materials to the Japan held Pacific theatres.
She lasted about eighteen months at this job until, on February 17th 1944, she was caught at anchor in a lagoon east of Eten Island, then a Japanese stronghold and major airstrip in the Truc group of Melanesian Islands, and an Avenger bomber from the Aircraft Carrier USS ‘Bunker Hill’ hit the port side with an aerial torpedo igniting the cargo of fuel and destroying the ship. Other torpedoes also made their mark as proved by the many gaping holes in her hull when she was found in later years.
She was discovered in the 1980’s sitting upright on a sandy sea bed at a depth of less than 50 metres with her superstructure and hull badly damaged but with much of her cargo of bull dozers, trucks, steam rollers, runway matting, aero engines etc, all items useful for forming and maintaining island air strips, still intact in the holds after more than sixty years on the sea bed
.It is not surprising that the ship is now a well known and patronised Scuba dive site known in diving circles as the ‘Bulldozer Wreck’ and is promoted by Michael McFadyen’s Scuba Diving Company as a perfect dive site.
( www.michaelmcfadyenscuba.info)
This story of the MV Hauraki’s crew is relatively shallow in its information and telling for the very same reticent attitudes that are mentioned and illustrated herein but by using material that has been gleaned from the net, from government files, from the seamen’s personal records and from voluntary verbal offerings from relatives of the ship’s crew I try to tell as much as I am able.
We have a reasonable degree of background details of the experiences of three engineers and one deck officer of the Hauraki plus scant information concerning some of the other crew members and details are below.
Second Engineer R.L Thompson
We know little about ‘Jock’ Thompson, as he was known, apart from the very graphic insight to his life as detailed in this following personal statement which was apparently recorded on his release from capture and although we do know that he continued to serve as an engineer at sea for a period after the war, there is little that we are able to add to this man’s story
His statement which is detailed below without alteration except for minor spelling and punctuation corrections is perhaps the most accurate details available of this whole event as Thompson was with the ship right through the period from initial capture until docking at Hiroshima and was the senior officer on board during the transit time from Singapore to Japan.. He also remained a POW throughout the war until peace was declared
His statement reads as follows
Quote
“At approximately 10 p.m. on the night of 12.7.42 the alarm bells went off and on stepping out of the cabin to proceed to the Engine room I was rather amazed to see the ship in a blaze of light which I soon discovered to be the beams of searchlights from two ships, one on either quarter. Two shots were fired across the bow and we were told to stop, which we did with a lot of trouble owing to the control rods of the Starboard Engine jamming and bending. Everything was ready at a moment’s notice to scuttle the ship should we receive orders from the Bridge that it might be an enemy craft.
Meantime whilst waiting, we repaired the control Rods. It seemed like ages waiting for news from the Bridge and finally the Chief sent a junior up to see what was doing. He came back almost immediately and at his back were Japs armed for immediate action (revolver and good torches slung over their shoulders on cords). It was rather a shock but everyone appeared quite calm. Rounded up, we were all ordered on deck. Thu Purser’s cabin had evidently been searched and the list of crew and firearms on board was in their hands. On the aft end of the bridge deck a Nip stood with hand grenades whilst we were searched. The 2nd Officer Allan McIntyre (the coolest man on the ship) was sent to collect the firearms from the cabins, which he did under the eye of the guard and when walking along the deck to deliver same, deliberately walked to the ship’s side and dropped them over. The Nips were too amazed to speak and after a little talk among themselves let the matter drop.
At this time the Captain and Chief Engineer were being questioned and finally came out telling us that we had to take the vessel to a Port where there was a Prize Court, which meant Japan. No argument they could put could alter the matter. From the time of the stop until we got under way again was a little over two hours which made it shortly after midnight, this making it the 13th of the month, the date the Japs claim as the day of capture. Also they worked on Tokyo Standard Time and we had moved our clocks accordingly. The course was set for Penang and we must have had ten stops, due mostly to our negligence trying to make the trip as slow as possible in case any of our Navy may be around. At night time many Lifebelts, bottles etc, were dropped over the side with messages and our course which was obtained from the NZ able bodied seamen who still steered the ship. During this time the 2nd Officer, Mr. McIntyre, played a wonderful part feigning drunk. The Nips took very little notice of him and in the middle of the night slipped down No.2 Hatch and recovered twelve bags of secret mail which he got to his cabin and during the next two nights finally disposed of it, the Chief on the second night giving him a hand. It was a great bit of work. I hope he is highly commended for his great risk and wonderful work.
We arrived in Penang on the 22.7.42. I suppose a little disappointed at not meeting any of our own Navy but at that time we knew the Navy had its hands full. The second Jap Cruiser kept just ahead of us and was in constant communication. We had on board twenty two Guards, two officers and 1 W.O. who treated us very well but were always very wary. On arrival at Penang two more Senior Jap Officers and a few ratings joined us who also treated us well. Our Captain, Mate, 2nd Mate, Chief Engineer, Purser, Wireless Operator and one or two passengers were taken ashore for questioning and on their return we learned from them that they were threatened quite a lot but managed to get back safely but for future questioning it put us on our guard.
Departing from Penang (which looked really beautiful from the ship) we proceeded to Singapore Naval Base (Selita) arriving on the 2nd August, taking two days for the run as we anchored at night. We anchored right opposite the floating dock which had been sunk (before the British Navy had evacuated) as well as several other ships which we could see alongside of the wharf and really looked good to us. Approximately two days later the 2nd and 3rd Officers with most of the Crew were told to pack up and go to a prison camp. We gave them a great send-off at the time feeling upset at being broken up. A few days later we set off for Japan and when but a few hours out ran ashore on a sand bank. After a lot of engine work we managed to get a lot of Compressor trouble and lost a lot of lube oil. We did not get off the bank until high water and decided to return, arriving back the following morning, anchoring again in the same place. They now decided to discharge the vessel and soon after started discharging into lighters. This continued slowly from day to day. Our Jap Navy Officers and Guards were sent back to their own ship and an Army Police Guard put in their place. We now started a daily routine hoisting cargo gear not forgetting washing down every morning. We had four Chinese and Indian fitters below to lend a hand working on Compressors. When questioned if we had sufficient gear to go to Japan we decided that we were short of Exhaust Valves (though we had many more than sufficient) so they got sent ashore and got two or three cast and machined before we left.
On the 1st October hurried orders came on board for the Captain, Chief, 1st Mate and Senior Wireless Operator to pack up and they were taken across to the Tokyo Maru to go to Japan. This reduced our number left on board to nineteen, myself being the senior officer, and with the departure of the Captain and the Chief I must say I did not feel at all happy with the added responsibility.
My first experience of trouble began when a Chinese Fitter was caught with a tin of tobacco, given to him by one of the juniors. The Chinese was beaten; the rest of us given quite a lecture and for a time we looked like going though it but all went well.
The Guards were changed from time to time and as each part went off took all they could carry of stolen cargo. About the third week in October another Jap Naval party took over, but before any arrangements could be made for sailing a Jap Raider came in (evidently short of men) and they were transferred and back to the Army Police again we went. By now all cargo was discharged. Number three hatch was partly left. Early in November another Jap naval party took over and we were duly lined up to hear the usual penalties which we were now accustomed to hearing at every change. The difference this time being the Captain (Jap) telling us this would be the last time he would address us in English. The following morning at the usual line up we were told to face the East and with the Guards bow to the sun and go through what we understood to be the Nip Morning Prayer. Of course we refused. This certainly made the Japanese CO. very angry and he got the guards to push our heads down. It was done with some vengeance but up we came again and after some talk among ourselves we were finally dismissed. After breakfast I spoke to the Jap Engineer about it and he took the matter to the Captain. Evidently after due consideration he excused us and imposed the saluting of the flag on us, otherwise we would be severely punished. I agreed to it saying that it did not mean a thing to us. We left Singapore on the 18th November having shifted ship from the Naval Base two days before and proceeded to Saigon. The night before we arrived there the look-out (Chinese on deck) saw something on the Port Bow and gave the alarm. The guns were manned and they opened fire discovering a minute later it was another Jap convoy coming from Saigon. We do not know if any damage was done or not. Saigon is a beautiful place to look at and is forty six miles up the river through paddy fields. When loading rice was started I immediately protested about the ship carrying Nip cargo. I got no satisfaction and we had to carry on. The “Hauraki” was moored to buoys on the left bank opposite the wharves where we could see the Australian and British P.O.W.’s working but too far away to make contact. We left Saigon about the 3rd or 4th December with four or five ships in convoy and had a slow and uneventful trip to Taiwan where we arrived about the 13th December. The Harbour had a very narrow entrance and was full up with shipping including three Hospital ships. Departing again on the 15th December we went to a place about one hundred miles up the coast and anchored behind some small islands awaiting another convoy which left about the 18th December. The Jap engineer never let up seeking information regarding the machinery and always making sketches of pipe lines etc. but without results as I warned all hands about it. He was a fairly tough proposition but now he started making me special green tea and serving it up in full Jap ceremonial fashion with the red silk cloth over his hand before passing it over. Not doubt he was a very puzzled man as he had absolutely no data, drawing or otherwise to look at, as we had destroyed everything. There is no doubt in my mind that had he known the job our life would have been a little hell, consequently we made the most of everything. We still retained our cabins but dined aft in the crew’s quarters, mostly tinned sausages and rice at this time. The sausages of course were part of the cargo.
Our next stop was Moji Japan, and our small knot convoy with destroyers who were our escort arrived there on Christmas night, 1942. The Diesel fuel we took on at Singapore was just plain boiler oil. It worked alright in the hot weather but from Taiwan to Japan it just would not flow but after fitting heaters to the filters we managed to get along alright. When the oil trouble started the Jap engineer got the idea it was sabotage and until he saw the result of the heaters things were far from pleasant. I regretted very much that we showed him that much.
On numerous occasions he had I had arguments about the running of the engine room. The engineers on all occasions cooperated wonderfully. The weather in Moji was miserably cold and a miserable place with a strong raw wind blowing. The shipping was very busy. Labour came on board both men and women and quite a lot of the rice was discharged. Off we went again, Osaka being our next stop. One the way over we managed to pump out at least sixty or seventy tons of fuel. On arriving at Singapore we had at least three thousand gallons of lube oil but by now were very short having over done disposing of it, so we added fuel oil and salt water to make up the deficiency. The remainder of the rice was discharged here and military barracks, in sections, loaded. I again protested in no uncertain terms but still of no avail. From Osaka to Tokyo 11.1.43 to 13.1.43 the grinding and wearing of the machinery would have made any respectable engineer weep and we on board breathed a sigh of relief when we were finished with engines. On the way up the boys kept on throwing overboard the spares for generators, fuel pumps and anything or real value to the job and on arrival at Tokyo we were certainly “schooner rigged”. It was the last day of October before they go to turn out of the “Hauraki”. On the 15th January 1943 we were loaded on a truck and dispatched to Yokohama, about twenty miles away.
We drove through thickly populated areas, everyone looking at the prisoners, and arrived at D-1 P.O.W. Camp. Here we were fortunate to meet again the Captain, Chief, Mate and Wireless Operator. After being searched and through the regular speeches and penalties etc. we were allotted our pew to sleep on. What a place to land in. The weather bitterly cold, mud everywhere, the camp hospital full to overflowing, hardly a man fit to speak being so full of the cold. At night time the coughing was terrible. There was no medicine, or in fact anything. Fortunately we had stolen quite a lot from the ship’s medical kit and now we gave it to the Doctor to help him out. For the first three months there was a death every other day and sometimes two. We were issued with working suits and on the 18th January were sent to the Mitsubishi Ship Yard. Up in the morning at 5.a.m., roll call, P.T.s give a hand to draw breakfast and serve it out, and return buckets washed. Immediately, after breakfast, line up, for work parade. The usual thing every morning someone getting beat up for some trifle. We march two miles to work, the guards using their butts or boots to help us on. We were forbidden to talk to Jap workmen under very heavy penalties. Some were caught and on arrival back at camp we would have to watch their punishment. Generally ten or twelve guards taking turn about beating him up, it was sickening. After the beating they were tied up to a post on the parade ground for several hours. I have seen on a morning parade three men getting heavily slugged because they asked to get their boots repaired. At this time roll call at night was our greatest nightmare as we were hungry and dead tired. They generally started at 7.30p.m and very often lasted for hours, many times till midnight.
On one occasion we were kept standing for hours while they demanded that any British, American or any other currency we possessed should be given to them for safe keeping. Amongst our boys they got a large sum, Holland the A.B. handing over 159 pounds, the other ranging from 5 to 30 pounds. A short time afterwards we were informed that the Jap Government had changed over our money to yen, giving us 97 yet per Australian or N.Z. pound and 95 yen for a British pound, also 98 yen for one dollar. We are now endeavoring to recover same. Before going further I might mention we were in a Military POW Camp where we had Americans, Dutch, English, Australian and New Zealanders. The camp strength at the start being about five hundred and fifty which was reduced to just over four hundred and twenty when approximately seventy officers were removed to another Camp and a large number of deaths had occurred.
The first C.O. and Interpreters were nothing but sadists and never a day went by without some unpleasantness or incident. Bashings, standing up for hours, extra drill on return from work to make us accustomed to Japanese orders and then at roll call for hours giving us questions in Japanese for us to answer in Nip and standing at attention all the time with the guards walking around all the time punching anyone who dared to blink an eye. The sickness in the camp included pneumonia, malaria, dysentery, diarrhea, gastric flue, beriberi and many other complaints. Here six weeks after our arrival in camp motorman Hughes died on pneumonia and tuberculosis. Captain Creese went down with pneumonia a few days before Hughes died, but I am pleased to say he fought hard and recovered. Before he recovered Mr. Lindsay, wireless operator, also go pneumonia and for days we did not expect him to be there on our arrival back from work, but he made the distance. The day Lindsay came out of hospital I dropped with an attack of Malaria but after a while recovered. These complaints certainly took it out of us and to crown all whilst convalescent, cleaning camp, were on half rations which amounted to three quarter of a cup of grain and a cup of soup. My dinner today put me in mind of two or three soups in Japan, as today we had green peas – where there – the Nips had the peas and we had the pods boiled up with a little misu paste (Soy Thickening) for our soup. Mostly soups were made of Dykon tops (Radish), turnip tops, sweet potato leaves and anything that looked green whilst at rare intervals a few dykons or sweet potatoes might find their way in. One about four or five occasions we had bread for breakfast. The first time it was absolutely as green as grass with mould, and at other time so hard it was impossible to break it but we ate it for not matter what it was, it was better than being hungry. The Japs said that if it was too mouldy to take it back to the galley to put in the soup. Nothing went back as when we got bread there was no grain. Occasionally we had small portion of fish for tea which on numerous occasions was very high, head, guts, scales, bones, everything was eaten. Occasionally thirty pounds of meat, horse? Or whale? came into the camp for four hundred and twenty prisoners. After the Nips had their cut we were lucky to get ten pounds, which was cut up small and put into the soup. Shortly before we were moved from Yokohama we had a special treat, a bucket of blood poured into the soup with a few green tops chopped up. The blood was obtained from the slaughter house..
At last after the best of twelve months the first C.O. and Interpreter were shifted, and the pressure eased up and the bashings became less frequent. Then the American planes started to appear, as the days went by the alerts became so frequent it was difficult to keep count of them.
The bombing was terrific and the incendiaries most spectacular. The damage was enormous. One night we witnessed fifty square miles of Tokyo burning down, and the 4-B29’s were shot down quite close to our camp. The planes coming out of the darkness into the glare of the burning city looked like ghosts. The Nips were always too interested during the raids when things got too hot to worry us, so we always got a good view of things. At last things became too dangerous around Yokohama and they decided to shift us. Before proceeding further I will add a little more about conditions.
The conditions in the camp were terrible. In the winter time the temperature was from twelve to eighteen degrees below, then the camp was infested with lice and bugs, while in the summer time the temperature was high, there we were absolutely eaten alive by fleas and mosquitoes which came in clouds. To get forty to sixty on your blankets every day was common to all. To start off with we had two grass mats to sleep on but as they were vermin breeders had to dispense with them and sleep on boards. The lavatories were something frightful and were just a living mess of maggots and at times the blow flies came in clouds. We had no mosquito nets to start with. It was impossible to sleep during the mosquito season and it was only after the prisoners were dropping with exhaustion that the arm nets were brought in. There were manyaccidents at the ship yard and mostly caused through negligence of the Japs. On one occasion the staging around a ship carried away and one of the prisoners badly smashed up internally, also a broken leg. It was about two hours laterbefore he was put into a wheeled hand truck and taken back to camp to get his first attention. He died later. This was the regular procedure. The truck was known to the prisoners as the Mitsu-bishi ambulance.
It was the same truck we used for taking firewood back to camp for the galley. Fuel was very scarce and coal, when obtainable, very poor. The camp was split up in sections and our group of 100 with another group of 100 from Osaka shipyard camp were sent to Kamaishi. We left Yokohama Camp on the 12th May 1945 and after a tough ride of thirty two hours by train arrived at Kamaishi at 2.30am on the 14th May 1945. We marched to the camp about half a mile away. The C.O. was an arrogant pig. He lined us up after giving us our quarters and let us know where we stood and finished by saying, “I will give you sleep, but we got no breakfast”. We discovered that the camp had 200 Dutchman in it. There were but four water taps and just enough water for two to run and then only a dribble.
The C.O. and the guards much resembled our first C.O. and his outfit and ruled us with a rod of iron. Not the heavy bashings but for any small offence you lived in the guard house doing odd jobs when you returned from work during the day, half rations and no blankets. We were to work in the steel works and for the best part of the time the work was heavy. Sometime in June the observation planes started to appear, then many others. The trenches in our camp were just started and now speed was needed and not before time. Our food here was a slight increase to the Yokohama camp but the soups just as poisonous. For greens we went to the mountains and gathered wild chrysanthemum leaves, thistles, grass and fern leaves. This was just one of the fatigues we had on our day off which sometimes came along once a fortnight, and sometimes longer in between. On the 14th of July, 1945 the American Fleet decided to pay us a visit and lay about three miles from the mouth of the bay which was approximately four miles deep and heavily shelled the place. About one hundred yards in front of the camp (on the foreshore) was a A.A. Battery, whilst across the bridge at the right of the camp and about three hundred yards away was another A.A. Battery, the steel works directly at the back. Other A.A. Batteries were placed on the hills a little farther up the valley. For two and one half hours they poured in salvos every fifty five seconds. From five to sixteen inch shells rained over us. A sixteen inch shell for the last salvo pierced the top of the tunnel we were sheltering in. It landed almost overhead blowing in the top of the tunnel which crashed down killing over forty Nips and five POW’s. The screams still ring in my ears and the noise was terrific. The Chief Engineer was buried well over the chest and it was well over two hours before we got him out as a dead Dutchman was tangled around his feet. He was badly bruised, two bones broken in the left wrist and minor cuts. I was badly cut about the head and with concussion and I suppose badly shaken up. Back at the camp we learned that one shell had hit the camp at the back in the section where we were accommodated and one American boy had received a compound fracture of the right arm.
The Jap C.O. of the camp had his mother and sister living nearby and both of them lost their lives. He was much quieter after that. We heard from good sources that over three thousand Nips lost their lives. During the next week the small air-born planes made frequent visits trying to eliminate the A.A. Batteries, but did not quite succeed. On the 9th August the Allied Fleet arrived to complete the job. We could hear them shelling a little distance off and had plenty of time to move to a safe shelter but no orders were given. Shortly after, the shelling started again and they really went to market. Being hospital cases were in the hospital trench. The ground trembled all the time. About the end of the first hour the front A.A. Battery got hit and the ammunition dump went up.
· The camp was hit and up in flames it went due to the ammunition dump going up. It burned like a petrol fire being so dry, the flames going right across the parade ground and getting into the trenches at both doors. The situation was desperate and many of the boys dashed out blindly only to receive severe burns and many died later. A few of us lay flat waiting our chance to get out. At last I made in along with two Dutch boys but unfortunately one of them who had a broken collar bone from the first shelling lost his life as he did not have the strength to clear the parade ground. The other boy was very badly burned. We then sheltered on the river bank until it was all over. The whole place was in ruins and the camp nothing but ashes. That night we slept amongst the ruins, the boys who went to work slept wherever they could get. We then got the news that a shell had hit another tunnel near the mouth killing seventeen Dutchman. We lost ten in the fire making twenty seven in the second shelling and a total of thirty two for both shellings. Unfortunately our 5th engineer, Harry Brodie, died of burns a few hours after the fire. He was the fourth one of our crew to die who came to Japan. Todd, the Mate, died of malnutrition on the 19th of April 1945 and Holland, A.B., on the 12th July 1945 of Cancer of the liver.
· The day after the fire we moved to an old gymnasium where there was very little accommodation. Just before we entered the building the small planes came over to bomb the A.A. Battery on the hill. One bomb dropping about amile away. A single stone came through the air and went through the roof killing an American boy. It was three days after the fire before we received any medical attention and many of the boys were in a bad way. The steel works then sent up about six nurses and a Jap Doctor. The nurses were very efficient and the attention certainly relieved us. Two days later many of the burnt patients were found to have maggots crawling all through the burns which took quite a time to pick out. On the 15th Augustat lastsome of the prisoners came in to tell us, who were hospital cases, that there was a peculiar parade of the guards. They evidently first turned East and then turned toward Tokyo bowing etc. and doing things they had never done before. The Chief with an American decided then and there that the war was over and had it confirmed within twenty four hours. Late that afternoon we were all moved to join another camp about twelve and a half miles up the valley to a place called Ohashi. It was made up of Canadians and Dutchmen. The Canadians by the way traveled by the Union Company Ship M.V. “Awatea” from Vancouver to Hong Kong. Here we were billeted in a small theatre which at its limit held just over two hundred, so the other one hundred and fifty had to sleep anywhere they could get.
On the 25th August, just at dinner time, small sea-borne planes appeared and seven hundred and fifty men dashed out to see them. The first one flew over the camp at about fifty feet up dropping a few cigarettes and a note telling us to keep cheerful and thinking I was just a little over-strained I turned away only to find everyone of the boys weeping for joy also. It certainly was a wonderful sight and thinking I was just a little over-strained I turned away only to find everyone of the boys weeping for joy also. It certainly was a wonderful sight. From then on every second day the B-29’s came over and dropped food, clothing, boots and medical supplies. From the time we arrived in Ohashi we received more and better food and with the American food coming in we picked up very quickly. They even dropped flea powder which was a real prize as by running the hand over the badges the fleas would come out, but the powder soon stopped that.
We were evacuated from Japan by the American Red Cross Ship “Rescue” taken to Yokohama and transferred to the British Hospital Ship “Vasna” which we left and flew down to Okinawa, then on to Manila. After thirteen days in Manila we came on to Sydney by the H.M.C. “Formidable”, then by rail to Melbourne and finally to NZ by SS “Andes”.
Since leaving Japan we have had nothing but kindness shown to us and trust that all concerned know”.
“Unquote”
To be continued
The story is, never the less far from complete and it is to be hoped that this edition may rouse the attention of others that can add information from the past.
The length requires posting in three parts to stay within the SN site limits and I trust that readers will not find the story too long
Bob
MV HAURAKI - A World War Two Story
As time marches on and memories start to fade, that greatest of wars ever fought, the 1939 to 1945 World War 2, has now reached a stage where most of the soldiers, sailors and airmen that took part in active service are no longer with us and some of their comrades in arms are becoming frail as witnessed by less and less old servicemen at ANZAC Days and similar observance occasions.
The history made by these armed service men and women has, in the main, been well documented by Government record, by war historians, and even by television and film dramas and documentaries that allow all of us, and especially the descendants of these brave people, to source all manner of documentary information about their forebears via so many official and internet sources.
But what about those that served in theatres of that war but in civilian roles?
There were many, such as Allied Merchant Navy personnel, Hospital ship crews and staff, civilian medical support groups, air raid wardens, fire fighters and Ambulance personnel plus many others that served under extreme duress and often under fire as they carried out their activities that were vital to the support of the front lines.
One of the biggest groups in this category was the Merchant Marine of the Allied countries, those men that manned the cargo ships that shipped both war material and sustenance cargos from all around the world to the British Isles
Cargoes of Butter, cheese, meat, wool, fruit and vegetables and other essential primary products from Australia and New Zealand, wheat, munitions, explosives, small arms, aircraft and tanks from Canada and cargos from the United States of machinery, steels, alloys and other raw materials to supplement Britain’s strained supply resources for the manufacture of their squadrons of Spitfires, Lancaster bombers, Churchill tanks, small arms and bombs. All the very weapons of destruction that were sorely needed to defend against the similar armaments of the aggressive German and Japanese foe. The United States both built and manned no less than 2700 Liberty ships with 41 civilian crewmen required to man each vessel
All the crewmen manning cargo ships from all corners of the allied world endured all the hardships of warfare but without any or the most meagre means to retaliate.
While Allied Navies often provided convoy escorts, the merchant ships were mostly sitting ducks for capture, enemy bombing or torpedo attack to the extent that the records show that over 14 million tons of Allied shipping was sunk by U-Boat and other enemy actions representing over 2800 ships and with the loss of over 30,000 lives. Over 5000 seamen were taken prisoner, and some of these men, the crew of the New Zealand Union Steamship Co ship MV Hauraki, are the subject of an account to follow.
But first, more comment about attitudes toward these non-combatant forces during those times.
On the 30th of October 1945 after the war had ended the British House of Commons passed the following resolution;
“That the thanks of this house be accorded to the Officers and Men of the Merchant Navy for the steadfastness with which they maintained our stocks of food and materials, for their services in transporting men and munitions to all the battles over all the seas, and for the gallantry with which, through a civilian service they met and fought against the constant attack of the enemy”
But still the seamen had their pay stopped immediately when their ship was sunk!
Various Allied countries treated these “semi-Combatants” or “Civilian seamen” as being privately employed by the shipping companies and therefore outside of state responsibility when matters of repatriation, rehabilitation and compensation were brought up and in many cases it has been a long and bitter struggle by many war time seamen or their dependents to get any sort of recognition for their efforts and ordeals
The Australian Government’s initial response about Merchant Mariners is highlighted in the attached extract from the book “This war never ends” by Dr. Michael McKernan about the Australian Prime Minister John Curtin’s years during WW2
Quote
“And were merchant seamen on active service? Take William Angus Todd, first officer on MV Hauraki, a ship of the Union Steam Ship Company.
Hauraki left Fremantle on 7 July 1942 en route to Colombo; on war service, was intercepted by ships of the Japanese navy in the Indian Ocean and Bill Todd, with all the other crew, became prisoners of war. Bill Todd died in captivity on 19 April 1944 after nearly two years working from a prison camp in Japan. His name is not on the Roll of Honour. The military-minded men on the Memorial's Board of Trustees in 1967 decided that the Roll would be limited to those who had died 'on or as a result of active service' and that, therefore, there should not even be a plaque at the Australian War Memorial to merchant mariners who had died at war.
Nurses and patients on the hospital ship Centaur, lost off the Queensland coast, would be on the Roll but not the merchant mariners who crewed on the ship.
General Thomas Daly explained that merchant seamen could not be regarded as 'servicemen in the true sense of the word'. They were paid higher wages, he said, by way of 'danger money and penalty rates of one kind or another'. And so they were forever excluded.”
Unquote
It is believed that official attitudes have since been softened by public opinion and some of these anomalies modified but many a bitter pill was taken by many men and women in the intervening period
.
Having provided a brief background to the sacrifices made by the Merchant Marine during World War and to the reluctance of most men that have experienced the horrors to elaborate on their involvement I now highlight fragments of a story, never completely told, about the plight of this one particular New Zealand registered ship and her crew.
For the technically minded details of MV Hauraki are as follows
MV HAURAKI
Registration No 146533
Built 1922 by William Denny and Bros Ltd Dumbarton Scotland
Gross tonnage 7113
Dimensions Length 137.25 metres, Beam 17.74 metres, Draught 9.57 metres
Service speed 12.5 knots
Engine specifications Twin screw oil, 2 x 8 cylinder 4 stroke SA 936 nhp
Engine builder North British Diesel Engineering Works Whitehall
Built for Union Steamship Company of New Zealand Ltd
She was the Union Steam ship Company of New Zealand’s first diesel powered vessel, and was designed primarily for cargo work but with accommodation for twelve passengers.
She worked extensively on the Trans-Pacific run, mostly Melbourne, Sydney to Vancouver via the Pacific Islands during the 1930’s and in 1936 she had the distinction of carrying the first Douglas DC2 as deck cargo from the USA to Melbourne for Holman Airways.
In 1940 after the out break of WW2 she was requisitioned by the British Ministry of War under the command of Captain AW Creese and manned mostly by New Zealanders and Australians, for use on wartime ‘special services’.
Hauraki, laden with war supplies for the Middle East, sailed from Wellington via Sydney, to Fremantle for re-fuelling, then left that port on 4th July 1942 bound for her destination via Colombo.
Eight days out of Fremantle and while in the Indian Ocean she was ambushed by Japanese armed Merchant Cruisers Hokoku Maru and Aikoku Maru and being unarmed and unescorted she was not able to resist being captured.
The ship was forced to sail under armed guard via Japanese occupied ports to Singapore where the passengers and non- essential crew members were placed in camps and prisons such as Changi Jail while the engineers were made to steam the ship up to the Mitsubishi Dockyard in Yokohama Harbour. Yokohama is the sea port for Tokyo and was a very large base for both the Naval and Merchant ships of the Japanese fleets
The Hauraki then had some modifications and repairs done, some to rectify the sabotage damage inflicted on machinery by the NZ crew, before being re-named Hoki Maru and sent to sea on the task of carrying defense materials to the Japan held Pacific theatres.
She lasted about eighteen months at this job until, on February 17th 1944, she was caught at anchor in a lagoon east of Eten Island, then a Japanese stronghold and major airstrip in the Truc group of Melanesian Islands, and an Avenger bomber from the Aircraft Carrier USS ‘Bunker Hill’ hit the port side with an aerial torpedo igniting the cargo of fuel and destroying the ship. Other torpedoes also made their mark as proved by the many gaping holes in her hull when she was found in later years.
She was discovered in the 1980’s sitting upright on a sandy sea bed at a depth of less than 50 metres with her superstructure and hull badly damaged but with much of her cargo of bull dozers, trucks, steam rollers, runway matting, aero engines etc, all items useful for forming and maintaining island air strips, still intact in the holds after more than sixty years on the sea bed
.It is not surprising that the ship is now a well known and patronised Scuba dive site known in diving circles as the ‘Bulldozer Wreck’ and is promoted by Michael McFadyen’s Scuba Diving Company as a perfect dive site.
( www.michaelmcfadyenscuba.info)
This story of the MV Hauraki’s crew is relatively shallow in its information and telling for the very same reticent attitudes that are mentioned and illustrated herein but by using material that has been gleaned from the net, from government files, from the seamen’s personal records and from voluntary verbal offerings from relatives of the ship’s crew I try to tell as much as I am able.
We have a reasonable degree of background details of the experiences of three engineers and one deck officer of the Hauraki plus scant information concerning some of the other crew members and details are below.
Second Engineer R.L Thompson
We know little about ‘Jock’ Thompson, as he was known, apart from the very graphic insight to his life as detailed in this following personal statement which was apparently recorded on his release from capture and although we do know that he continued to serve as an engineer at sea for a period after the war, there is little that we are able to add to this man’s story
His statement which is detailed below without alteration except for minor spelling and punctuation corrections is perhaps the most accurate details available of this whole event as Thompson was with the ship right through the period from initial capture until docking at Hiroshima and was the senior officer on board during the transit time from Singapore to Japan.. He also remained a POW throughout the war until peace was declared
His statement reads as follows
Quote
“At approximately 10 p.m. on the night of 12.7.42 the alarm bells went off and on stepping out of the cabin to proceed to the Engine room I was rather amazed to see the ship in a blaze of light which I soon discovered to be the beams of searchlights from two ships, one on either quarter. Two shots were fired across the bow and we were told to stop, which we did with a lot of trouble owing to the control rods of the Starboard Engine jamming and bending. Everything was ready at a moment’s notice to scuttle the ship should we receive orders from the Bridge that it might be an enemy craft.
Meantime whilst waiting, we repaired the control Rods. It seemed like ages waiting for news from the Bridge and finally the Chief sent a junior up to see what was doing. He came back almost immediately and at his back were Japs armed for immediate action (revolver and good torches slung over their shoulders on cords). It was rather a shock but everyone appeared quite calm. Rounded up, we were all ordered on deck. Thu Purser’s cabin had evidently been searched and the list of crew and firearms on board was in their hands. On the aft end of the bridge deck a Nip stood with hand grenades whilst we were searched. The 2nd Officer Allan McIntyre (the coolest man on the ship) was sent to collect the firearms from the cabins, which he did under the eye of the guard and when walking along the deck to deliver same, deliberately walked to the ship’s side and dropped them over. The Nips were too amazed to speak and after a little talk among themselves let the matter drop.
At this time the Captain and Chief Engineer were being questioned and finally came out telling us that we had to take the vessel to a Port where there was a Prize Court, which meant Japan. No argument they could put could alter the matter. From the time of the stop until we got under way again was a little over two hours which made it shortly after midnight, this making it the 13th of the month, the date the Japs claim as the day of capture. Also they worked on Tokyo Standard Time and we had moved our clocks accordingly. The course was set for Penang and we must have had ten stops, due mostly to our negligence trying to make the trip as slow as possible in case any of our Navy may be around. At night time many Lifebelts, bottles etc, were dropped over the side with messages and our course which was obtained from the NZ able bodied seamen who still steered the ship. During this time the 2nd Officer, Mr. McIntyre, played a wonderful part feigning drunk. The Nips took very little notice of him and in the middle of the night slipped down No.2 Hatch and recovered twelve bags of secret mail which he got to his cabin and during the next two nights finally disposed of it, the Chief on the second night giving him a hand. It was a great bit of work. I hope he is highly commended for his great risk and wonderful work.
We arrived in Penang on the 22.7.42. I suppose a little disappointed at not meeting any of our own Navy but at that time we knew the Navy had its hands full. The second Jap Cruiser kept just ahead of us and was in constant communication. We had on board twenty two Guards, two officers and 1 W.O. who treated us very well but were always very wary. On arrival at Penang two more Senior Jap Officers and a few ratings joined us who also treated us well. Our Captain, Mate, 2nd Mate, Chief Engineer, Purser, Wireless Operator and one or two passengers were taken ashore for questioning and on their return we learned from them that they were threatened quite a lot but managed to get back safely but for future questioning it put us on our guard.
Departing from Penang (which looked really beautiful from the ship) we proceeded to Singapore Naval Base (Selita) arriving on the 2nd August, taking two days for the run as we anchored at night. We anchored right opposite the floating dock which had been sunk (before the British Navy had evacuated) as well as several other ships which we could see alongside of the wharf and really looked good to us. Approximately two days later the 2nd and 3rd Officers with most of the Crew were told to pack up and go to a prison camp. We gave them a great send-off at the time feeling upset at being broken up. A few days later we set off for Japan and when but a few hours out ran ashore on a sand bank. After a lot of engine work we managed to get a lot of Compressor trouble and lost a lot of lube oil. We did not get off the bank until high water and decided to return, arriving back the following morning, anchoring again in the same place. They now decided to discharge the vessel and soon after started discharging into lighters. This continued slowly from day to day. Our Jap Navy Officers and Guards were sent back to their own ship and an Army Police Guard put in their place. We now started a daily routine hoisting cargo gear not forgetting washing down every morning. We had four Chinese and Indian fitters below to lend a hand working on Compressors. When questioned if we had sufficient gear to go to Japan we decided that we were short of Exhaust Valves (though we had many more than sufficient) so they got sent ashore and got two or three cast and machined before we left.
On the 1st October hurried orders came on board for the Captain, Chief, 1st Mate and Senior Wireless Operator to pack up and they were taken across to the Tokyo Maru to go to Japan. This reduced our number left on board to nineteen, myself being the senior officer, and with the departure of the Captain and the Chief I must say I did not feel at all happy with the added responsibility.
My first experience of trouble began when a Chinese Fitter was caught with a tin of tobacco, given to him by one of the juniors. The Chinese was beaten; the rest of us given quite a lecture and for a time we looked like going though it but all went well.
The Guards were changed from time to time and as each part went off took all they could carry of stolen cargo. About the third week in October another Jap Naval party took over, but before any arrangements could be made for sailing a Jap Raider came in (evidently short of men) and they were transferred and back to the Army Police again we went. By now all cargo was discharged. Number three hatch was partly left. Early in November another Jap naval party took over and we were duly lined up to hear the usual penalties which we were now accustomed to hearing at every change. The difference this time being the Captain (Jap) telling us this would be the last time he would address us in English. The following morning at the usual line up we were told to face the East and with the Guards bow to the sun and go through what we understood to be the Nip Morning Prayer. Of course we refused. This certainly made the Japanese CO. very angry and he got the guards to push our heads down. It was done with some vengeance but up we came again and after some talk among ourselves we were finally dismissed. After breakfast I spoke to the Jap Engineer about it and he took the matter to the Captain. Evidently after due consideration he excused us and imposed the saluting of the flag on us, otherwise we would be severely punished. I agreed to it saying that it did not mean a thing to us. We left Singapore on the 18th November having shifted ship from the Naval Base two days before and proceeded to Saigon. The night before we arrived there the look-out (Chinese on deck) saw something on the Port Bow and gave the alarm. The guns were manned and they opened fire discovering a minute later it was another Jap convoy coming from Saigon. We do not know if any damage was done or not. Saigon is a beautiful place to look at and is forty six miles up the river through paddy fields. When loading rice was started I immediately protested about the ship carrying Nip cargo. I got no satisfaction and we had to carry on. The “Hauraki” was moored to buoys on the left bank opposite the wharves where we could see the Australian and British P.O.W.’s working but too far away to make contact. We left Saigon about the 3rd or 4th December with four or five ships in convoy and had a slow and uneventful trip to Taiwan where we arrived about the 13th December. The Harbour had a very narrow entrance and was full up with shipping including three Hospital ships. Departing again on the 15th December we went to a place about one hundred miles up the coast and anchored behind some small islands awaiting another convoy which left about the 18th December. The Jap engineer never let up seeking information regarding the machinery and always making sketches of pipe lines etc. but without results as I warned all hands about it. He was a fairly tough proposition but now he started making me special green tea and serving it up in full Jap ceremonial fashion with the red silk cloth over his hand before passing it over. Not doubt he was a very puzzled man as he had absolutely no data, drawing or otherwise to look at, as we had destroyed everything. There is no doubt in my mind that had he known the job our life would have been a little hell, consequently we made the most of everything. We still retained our cabins but dined aft in the crew’s quarters, mostly tinned sausages and rice at this time. The sausages of course were part of the cargo.
Our next stop was Moji Japan, and our small knot convoy with destroyers who were our escort arrived there on Christmas night, 1942. The Diesel fuel we took on at Singapore was just plain boiler oil. It worked alright in the hot weather but from Taiwan to Japan it just would not flow but after fitting heaters to the filters we managed to get along alright. When the oil trouble started the Jap engineer got the idea it was sabotage and until he saw the result of the heaters things were far from pleasant. I regretted very much that we showed him that much.
On numerous occasions he had I had arguments about the running of the engine room. The engineers on all occasions cooperated wonderfully. The weather in Moji was miserably cold and a miserable place with a strong raw wind blowing. The shipping was very busy. Labour came on board both men and women and quite a lot of the rice was discharged. Off we went again, Osaka being our next stop. One the way over we managed to pump out at least sixty or seventy tons of fuel. On arriving at Singapore we had at least three thousand gallons of lube oil but by now were very short having over done disposing of it, so we added fuel oil and salt water to make up the deficiency. The remainder of the rice was discharged here and military barracks, in sections, loaded. I again protested in no uncertain terms but still of no avail. From Osaka to Tokyo 11.1.43 to 13.1.43 the grinding and wearing of the machinery would have made any respectable engineer weep and we on board breathed a sigh of relief when we were finished with engines. On the way up the boys kept on throwing overboard the spares for generators, fuel pumps and anything or real value to the job and on arrival at Tokyo we were certainly “schooner rigged”. It was the last day of October before they go to turn out of the “Hauraki”. On the 15th January 1943 we were loaded on a truck and dispatched to Yokohama, about twenty miles away.
We drove through thickly populated areas, everyone looking at the prisoners, and arrived at D-1 P.O.W. Camp. Here we were fortunate to meet again the Captain, Chief, Mate and Wireless Operator. After being searched and through the regular speeches and penalties etc. we were allotted our pew to sleep on. What a place to land in. The weather bitterly cold, mud everywhere, the camp hospital full to overflowing, hardly a man fit to speak being so full of the cold. At night time the coughing was terrible. There was no medicine, or in fact anything. Fortunately we had stolen quite a lot from the ship’s medical kit and now we gave it to the Doctor to help him out. For the first three months there was a death every other day and sometimes two. We were issued with working suits and on the 18th January were sent to the Mitsubishi Ship Yard. Up in the morning at 5.a.m., roll call, P.T.s give a hand to draw breakfast and serve it out, and return buckets washed. Immediately, after breakfast, line up, for work parade. The usual thing every morning someone getting beat up for some trifle. We march two miles to work, the guards using their butts or boots to help us on. We were forbidden to talk to Jap workmen under very heavy penalties. Some were caught and on arrival back at camp we would have to watch their punishment. Generally ten or twelve guards taking turn about beating him up, it was sickening. After the beating they were tied up to a post on the parade ground for several hours. I have seen on a morning parade three men getting heavily slugged because they asked to get their boots repaired. At this time roll call at night was our greatest nightmare as we were hungry and dead tired. They generally started at 7.30p.m and very often lasted for hours, many times till midnight.
On one occasion we were kept standing for hours while they demanded that any British, American or any other currency we possessed should be given to them for safe keeping. Amongst our boys they got a large sum, Holland the A.B. handing over 159 pounds, the other ranging from 5 to 30 pounds. A short time afterwards we were informed that the Jap Government had changed over our money to yen, giving us 97 yet per Australian or N.Z. pound and 95 yen for a British pound, also 98 yen for one dollar. We are now endeavoring to recover same. Before going further I might mention we were in a Military POW Camp where we had Americans, Dutch, English, Australian and New Zealanders. The camp strength at the start being about five hundred and fifty which was reduced to just over four hundred and twenty when approximately seventy officers were removed to another Camp and a large number of deaths had occurred.
The first C.O. and Interpreters were nothing but sadists and never a day went by without some unpleasantness or incident. Bashings, standing up for hours, extra drill on return from work to make us accustomed to Japanese orders and then at roll call for hours giving us questions in Japanese for us to answer in Nip and standing at attention all the time with the guards walking around all the time punching anyone who dared to blink an eye. The sickness in the camp included pneumonia, malaria, dysentery, diarrhea, gastric flue, beriberi and many other complaints. Here six weeks after our arrival in camp motorman Hughes died on pneumonia and tuberculosis. Captain Creese went down with pneumonia a few days before Hughes died, but I am pleased to say he fought hard and recovered. Before he recovered Mr. Lindsay, wireless operator, also go pneumonia and for days we did not expect him to be there on our arrival back from work, but he made the distance. The day Lindsay came out of hospital I dropped with an attack of Malaria but after a while recovered. These complaints certainly took it out of us and to crown all whilst convalescent, cleaning camp, were on half rations which amounted to three quarter of a cup of grain and a cup of soup. My dinner today put me in mind of two or three soups in Japan, as today we had green peas – where there – the Nips had the peas and we had the pods boiled up with a little misu paste (Soy Thickening) for our soup. Mostly soups were made of Dykon tops (Radish), turnip tops, sweet potato leaves and anything that looked green whilst at rare intervals a few dykons or sweet potatoes might find their way in. One about four or five occasions we had bread for breakfast. The first time it was absolutely as green as grass with mould, and at other time so hard it was impossible to break it but we ate it for not matter what it was, it was better than being hungry. The Japs said that if it was too mouldy to take it back to the galley to put in the soup. Nothing went back as when we got bread there was no grain. Occasionally we had small portion of fish for tea which on numerous occasions was very high, head, guts, scales, bones, everything was eaten. Occasionally thirty pounds of meat, horse? Or whale? came into the camp for four hundred and twenty prisoners. After the Nips had their cut we were lucky to get ten pounds, which was cut up small and put into the soup. Shortly before we were moved from Yokohama we had a special treat, a bucket of blood poured into the soup with a few green tops chopped up. The blood was obtained from the slaughter house..
At last after the best of twelve months the first C.O. and Interpreter were shifted, and the pressure eased up and the bashings became less frequent. Then the American planes started to appear, as the days went by the alerts became so frequent it was difficult to keep count of them.
The bombing was terrific and the incendiaries most spectacular. The damage was enormous. One night we witnessed fifty square miles of Tokyo burning down, and the 4-B29’s were shot down quite close to our camp. The planes coming out of the darkness into the glare of the burning city looked like ghosts. The Nips were always too interested during the raids when things got too hot to worry us, so we always got a good view of things. At last things became too dangerous around Yokohama and they decided to shift us. Before proceeding further I will add a little more about conditions.
The conditions in the camp were terrible. In the winter time the temperature was from twelve to eighteen degrees below, then the camp was infested with lice and bugs, while in the summer time the temperature was high, there we were absolutely eaten alive by fleas and mosquitoes which came in clouds. To get forty to sixty on your blankets every day was common to all. To start off with we had two grass mats to sleep on but as they were vermin breeders had to dispense with them and sleep on boards. The lavatories were something frightful and were just a living mess of maggots and at times the blow flies came in clouds. We had no mosquito nets to start with. It was impossible to sleep during the mosquito season and it was only after the prisoners were dropping with exhaustion that the arm nets were brought in. There were manyaccidents at the ship yard and mostly caused through negligence of the Japs. On one occasion the staging around a ship carried away and one of the prisoners badly smashed up internally, also a broken leg. It was about two hours laterbefore he was put into a wheeled hand truck and taken back to camp to get his first attention. He died later. This was the regular procedure. The truck was known to the prisoners as the Mitsu-bishi ambulance.
It was the same truck we used for taking firewood back to camp for the galley. Fuel was very scarce and coal, when obtainable, very poor. The camp was split up in sections and our group of 100 with another group of 100 from Osaka shipyard camp were sent to Kamaishi. We left Yokohama Camp on the 12th May 1945 and after a tough ride of thirty two hours by train arrived at Kamaishi at 2.30am on the 14th May 1945. We marched to the camp about half a mile away. The C.O. was an arrogant pig. He lined us up after giving us our quarters and let us know where we stood and finished by saying, “I will give you sleep, but we got no breakfast”. We discovered that the camp had 200 Dutchman in it. There were but four water taps and just enough water for two to run and then only a dribble.
The C.O. and the guards much resembled our first C.O. and his outfit and ruled us with a rod of iron. Not the heavy bashings but for any small offence you lived in the guard house doing odd jobs when you returned from work during the day, half rations and no blankets. We were to work in the steel works and for the best part of the time the work was heavy. Sometime in June the observation planes started to appear, then many others. The trenches in our camp were just started and now speed was needed and not before time. Our food here was a slight increase to the Yokohama camp but the soups just as poisonous. For greens we went to the mountains and gathered wild chrysanthemum leaves, thistles, grass and fern leaves. This was just one of the fatigues we had on our day off which sometimes came along once a fortnight, and sometimes longer in between. On the 14th of July, 1945 the American Fleet decided to pay us a visit and lay about three miles from the mouth of the bay which was approximately four miles deep and heavily shelled the place. About one hundred yards in front of the camp (on the foreshore) was a A.A. Battery, whilst across the bridge at the right of the camp and about three hundred yards away was another A.A. Battery, the steel works directly at the back. Other A.A. Batteries were placed on the hills a little farther up the valley. For two and one half hours they poured in salvos every fifty five seconds. From five to sixteen inch shells rained over us. A sixteen inch shell for the last salvo pierced the top of the tunnel we were sheltering in. It landed almost overhead blowing in the top of the tunnel which crashed down killing over forty Nips and five POW’s. The screams still ring in my ears and the noise was terrific. The Chief Engineer was buried well over the chest and it was well over two hours before we got him out as a dead Dutchman was tangled around his feet. He was badly bruised, two bones broken in the left wrist and minor cuts. I was badly cut about the head and with concussion and I suppose badly shaken up. Back at the camp we learned that one shell had hit the camp at the back in the section where we were accommodated and one American boy had received a compound fracture of the right arm.
The Jap C.O. of the camp had his mother and sister living nearby and both of them lost their lives. He was much quieter after that. We heard from good sources that over three thousand Nips lost their lives. During the next week the small air-born planes made frequent visits trying to eliminate the A.A. Batteries, but did not quite succeed. On the 9th August the Allied Fleet arrived to complete the job. We could hear them shelling a little distance off and had plenty of time to move to a safe shelter but no orders were given. Shortly after, the shelling started again and they really went to market. Being hospital cases were in the hospital trench. The ground trembled all the time. About the end of the first hour the front A.A. Battery got hit and the ammunition dump went up.
· The camp was hit and up in flames it went due to the ammunition dump going up. It burned like a petrol fire being so dry, the flames going right across the parade ground and getting into the trenches at both doors. The situation was desperate and many of the boys dashed out blindly only to receive severe burns and many died later. A few of us lay flat waiting our chance to get out. At last I made in along with two Dutch boys but unfortunately one of them who had a broken collar bone from the first shelling lost his life as he did not have the strength to clear the parade ground. The other boy was very badly burned. We then sheltered on the river bank until it was all over. The whole place was in ruins and the camp nothing but ashes. That night we slept amongst the ruins, the boys who went to work slept wherever they could get. We then got the news that a shell had hit another tunnel near the mouth killing seventeen Dutchman. We lost ten in the fire making twenty seven in the second shelling and a total of thirty two for both shellings. Unfortunately our 5th engineer, Harry Brodie, died of burns a few hours after the fire. He was the fourth one of our crew to die who came to Japan. Todd, the Mate, died of malnutrition on the 19th of April 1945 and Holland, A.B., on the 12th July 1945 of Cancer of the liver.
· The day after the fire we moved to an old gymnasium where there was very little accommodation. Just before we entered the building the small planes came over to bomb the A.A. Battery on the hill. One bomb dropping about amile away. A single stone came through the air and went through the roof killing an American boy. It was three days after the fire before we received any medical attention and many of the boys were in a bad way. The steel works then sent up about six nurses and a Jap Doctor. The nurses were very efficient and the attention certainly relieved us. Two days later many of the burnt patients were found to have maggots crawling all through the burns which took quite a time to pick out. On the 15th Augustat lastsome of the prisoners came in to tell us, who were hospital cases, that there was a peculiar parade of the guards. They evidently first turned East and then turned toward Tokyo bowing etc. and doing things they had never done before. The Chief with an American decided then and there that the war was over and had it confirmed within twenty four hours. Late that afternoon we were all moved to join another camp about twelve and a half miles up the valley to a place called Ohashi. It was made up of Canadians and Dutchmen. The Canadians by the way traveled by the Union Company Ship M.V. “Awatea” from Vancouver to Hong Kong. Here we were billeted in a small theatre which at its limit held just over two hundred, so the other one hundred and fifty had to sleep anywhere they could get.
On the 25th August, just at dinner time, small sea-borne planes appeared and seven hundred and fifty men dashed out to see them. The first one flew over the camp at about fifty feet up dropping a few cigarettes and a note telling us to keep cheerful and thinking I was just a little over-strained I turned away only to find everyone of the boys weeping for joy also. It certainly was a wonderful sight and thinking I was just a little over-strained I turned away only to find everyone of the boys weeping for joy also. It certainly was a wonderful sight. From then on every second day the B-29’s came over and dropped food, clothing, boots and medical supplies. From the time we arrived in Ohashi we received more and better food and with the American food coming in we picked up very quickly. They even dropped flea powder which was a real prize as by running the hand over the badges the fleas would come out, but the powder soon stopped that.
We were evacuated from Japan by the American Red Cross Ship “Rescue” taken to Yokohama and transferred to the British Hospital Ship “Vasna” which we left and flew down to Okinawa, then on to Manila. After thirteen days in Manila we came on to Sydney by the H.M.C. “Formidable”, then by rail to Melbourne and finally to NZ by SS “Andes”.
Since leaving Japan we have had nothing but kindness shown to us and trust that all concerned know”.
“Unquote”
To be continued