The Yamagumo docked at Truk’s Dublon Island, a bustling seaplane and submarine base. The prisoners’ hands had been tied behind their backs and they were blindfolded so they could not see the battleship Musashi and other warships at rest in the lagoon. After being off-loaded from the destroyer, the men were prodded with bayonets toward waiting trucks. Many struggled to walk because of their wounds. All had lost blood and were in various degrees of agony. Rocek’s legs were open wounds, covered by tiny coiled slivers of metal embedded under his skin. Another man grimaced from a hole the size of a silver dollar through his hand. Two others—one with a badly broken arm and the other losing blood from the calf torn from his leg—were in excruciating pain. Nonetheless, they were kicked and beaten with sticks as they moved toward the trucks.
Tales of Japanese brutality were well known to the men, and they were certain they faced torture. Already, on the Yamagumo, Herbert Thomas (TMlc) had been beaten during an interrogation. Anxious to avoid further injury, he “confessed,” revealing that American submarines were refueling at a secret island between the Gilberts and Truk. His inquisitors laid out charts dating as far back as 1820, demanding that he pinpoint the island. He was vague about the location because, of course, it didn’t exist. Taken back to the bow, he briefed his shipmates so they could give consistent accounts. Now they faced the same inquisition as they were driven to the other side of Dublon to a small stockade at the foot of a 1,500-foot peak.
For the next 10 days, the prison was their home, “a living hell for everyone concerned,” said Cecil Baker, the Sculpin fireman. The captives were divided into three groups of fourteen men each and jammed into three cells, measuring less than eight feet square. Below a small ventilation window at the back of each room was a hole in the floor used as a toilet. The only other window was a foot-wide opening used to pass food to the men—and club them. “There wasn’t much conversation because if there was, a hand would come through the window with a club like a baseball bat, only longer, and just swing,” recalled Keller. “I happened to be in a room with a man named Baker [Joseph Baker, Flc]. We were all walking wounded. Baker cried all night from thirst and the pain. He would yell, ‘I need water! I need water!’ and that hand with the bat would reach in and whomp! whomp! whomp! We had to gag him to keep from being clubbed. Everybody took a blow. . . . The club could reach just about the whole length of that room. I got hit in the shoulder and the head. It hurt but didn’t knock you unconscious. You learned to put your hands over your head and turn to protect yourself.”
The survivors received bare sustenance. “Our food rations consisted of one rice ball a day and a few ounces of water,” said Rocek. The rice, about the size of a softball with a very bitter fruit like a persimmon in the middle, was salty, inducing even greater thirst among the men. To receive a drink, the men lined up outside their cells and cupped their hands. Guards would move down the line with quart bottles and pour, not caring how much they spilled. “Anyone who didn’t get any would be without until the next meal,” said Keller.
Interrogations began immediately. The men were summoned individually for sessions ranging from 20 minutes to several hours. The Japanese wanted to know the answers to many questions: Where had they come from? How many submarines were operating and where? What was the U.S. plan of attack? What kinds of ships had they seen in Pearl Harbor? How fast could the submarines travel? How deep could they go? And who was the radar officer? “One of our radarmen [John Parr, RM3c] survived,” said Keller. “The officers informed all of us he was to be considered a gunner, not a radarman.”
Keller was among the first to be grilled. Still naked, he was taken blindfolded to a small room where he stood in front of five officers in white fatigues, seated on folding chairs behind a long table. A guard stood next to the prisoner while others were posted at the door. Some of the officers understood English but only one directed the interrogation, in a very polite manner. “I was asked my name, rank, serial number, and where I lived. After that they addressed me as Edwin.” They wanted to know whether the battleships sunk by the Japanese at Pearl were still on the bottom. Keller responded he had not seen the battleships, or anything else unusual. “I was rapped one time in the groin with a stick between the legs during the interrogation,” said Keller, “but I don’t know why.”
For him, the inquisition took only 20 minutes. But for others, whom the Japanese believed knew more, the sessions were much tougher. “If you hesitated in answering a question,” said Rocek, “you received a whack across the rear with a piece of wood larger than a bat. I learned to bide for time by saying I didn’t understand the question.” The officers had it worse. All three—Brown, Ens. J. W. Gamel, and Ens. C. G. Smith Jr.—were beaten with fists and clubs in an attempt to extract secrets. But none broke.
“I do know they found out that Parr was the radarman because one day they came in and asked for him by name and rank,” said Keller. “No one was supposed to have told. Nobody answered them. But they finally found out who it was and took him away. He was gone several hours. When he came back, he was beaten badly in the shoulders and arms.”
The interrogations went on for five days. Lieutenant Brown over and over demanded medical care for the men but was rebuked or ignored every time. The Japanese harbored complete disdain for the prisoners, believing they should have sacrificed themselves on the Sculpin. Japanese troops rarely surrendered, preferring death. It was this understanding of the enemy that convinced the Sculpin survivors they would never leave Truk alive.
“I still believe that on Truk, they had no intentions for us to survive,” said Keller. “There was no treatment for the wounded. And there was the terrible harassment with bats. We all felt they wanted information and then they would kill us.” But on the fifth day, conditions changed when a group of well-dressed officers made a visit.
“They could smell the gangrene,” Keller continued. “The leader asks us who was in charge. George Brown says he is. The officer asks him who are the wounded. Brown says just about everyone. The officer asks if they were treated. Brown replies he hasn’t even been given an aspirin. The officer then turns around and rants and raves at another officer. And then, to punctuate his comments, he punches him in the face and knocks him backwards. He then turns to another group of men and they leave.”
Two hours later, ambulances and buses arrived. Eight of the most seriously injured, including Rocek, were put in the ambulances. The others boarded the buses and were blindfolded for the ride to a small medical office. There doctors amputated Charles Pitser’s (TM2c) arm, and another man’s hand. The others were treated with fish oil and bandaged, but no medicines or shots were administered.
The amputees remained at the hospital for the next several days. For the rest, the interrogations ceased. Food and water improved. The men also were allowed out of their cells for longer periods of time, where they could sit in the sun. No talking was allowed except when native girls appeared on the slopes above the compound. “They’d allow you to laugh and talk between yourselves when the girls appeared as long as they thought you were talking about the girls. They appeared on the slope about 100 feet high behind the compound. The guards would holler at them but wouldn’t chase them away,” said Keller.
Japanese commanders at Truk were absorbed in what to do about the U.S. invasion of the Gilberts. The large carrier Zuiho and two smaller aircraft ferries, the Chuyo and Unyo, had arrived from Japan, loaded with airplanes but not nearly enough to mount an effective counterattack. Admiral Koga was fearful of sending his four remaining battleships and heavy cruisers into the fray, knowing they wouldn’t have a chance against U.S. carrier-based aircraft. He chose instead to send fast cruisers, loaded with troops and protected by destroyers, to reinforce the islands.
It also was decided that the Sculpin survivors were serving no useful purpose. Orders were received to ship them to Japan to a secret prison for captured aviators and submariners near Yokohama. Subsequently, the forty-two survivors were lined up so their heads could be shaved, and then issued Japanese navy undress blues, plus small, flat, wooden blocks with Japanese writing to hang around their necks. By that time, the two amputees had returned to the compound. “They told us the amputations were done without any anesthetic and they were questioned at the same time,” said Rocek.
Trucks arrived on the morning of November 30 to pick up the survivors—the tenth day of captivity. Again blindfolded, they were driven to the harbor where they were divided into two groups and put aboard two small boats. “We could only look down,” said Rocek. “The launch I was on, we tried to look up but each time the Nips would clobber the hell out of us with bats they were carrying. But one shipmate of mine had gotten a glimpse and said that we were heading for a Japanese aircraft carrier.” Rocek and those with severe injuries, including the Sculpin’s two ensigns, boarded the carrier Chuyo, where they were led below deck and packed into a small compartment. Lieutenant Brown, Keller, and the other group boarded the Unyo and were locked in a similar hold below the waterline. The two vessels, plus the large carrier Zuiho, the cruiser Maya, and two destroyers immediately embarked for Yokohama, 2,000 miles to the north.
By then, the Sculpin had been officially reported overdue and presumed lost. In another development, ULTRA codebreakers picked up news of the convoy’s departure. Lockwood immediately positioned submarines on patrol all along the route to intercept and sink the carriers. But one after another, they were unable to make contact. For three days, the Japanese convoy sped north, zig-zagging radically to successfully outmaneuver the hidden boats.
Aboard the Unyo and Chuyo, conditions were miserable for one group of prisoners and adequate for the other. The compartment that held the men on the Unyo was well ventilated. Rations were brought in three times a day. And two intelligence officers distributed cigarettes daily, and began teaching the men Japanese. “They taught us certain phrases, for instance, the words for attention, permission to go to the bathroom, and how to say thank you and good morning,” said Keller. Incredulously, the men were told to view themselves as “guests” of Imperial Emperor Hirohito.
On the Chuyo, it was quite a different scene. Straw mats were strewn around the compartment for the men to sit or lie on. Ventilation was nonexistent, leaving the room hot and very stuffy. In one corner was a small hatch toward the ceiling. Through it were passed food and very little water. “Every time we would bang on that hatch for water, the guard would open it, spit on us, and slam the hatch closed. That was it,” said Rocek.
On the night of December 3, the fast-moving convoy was nearing the end of its voyage when it encountered a typhoon. “It was a very rough storm,” explained Keller. “We could feel the ship rolling and could hear waves outside and something thrashing about.” Winds in excess of 50 knots threw mountainous seas at the Unyo. Despite the ship’s 591-foot length and 77-foot beam, it heaved and rolled. As midnight approached and the storm worsened, the convoy commander on the Maya decided to suspend evasive maneuvers, thinking them unnecessary. No submarine could possibly strike under such extreme conditions, he reasoned.
For the Sculpin survivors and the Japanese, it was a costly mistake.
At 0016, an explosion jolted the Unyo. “We thought we had been hit. We didn’t know what had happened. No battle stations were sounded. Then we feel the ship pick up speed,” said Keller. “It was then that one of the other prisoners said, ‘Christ, a submarine must have gotten in!’” In fact, it was the Sailfish. She had put a torpedo into the side of the Chuyo and another into her propellers.
Now, as the Unyo slipped away with twenty Sculpin prisoners in her hold, twenty-two others on the Chuyo began a desperate struggle for life.