During the summer of 1944, American reconnaissance missions over Japan gave way to bombing missions. Taking off from bases in China and later from the Mariana Islands, recaptured by the Americans that August, waves of B-29 Superfortresses began hitting the Home Islands. Factories in 3D’s Tsurumi neighbourhood of Yokohama were early targets of the raids.
Sergeant Tom Marsh and his comrades were both heartened and appalled by what they witnessed:
One night in July a large-scale attack with firebombs was made in our district. The ack-ack was terrific. The whole world seemed aflame. In spite of the efforts of the guards to keep us from witnessing the sight we stood and gazed at the conflagration. Only a river running nearby and the fact that our huts had tiled roofs saved our quarters from the fire. Smoke and sparks were all around. I saw a terrible sight that night. I watched a string of American bombers, in line astern formation, following their leader. The lead aircraft made for the very centre of the ackack fire and at this point burst into flames. Plane after plane followed to the same point and were shot down. Altogether I counted five. I felt sick. We all prayed for those gallant lads.
One of the Jap guards, like quite a few of the Japanese who prided themselves on their esthetic qualities, got quite a kick out of seeing his home town destroyed. He stood gazing on the burning city in rapt ecstasy and then, raising his arms to the sky, he turned to us and said in English, “Drama! Drama!” He was convinced he had a front seat at a good show, all for nothing. He appeared quite mad and if he had a fiddle like Nero I’m sure he would have played us a tune.
For several days following the bombing we saw long files of civilian refugees filing past our camp trekking into the hills. The Japanese Officials had cleared the whole district of its inhabitants. The remaining hovels and dwellings that had survived the firebombing were pulled down to prevent the further spread of the fire, but little was left to save.1
Another sign of the war’s changing picture was noted by Lance Corporal “Blacky” Verreault of the Corps of Signals in his 3D diary entry for September 10, 1944: “Well! The army just arrived to take over guarding of the camp. I think that things are getting difficult for the Japanese and that these thirteen soldiers taking over from the civilians are to prevent reprisals by the civilian population against the prisoners. The end is getting near, evidently.”2
The “end” — an Allied invasion of Japan — was more perilous for prisoners than anything local civilians might attempt in revenge for American bombing. That summer, Lieutenant-General Kyoji Tominaga, the Japanese vice-minister of war, issued a standing order to all POW camp commandants in the Home Islands and Occupied Territories to be followed in the event of an American land invasion in their area: the prisoner of war “kill-all order.”
Japanese War Ministry — August 1, 1944
At such a time as the situation became urgent … the POWs will be concentrated and confined in their present location and kept under heavy guard until preparations for the final solution will be made. The time and method of this disposition are as follows:
1. The Time.
Although the basic aim is to act under superior orders, individual disposition may be made in the following circumstances:
a. When an uprising of large numbers cannot be suppressed without the use of firearms.
b. When escapees from the camp may turn into a hostile Fighting force.
2. The Methods.
a. Whether they are destroyed individually or in groups, or however it is done, with mass bombing, poisonous smoke, poisons, drowning, decapitation, or what, dispose of them as the situation dictates.
b. In any case it is the aim not to allow the escape of a single one, to annihilate them all, and not to leave any traces.3
By the fall of 1944, Commandant Uwamori was doing all he could to protect the prisoners at 3D. He was now treating Reid as a sort of partner whose suggestions for health betterment of the camp he chose to follow as best he could, in spite of pressure from headquarters. Reid’s mix of warnings and diplomacy was paying off:
[There were] several inspections by the Tokyo headquarters staff, several times of which they took great umbrage at the medical setup [at 3D] as they said we had far too many sick men entirely the fault of the doctors…. We took the screaming … [which] didn’t come to very much because the Commandant after they would go said he was responsible for the health of the camp and that was the thing that interested him most and not the work they were doing.4
A new double-decker hut, built to accommodate the entire camp, was finally finished in November 1944, more than a year behind schedule. It was still crowded but better outfitted and warmer than the old huts. Food rationing increased somewhat.
That month, Japanese doctors from Shinagawa Hospital came to 3D and asked to see the most seriously ill prisoners. Of the 150 men that Reid presented, the Japanese ordered 23 to the convalescent hospital in Omori Camp for rest and another 73 to Shinagawa Hospital for treatment.
All this activity, said Reid, was a definite effort on the part of some Japanese to improve the health of the men as they saw the Americans closing in.
What never improved were the dangerous conditions at the Nippon Kokan Shipyard in the little work still being done there. On November 5, 1944, company Sergeant Major Earl Todd, a well-liked and respected career soldier who had trained the “C” Force recruits at Valcartier Camp in 1941, was killed when a frayed rope attached to a crane suddenly parted and dropped a load of wood, crushing him. As Reid noted in his diary, Todd’s was a death due not so much to negligence as to the shoddy equipment the men had to work with — machinery and materials that would have been condemned in Canada.
Christmas 1944 brought a few days off. Like the previous year, the men worked their magic creating decorations out of scraps. A church service and carol singing were held on Christmas Eve and a concert on Christmas day. Red Cross parcels were distributed, the first of four disbursements over the next several months — far more than the Canadians had received during their first three years of imprisonment. Like Uwamori, other Japanese higher-ups were evidently showing increased concern for the prisoners’ health as the American bombing raids escalated and the war tilted further in the Allies’ favour. To everyone, the evidence of American capability was stark — not just the destruction but the instruments of destruction. George Pollak remembered the words of a Japanese guard who went out to inspect the wreckage of a downed B-29. The guard came back in the afternoon, shaking his head: “We can’t win this war,” he said. “We haven’t got anything like that.”5
At the end of December, the Christmas cheer was marred by news from Shinagawa Hospital. On Christmas Eve, Fred Wyrwas of the Royal Rifles died of liver failure. On December 27, Victor Smith of the Winnipeg Grenadiers died of a gastric haemorrhage and hepatitis. Rifleman Wyrwas and Private Smith were the 22nd and 23rd men in Reid’s group of Canadians to die while prisoners in Japan. They were the last to be lost.
Thanks to better weather and additional Red Cross medicines, the winter of 1945 saw improvement in the men’s health. It was still cold, but instead of being changeable and wet, there was almost no rain and the temperature was steady.
During this period, air raids continued to increase in intensity. As Reid says, despite the danger, the raids had some salutary effects:
Frequent general alarms and rather frequent local alarms. The Japanese civilians got very excited, but to my surprise the Japanese staff in the camp remained remarkably unexcited compared to what I expected. The men — whenever an air raid warning was blown — the men were all brought into camp quickly, into a shelter which had been constructed under Lt. Finn’s supervision with roofs which were six inches of timber and dirt. The men were usually run into the camp from the company and put into these pits….
All through these raids the men showed extremely good morale and discipline, no trouble at all. That was part of the reason why the Japanese in the camp were so cool: our men were getting so confident and were showing such confidence that that had a lot of bearing with the Japanese getting much less excited than we would have expected them to get under these conditions.6
Always a standout at six foot three, Sergeant Major George MacDonell exemplified that confidence. Whether it was his height, rank, poise, or a combination of all three, he had caught the commandant’s attention, leading to a strange encounter.
One cold night in January 1945, two guards woke MacDonell in the wee hours of the morning and escorted him without explanation to Uwamori’s office in the camp administration building. After ushering him into the office, the guards withdrew, sliding closed the rice paper door behind them.
Understandably, MacDonell was apprehensive. But, chilled as always in winter, his first sensation on entering the office was the pleasurable feeling of the enveloping, almost stifling heat coming from its pot-bellied stove. He came to attention and saluted Commandant Uwamori, who sat behind his desk, sake cup in hand. They were alone. Uwamori motioned to a cushion on the floor in front of his desk (there were no chairs), and MacDonell sat down cross-legged. The commandant, he sensed, was a little drunk:
Uwamori: (Gesturing to the bottle of sake warming on the stove) “Would you like some?”
MacDonell: “No, thank you, sir.”
Uwamori: “That’s a shame.”
The Commandant gave MacDonell a long stare, then spoke again.
Uwamori: “Is Japan going to win the war?”
MacDonell: (Pause) “No, sir. It is not.” Uwamori leaned forward and looked at MacDonell intently: “Why is that?”
MacDonell: “Sir, no matter how brave your soldiers are, no matter how great the spirit of the Japanese people, you have no chance against the combined forces of Great Britain and the United States of America, the most powerful nation in the world.”
There was a long silence.
Uwamori: “Are you sure that is correct?”
MacDonell: “Yes, sir.”7
MacDonell had the impression that the commandant expected these answers. He knew Reid had been telling Uwamori what he told his own men: Japanese defeat was inevitable; it was just a matter of time. But after a night of lonely drinking, Uwamori apparently wanted a second opinion. For reasons unknown, he selected the towering 22-year-old Royal Rifles sergeant major as his oracle. Answers given, a mystified MacDonell was dismissed and returned to the hut by the waiting guards.
Throughout January and February 1945, the American air raids made work of any kind almost impossible, allowing continuing gains in the prisoners’ health. The wailing of air raid sirens was music to the men’s ears — the harbingers of approaching freedom. As bombs burst in the vicinity and the camp was occasionally sprinkled with pieces of shrapnel and machine-gun bullets, they resorted to grim humour in their flimsy funk holes — useless protection against a direct hit.
The shrapnel came from bombs, but the bullets were the calling card of a new American presence: carrier-based fighter planes. Their arrival on the scene meant two things: the U.S. Navy was close enough to the Home Islands for short-range fighters and fighter-bombers to fly sorties over Japan, and the Japanese navy was helpless to stop their encroachment. Seeing the American fighters gave a special lift to the prisoners’ spirits. George Pollak remembered how marvellous it was to watch these nimble invaders — F6F Hellcats and F4U Corsairs, their pilots clearly visible through their cockpit canopies — strafing the dock areas, buzzing low down the main streets of Kawasaki on bombing runs, then weaving up and away through the smokestacks of the industrial area after hitting their targets.8
The war was going in the right direction, but at the end of February came an unexpected blow to Reid’s carefully constructed balance of power: change at the top. Uwamori’s leniency with the prisoners finally provoked headquarters to remove him as camp commandant. Faced with this loss, Reid then met its depressing corollary, Uwamori’s replacement:
At the end of February Uwamori was shifted to Omori Camp…. I was very sorry to see the old commandant go. He had tried during a long period to better our conditions….
The camp was taken over by Lieut. Nakamura. This man impressed me as a simple type of psychopathic case. He had definite ideas of grandeur, and made such remarks as, “He couldn’t understand why it was every camp he came into always became the best in the district, immediately.”
He couldn’t understand it, but there it was.9
Sergeant Tom Marsh retained vivid memories of Takso Nakamura. Nicknamed “Charlie” by the Canadians because of his Chaplinesque moustache, Lieutenant Nakamura let it be known that he once owned a chain of hotels in Japan, but one after the other, they had been destroyed in the bombing — hence his residence in camp, along with two young female companions. Nakamura regularly helped himself to the prisoners’ Red Cross parcels, now and then turning over small portions of them to the camp cooks to be added to the prisoners’ rice rations as a show of his personal magnanimity. He would lecture the men:
You must all be prepared if this camp is struck. Look! I am always prepared. My hotels are burned down. What do I care! I have plenty of money. Do not be scared of what people may do to you. The Japanese Imperial Army will protect you. I am the Army! One Japanese soldier can protect you from everybody. The people respect the Army! Many great men in Japan are soldiers. I am soldier!10
Two weeks after Nakamura took charge, the Americans hit Tokyo again. On the night of March 9–10, 1945, 279 B-29s dropped nearly 1,700 tons of incendiary bombs throughout the night hours, burning out 16 square miles of the city (the raid, code-named “Operation Meetinghouse,” remains the single most destructive bombing attack in history). For the prisoners of 3D, 12 miles south of Tokyo, the rolling thunder of the planes and the growing glow of the fires lasted all night.
Signalman Gerry Gerrard was in “the hole” with the others while the raid took place:
The night they did the big bombing they took a mile-wide strip right through Yokohama and Tokyo, they were just coming in one after another…. We had a shelter that … was no good. It was a hole in the ground with some planks on top and some sod thrown on it. The other thing was, the guard standing out there, he made us all go in the hole and when that bomb landed he ended up in the hole with us. We just lay there all night with the flashes, the guns and the bombs exploding, and loudspeakers all over — you could hear the Jap telling them what’s happening. And you could tell when the bombers were coming in; he’d get excited as hell and the next thing, you’d hear them roar through and the bombs go off. There were a lot of firebombs too.11
This raid provoked a Japanese policy change. The strategy of relying on the presence of prisoner of war camps in the Tokyo-Yokohama district as a deterrent to American bombing clearly wasn’t working (in fact, the Americans had no idea where 90 percent of the prison camps on the Home Islands were). Three weeks after Operation Meetinghouse, the Japanese began moving prisoners to more isolated camps in northern and southern Japan.
In choosing the first batch of 3D prisoners for transfer, Commandant Nakamura’s method to improve his camp “immediately” was to get rid of the sickest men first. On March 30, 1945, 200 of the weakest were shipped north to Ohashi, an iron mining camp whose gruelling work these men were the least fit to do.
Reid was to go to Ohashi. But the evening before the transfer, orders came through from headquarters that he was to remain at 3D, after all. Instead, Lieutenant Commander Dockweiler was placed in charge of the Ohashi group, with Ensign Pollak second-in-command. Reid said his goodbyes and wished them well: “The group left camp about 4:30 a.m. on March 30. They took one Red Cross parcel for every five men and one-third of our medical supplies without Japanese authority. Although they always promise you wonderful things at the other end, it was never so and always worse, so we sent the extra medical supplies.”12
Later that day, another 3D group consisting of 50 prisoners was sent to a camp on the outskirts of Tokyo to work in a brickyard. No officer was assigned to this group by the Japanese, so Reid placed Staff Sergeant Clark, the clever fire saboteur, in command and sent them on their way:
After these men left we settled down to a very restless time in the camp. Little work was being done at the company and air raids were constant and very close to our camp and there were constant rumours that the remainder of the camp would move out of this area soon. The air raids had gained in frequency and intensity and proximity.
On the night of the 9th of April the whole area in a half moon around the camp was completely burned out…. They came in very low that night, about seven or eight thousand feet….13 The raid lasted through all the hours of darkness with the trail of planes passing directly overhead…. Eleven B-29’s were shot down immediately above us in the glare of searchlights, with a wing disappearing on this one so that it spun on its long axis like a giant pin-wheel, another becoming a Roman-candle-like ball of flame which sailed about the sky for fully five minutes under the guidance of the automatic pilot before dipping somewhere in Yokohama. And the constant din of the anti-aircraft guns perched beside the camp fence mixed with the whistle and crump of bombs while the whole panorama about us, as far as one could see to the horizon, became a literal dancing red sea of flames. The fierce joy at the realization that the ring of rescue was closing in, combined with the niggling dread that one might not, at long last, survive the assault.14
A month after the April 9 firebombing of Tokyo — a city now five-eighths destroyed — Camp 3D was emptied and closed. The morning of May 12, 1945, a group under Major Kagy, comprising the remaining tuberculosis patients from Shinagawa Hospital and 17 cooks and shoemakers from 3D, was sent to Suwa Camp, 93 miles south of Tokyo. At six o’clock that evening, Reid, Lieutenant Finn, and the remaining 198 Canadians were shuttled to Yokohama where they were to board a train for the 60-mile trip north to Sendai Branch Camp No. 1 (Sendai Camp 1B) near Hitachi, halfway between Tokyo and the northern coastal city of Sendai.
Several hours before leaving camp, Reid’s group was called out to the parade ground for a departure speech by the Japanese admiral in charge of Nippon Kokan Shipyard. In his brief exhortation, the admiral made no mention of the world news: five days earlier, on May 7, 1945, Germany had signed an unconditional surrender at Allied headquarters in Reims, France. The war in Europe was over.