The Blood and Mud in the Philippines: Anti-Guerrilla Warfare on Panay Island
Chapter 11–War Criminals
11.1 War Criminal Kamikaze Unit
Amidst the bright lights of around 300 ships that surrounded us, our transport reached near the shores of Tacloban on the island of Leyte late at night. Towards the morning, landing craft brought us into the coconut groves at the Palo shore. We were loaded into waiting trucks that brought us to the Palo POW camp six or seven kilometers away. Henceforth, we were imprisoned separately within a vast campsite. Officers (shôko) went into the officer’s camp while NCOs and soldiers (heishi) were sent to labor camps. Even now, most of the soldiers had been out of touch with each other. In was under these circumstances that the Japanese Army of Panay was actually dissolved.
We learned that near Camp Palo, a regiment of the 16th Division of the Japanese Army had been annihilated and that the regimental flag was burned in the mountain behind it when the US Forces had landed. It was probably because of this that there were rumors about Japanese soldiers’ ghosts sometimes appearing in the camp. There was no work for officers and the boring life as POWs started. To kill the time, sumo tournaments, volleyball and basketball games, and variety shows were held. Meanwhile, group after group of POWs from the Visayas and Mindanao areas kept on arriving.
One day towards the end of November, nine people were summoned: staff officer Colonel Hidemi Watanabe, unit commander Colonel Tozuka, Captain Makoto Yoshioka, 1st Lieutenant Hajime Fujii, Captain Jiro Motoki, Second Lieutenant Otsuka, and myself from the Japanese Army; also Captain Kaneyuki Koike and WO Fusataro Shin of the Kempeitai. Seeing the line up of the nine, I felt a chill in my heart. Immediately we were moved to another section of the camp, and were squashed in a narrow section surrounded by double fences. Already imprisoned there were Sergeant Sugimoto and six others from the Onishi unit of Cebu Island, and Major Mikami and eight others of the 30th Division (commonly called the Panther Division) of Mindanao Island. When we were put in two tents for twenty, I felt as if my body had been kicked into a bottomless pit. It was absolute desperation. The dream of returning home to Japan became an illusion. The troubles and worries I had experienced during more than three years in Panay came back to haunt me all at once.
Next morning, while it was still dark, I was awakened by the noise from the guard who was pounding empty tin cans. Breakfast was one cup of thin corn soup. The amount of food in the meals suddenly decreased. Because of hunger, I could hardly move around. Eventually, more people arrived at the camp, including Sergeant Tokizo Makita, Corporal Itai, Private First Class Sekitomo Ueki, Master Sergeant Shirakura, Master Sergeant Yoshiaki Sumitani, Sergeant Watanabe, Interpreter Ogino were from the Kempeitai. Several days later, we were joined by 1st Lieutenant Toyota.
Eventually the Special Camp became full of war criminal suspects from different places, and the number of tents increased. Day after day, with three meals of just a cup of corn soup and water, I was hungry. When I stood up, I felt dizzy. This was the first experience of hunger I ever had in my life. Beyond the double fences, it seemed there was the camp of Hôjin women and children, and I sometimes heard the distinctive accent of the Taiwanese comfort women. The hunger became unbearable. Thus, I went up to the fence one evening, and wishing with a big ‘IF’, I called to one of the women speaking in Taiwanese accent. She happened to be one of the comfort women who had been in Panay Island. On hearing that officers from Panay were imprisoned in the War Criminal Suspects’ Camp, she was shocked and became very sympathetic. She promised to bring me food.
Next morning, I heard a sound like that of coconuts dropping–‘boton, boton’ – and got out of the tent. There were tins scattered around. They were ration tins of the US forces. We jumped at them with cries of joy and, after the spell of hunger, ate to our satisfaction. Eventually the Hôjin women from Iloilo joined in the throwing in of foodstuffs. The guards generously ignored that. Those gifts from the women’s camp were shared with POWs from other units and were appreciated.
One thing that made the women from Panay exert much effort to give us gifts of food was their appreciation of the unit commander, Colonel Tozuka, and other officers. In the mountains of Bocari, they seemed to have been quite discontented by their treatment by the army. Yet at the camp in Leyte, the women from other islands were tearfully envious of them since they had their children with them. When going into the mountains in other islands, children under twelve were killed by soldiers since they were deemed hindrances to operations of the Japanese Army. The Taiwanese comfort women had compassion for us because they had discovered that it was only in Panay that all the Taiwanese comfort women survived.
In December, the soldiers who were returning to Japan from Leyte increased in number. Seeing them depart with filled bags and full of joy, those of us left behind felt even more depressed. WO Shin of the Kempeitai had become involved with a pseudo-religion, and it was a pitiful sight to see him praying so eagerly. (To be continued)
