Appeal to Congress by American POWs of Japan

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The American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor Memorial Society (ADBC-MS), the leading American veterans’ organization for former prisoners of war of Imperial Japan, their families, and historians, submitted testimony for the record on March 22, 2017 to the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee and House Veterans' Affairs Committee Joint Hearing To Receive Legislative Presentations of Veterans Service Organizations. [click to see full testimony]

The ADBC-MS asked Congress to:

• Adopt a resolution commemorating this year’s annual National Prisoner of War Remembrance Day, April 9th, which is also the 75th anniversary of the Bataan Death March on the Philippines.
• Award a Congressional gold medal to the American POWs of Japan, who endured the longest and harshest imprisonment of any WWII POWs.
• Insist that the Japanese corporations that used POW slave labor during WWII make amends for their war crimes before they are allowed to bid on U.S. high speed rail contracts.
• Encourage the Government of Japan to turn its POW visitation program into a permanent Future Fund for research, documentation, reconciliation, and people-to-people exchanges.
• Demand that the Government of Japan refute misrepresentations of POW history in Japan and include the history in its UNESCO Industrial Heritage sites.
• Ask the Japanese government to create a memorial at the Port of Moji, where most of the “hell ships” delivered their sick, dying, and dead human cargo to Japan.

This year is the 75th anniversary of the Bataan Death March, the fall of the Philippines, the end of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet, and the destruction of the U.S. Far East Air Force. It is estimated that over 300,000 American and Allied POWs and civilian internees were POWs of Imperial Japan. Nearly half died in squalid POW camps, aboard fetid “hell ships,” or as slave laborers for Japanese corporations.

Never again, means never forget.

Congressional Testimony on slave labor used by Japanese high speed rail companies

Statement for the Record

to the 

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee

Subcommittee on Transportation and Public Assets

Hearing on

LAGGING BEHIND: THE STATE OF HIGH SPEED RAIL IN THE UNITED STATES

By

Ms. Jan Thompson

President, American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor-Memorial Society

14 July 2016

Japanese Corporate Use of U.S. POWs as Slave Labor

Chairman Mica and Ranking Member Duckworth, I speak to you on behalf of the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor-Memorial Society, the successor organization to the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor (ADBC), founded in 1946. We represent the surviving prisoners of war of Japan, their families, researchers and historians. Our goal is to preserve the history of the American POW experience in the Pacific and to communicate its enduring spirit and inspiration to future generations

Although I cannot address the delays in contracting and construction of High Speed Rail (HSR) in the United States, I would like to call your and the Committee’s attention to the delay by Japanese HSR companies in acknowledging and addressing their wartime use of American POWs as slave labor. The failure of these companies to do so is an affront to the Americans who must fund the purchase of Japanese HSR technologies in our country and to the memory of our World War II veterans who fought tyranny. It also ignores the Charter of Corporate Behavior set by Keidanren, Japan’s major business organization, that asks its members to conduct their business with a “strong sense of ethical values,” “respect [for] human rights and other international norms of behavior,” and “socially responsible behavior within their supply chain.”

Many of the Japanese companies that intend to bid on High-Speed Rail contracts in the United States profited from their wartime use of American and Allied POW slave labor in the most brutal of conditions. And, like France’s HSR company SNCF, the two Japanese consortia bidding for HSR contracts in the United States, JR East and JR Central are the successor companies to state-owned rail lines that transported American and Allied POWs to slavery, torture, and death.

These companies, unlike those in Germany, Austria, and France, have never made amends for – or even acknowledged – their role in the gross violations of human rights and breach of the Third Geneva Convention on the treatment of POWs.

We are concerned that taxpayer dollars may go to Japanese corporations that still do not respect American veterans and are unwilling to take responsibility for violations of international law and human rights.

Among the POWs enslaved to support Japanese companies was, Chairman Mica, one of your late constituents, Sgt Sam Moody. We deeply appreciate that you have urged several Congresses to enact legislation in his name: the “Samuel B. Moody Bataan Death March Compensation Act.” We also understand that you honor Sgt Moody daily by giving visiting veterans a copy of his memoir Reprieve from Hell with a forward by you. Sgt Moody was tortured at a camp operated by one of today’s key participants in Japan’s HSR consortia—Nippon Sharyo. This company made and still makes Japan’s rail cars. It is also famous for having built the engines used on the Thai-Burma Death Railway.

Sgt Moody, who survived the Bataan Death March and a “Hell Ship” to Japan was caught stealing a cup of sugar. As punishment, he was made to stand at attention in the Nippon Sharyo camp yard. The 24-year old Massachusetts native remained there for a record-setting 53 hours. The camp reportedly held 273 men of whom 189 were American with the rest being British, Canadian, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese, Czech, Russian, Jamaican, and Finish.

The use of POWs to support Japanese industry during the War was not an isolated event, but was by government design. Imperial Japan’s Ministry of Munitions under Nobusuke Kishi in coordination with the War Ministry headed by General Hideki Tojo created a broad government program to supply over 60 private Japanese corporations with POW labor. These companies requested, paid the government for, and effectively enslaved POWs in order to maintain wartime industrial production.

In Japan, some 32,000 Allied POWs endured abuses at the hands of the employees of these companies that were comparable to, and sometimes worse than, those inflicted upon them by the Japanese military. As a result, more than a 1,000 American POWs (over 3,500 Allied POWs) died on the main islands of Japan alone. Of those who survived, many suffered permanent physical or psychological damage.

Nearly all of the Japanese companies that want to bring High-Speed Rail to California, the Baltimore-Washington Corridor, and Texas used POW slave labor. In their corporate histories they boast over 100 years of continuous operation spanning three centuries. Most retain their original names. Many utilized labor from multiple POW camps for their mines, factories, foundries, and docks. Some of the camps were in Japan’s occupied territories. Current research finds the number of POW camps associated with Japanese companies bidding on HSR contracts as follows: Mitsui-9; Hitachi-7, Nippon Steel (Nippon Steel Sumitomo Metal)-6, Mitsubishi-5, Sumitomo-5, Kawasaki-2, Nippon Sharyo-2, and Toshiba-1.

Only one of the Mitsubishi Group’s companies, Mitsubishi Materials Corporation (MMC), and only last year, has acknowledged its involvement in POW forced labor and maltreatment. This is in stark contrast to German (Siemens) and French (SNCF) bidders for the High-Speed Rail projects, both of which have not only apologized for their war crimes during WWII but also committed themselves to supporting extensive projects of remembrance, reconciliation, and reparation.

JR East and JR Central manage the two Japanese HSR consortia. Both have their own histories of involvement with slave labor as both were part of the Japan’s national railway. The rails of JR East transported prisoners to 46 POW camps including the infamous Ofuna Interrogation Center where American Naval officers, such as Olympian Louis Zamperini, were routinely tortured. And the rails of JR Central transported prisoners to 12 POW camps, including the ones supplying slave laborers to Nippon Sharyo. JR Central now owns this company.

In 2009, the Government of Japan finally offered its apology and established a visitation program (modeled on a longstanding Japanese program for POWs of other allied nations) for American former prisoners of war of Imperial Japan. Since 2010, there have been seven trips to Japan for 43 former POWs, all in their late 80s or 90s, and three widows and two descendants.

On July 19, 2015, MMC became the first Japanese company to officially apologize to American POWs who were used as slave laborers to maintain war production. The historic apology was to those who were forced to work in four mines operated by Mitsubishi Mining, Inc., the predecessor company of MMC. This apology was followed by a $50,000 one-time donation to a museum in the United States.

It is time for all Japan’s private companies that plan to bid on American HSR projects to follow their government’s lead, as well as that of MMC, SNCF, and Siemens, and offer their own programs of reconciliation. That the transportation of POWs to “death-by-work” camps and widespread forced labor constitute war crimes is self-evident. Yet, the Japanese companies have been allowed to delay their responsibility to the American people and to justice.

It is our hope that the U.S. Congress will consider among the “delays” that have to be addressed in bringing HSR to the U.S. is Japanese corporate commitment to fostering respect for the life histories of those who they enslaved and abused. We would welcome an opportunity to share our thoughts on how this can be accomplished.

The ordeal of the American POWs of Japan is not just another facet of war history. Nor is it simply another saga of WWII suffering. It is a history of resilience, survival, and the human spirit, good and bad. And it has become an example of a path toward mutual understanding and justice between Japan and its former victims.

Ms. Jan Thompson
President
American Defenders of Bataan & Corregidor Memorial Society
Daughter of PhM2c Robert E. Thompson USN, Bilibid, Fukuoka 3B, & Mukden, POW# 2011

Later: The Committee Staff accepted the testimony and considered it part of the record. However, it was not included in the written report nor on the hearing website. None of the testimonies for the record were.

Robert A. “Bob” Bonadio, Col. USMC

Requiescat in pace

Robert A. “Bob” Bonadio, Colonel USMC (Ret) of Murrieta, Calif., a tireless advocate for American veterans, especially the American POWs of Japan, passed away January 19, 2013 surrounded by his family after an extended illness. He was 83.

Bob was born in Utica, New York on December 27, 1929 to parents Frank and Rose Bonadio. In 1948, he enlisted in the Marine Corps, and in 1949 the Marine Corps sent him to Subic Bay, Philippines. In 1950 Bob went to Korea where he served in combat with the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division, participating in the Chosin Reservoir “Breakout” in Korea, forever linking him to an elite group of soldiers called “The Chosin Few.” Nine Marines would be awarded the Medal of Honor for their heroic actions during the 17 day campaign, November 26 to December 13, 1950. This was the the most ever in the history of the Marine Corps in any one battle. The Marines had fought in sub-zero temperatures surrounded by the Chinese, outnumbered more than 10:1.

In late 1953, he was assigned to Camp Pendleton with the MP Battalion, and later as an Infantry Company Commander. In 1954 he was assigned to the Marine Corps Air Station at El Toro, California, serving as the Assistant Personnel Officer and Atomic, Biological and Chemical Defense Officer. During 1957, he participated in the last atmospheric nuclear tests within the continental United States at Camp Desert Rock, Nevada. He then commanded the only Marines Corps Reserve Artillery Regiment in the United States, the 14th Marine Regiment (14th Marines).

  

Bob retired from the Marine Corps after 42 years of active and reserve service. He was a member of the Reserve Officers Association (ROA) since 1976, plus a member of the Military Officers Association of America (MOAA). After moving to San Diego in 1994, he became the ROA Membership Chairman of the San Diego Chapter, then appointed to the National Membership Committee. From 1996-97, he served as the Navy Sections West Membership Coordinator, with responsibilities for the 24 states west of the Mississippi.

In 1977, Bob and Admiral Martin “Red” Carmody were instrumental in the opening of the Treasure Island Museum in San Francisco, depicting the American experience as lived by the men and women of the United States Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard.

In civilian life he was the Advertising and Marketing Manager with Pacific Bell for California and Nevada. Retiring after 26 years, Bob continued working as a consultant and even traveled to South Korea where he was contracted to put together the Yellow Pages for the city of Seoul, which flourishes today.

Bob was devoted to helping veterans find jobs. He co-authored the Jobs Partner Training Act of 1982, which gave jobs to unemployed veterans and minorities. In 1984, President Ronald Reagan commended him for his efforts with the Blind Ski Training Program in the Lake Tahoe area for all residents in California and Nevada. He often helped veterans receive their service medals.

Bob discovered WWll Navy and Marine Corps POW’s never received their back promotion pay and contacted U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) who introduced legislation for these POW’s to receive their money. When Bob found out it would only be in 1942 dollars, he again appealed to Senator McCain who reintroduced legislation for the POW’s to receive their back promotion pay in current dollars. It was enacted as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for FY2008. 

POWs of Japan

Bob was an inspiring advocate for the American POW’s in the Pacific who suffered horribly in Japan's slave labor camps. His last campaign was trying to persuade Congress to provide compensation to American POWs of Japan for their inhumane imprisonment. He wanted the US government to thank the POWs for their extraordinary service just as other allied governments have by providing ex gratia payments to their former POWs (for example, see recent compensation to Australian POWs). He also worked to alert California legislators of the unacknowledged use of POW slave labor by nearly all Japanese companies (Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Sumitomo, Hitachi, Kawasaki, Toshiba, Nippon Sharyo) that plan on bidding for the state's high-speed rail projects [see his 2011 letter to Governor Jerry Brown]. Bob was an Associate life member of the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor.

Bob's friend Don Versaw shared
 the view that you should "not be discouraged"

Marine Master Sergeant Donald Versaw, a former POW of Japan who fought on Corregidor 1941-42 and one of the last of the China Marines, is one of the POWs who Bob worked so hard to help. Don said, upon hearing of Bob's passing that "Col Bonadio's great effort has been a great benefit to me and my family. All of us fortunate survivors of POW experience owe him every so much." Don was a member of the China Marine Band and played the French horn. He had to destroy "his precious best friend" upon surrender to the Japanese and has never again played an instrument. As a POW, he was sent to Japan aboard a Hellship Nissyo Maru to Fukuoka-7B-Futase on Kyushu to be a slave laborer mining coal at Nittetsu-Futase Tanko Kaisha (still existing as the Nittetsu Mining Co., Ltd.). Don, like Bob, served with the 1st Marines during the Korean War.

Bob on the PAWs Sanctuary

With his beloved daughters Karen and Jean, Bob became a voice for the plight of captive elephants in the U.S, and advocated to end the exhibiting of elephants suffering in confinement in zoos across America, and those forced into a lifetime of misery in the circus. He enjoyed visiting the elephants at the PAWs Sanctuary in San Andreas, California.

Protect the elephants

Those that knew Bob would say he was relentless and a man who never gave up on any mission when it came to helping others. His love of his family, the Marine Corps, and America was evident in the way he lived his life and in the character of who he was as a man.

Bob is survived by his wife Clare of 62 years, and daughters Jean and Karen.

A memorial is being planned at Camp Pendleton. He will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery at 3:00pm on July 31, 2013.

In lieu of flowers, please make a tax-deductible contribution to The Wounded Warriors Project the Performing Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) or Asia Policy Point.

If you would like to assist and/or contribute to efforts to protect Japan's apology to the American POWs of Japan and to persuade Japan's great companies that used our POWs as slave labor to also apologize, please contact Asia Policy Point.

Corporate Responsibility

One of Mitsubishi's POW camps

On January 26th, the Asahi Shimbun, one of Japan's leading newspapers, published an essay by Ms. Kinue Tokudome, Executive Director of the US-Japan Dialogue on POWs. In it, she appeals to Japan's corporations that want to be viewed as responsible, international good corporate citizens to admit their use and abuse of POW slave labor. Ms. Tokudome has written extensively on POW slave labor in Japan and the need for corporate accountability similar to that in Germany. Below is an English translation.

My View Point
Courage to Face the History: Apology for former POWs

“Please tell us how our wartime colleagues treated you. We want to learn, too.” For the two former American POWs who visited Japan Metals & Chemicals Co. (JMC)’s Takaoka Works (Toyama prefecture) last October, Director Takashi Toriyama’s words sounded as if they were wiping away their pain that they had not been able to forget for 66 years.

Mr. Harold Bergbower (91) and Mr. James Collier (88) were among the seven former American POWs invited to Japan by the Foreign Ministry. It was during the Pacific War in September of 1944, that the two men first set foot on Takaoka. One hundred and fifty American POWs were brought here from the Philippines to become forced laborers for JMC’s predecessor company, Hokkai Denka Kogyo.

Already weakened POWs were forced to perform dangerous work near open furnaces. Food and medicine were not adequate and 13 POWs died by the end of the war.

I accompanied the two former POWs who traveled a long distance to visit Takaoka. Mr. Toriyama welcomed them and started the conversation by saying, “My late father was also a Siberian internee and I felt as if you were my own father when I received the request on your visit from the Foreign Ministry.”

Ms. Debra Bergbower-Grunwald, the daughter of Mr. Bergbower, described what followed this initial exchange at a press conference in Tokyo a few days later:

I saw friendship that happened between generations, between the generation from the Japan Metals Company and these two former POWs, sitting down at a small table, drawing a diagram, and discussing what the camp history was in 1944. And those men laughing and talking and communicating. That was where the friendship was. And that peace of mind helped and is helping my father at the age of 91. I want to thank the Japanese government for helping my father with this.

During WWII, nearly 36,000 Allied POWs were held at approximately 130 POW camps throughout Japan and forced to work for more than 60 Japanese companies. About 10% of them died in Japan. However, companies like Japan Metals & Chemicals, which are willing to welcome former POWs, are the exception. Most companies that enslaved POWs have not even acknowledged their use of POWs as forced laborers.

A resolution has been introduced in US Congress requesting that the Government of Japan respect the wishes and sensibilities of the United States former prisoners of war by encouraging those Japanese companies to do the right thing. [H Res 333]

President of POWs' Descendants Group also submitted a written testimony for the hearing on California High Speed Rail held last month by the House of Representatives, asking those Japanese companies that are planning to bid for the project to respect their father’s dignity by acknowledging the history of POW forced labor and apologizing for it.

Former American POWs are not asking for compensation. The only thing they wish is to restore their dignity while they are alive and to have their history remembered by future generations. I hope that those Japanese companies that enslaved them will have the courage to face the history. There is not much time left.

Japanese Corporate Use of U.S. POWs as Slave Labor

American POWs at Yawata Steel Mill
 part of  Nippon Steel in Fukuoka*

On 15 December 2011, Representative Russ Carnahan (D-MO) submitted a Statement for the Record to the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Hearing on California's High-Speed Rail Plan on behalf of Mr. Joseph A. Vater, Jr. who is President of the Descendants Group, an Auxiliary of the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor.

Congressman Carnahan visited Corregidor last year and learned first hand of the historic battle of the Philippines and how its American defenders ended up as POWs facing over three years of unimaginable hell. Earl Szwabo, a survivor of the battle of Corregidor and member of the first POW trip to Japan, is one of Mr. Carnahan's constituents.

Below is Mr. Vater's testimony where he outlines how most of the Japanese companies that plan to bid on California's and other American high-speed rail projects were major users of American POW slave labor. He suggests that it is time for these companies to offer their apologies and make amends for this gross violation of human rights and the Geneva Convention.

Japanese Corporate Use of U.S. POWs as Slave Labor

Mr. Chairman, I am President of the Descendants Group, an Auxiliary of the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor, Inc. (ADBC). The American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor was founded in 1946 and represented the surviving prisoners of war of Japan and their families. I would like to call your and the Committee’s attention to the fact that many of the Japanese companies that intend to bid on California’s High-Speed Rail contracts profited from the use of American and Allied (POW) slave labor in the most brutal of conditions during World War II.

These companies, unlike those in Germany, Austria, and France, have never acknowledged nor apologized for this gross violation of human rights and breach of the Third Geneva Convention on the treatment of POWs. It is a concern to me and other members of the Descendants Group that taxpayer dollars may go to Japanese corporations that still do not respect the American veterans they once enslaved.

My father, Joseph A. Vater, was one of these men.

After fighting in and surviving the Battle for the Philippines he was taken prisoner by Japan in May 1942 on Corregidor. He was held months in a fetid POW camp where thousands died. He was then shipped to Mukden, China (today's Shenyang) in October 1942 on Mitsubishi's Tottori Maru via Formosa and Korea. My father became a slave laborer at MKK factory (Manshu Kosaku Kikai, possibly Manchuria Mitsubishi Machine Tool Company, Ltd.), working as a machinist. He still carries many scars and continues to have frightening nightmares that remind him on a daily basis of his forced labor.

There was a broad government program in which over 60 private Japanese corporations requested, paid for, and effectively enslaved POWs in order to maintain wartime industrial production. Tens of thousands of Allied POWs endured abuses at the hands of the employees of these companies that were comparable to, and sometimes worse than, that inflicted upon them by the Japanese military. As a result, more than a 1,000 American POWs (over 3,500 Allied POWs) died on the main islands of Japan alone. Those who survived found themselves with permanent physical or mental damage.

The POW slave laborers of Japan were subjected to starvation rations, minimal medical treatment, constant physical abuse, summary punishment, murder, and other degradations. The death rate of Americans captured by the Japanese and who died as prisoners of war was nearly 40 percent, as compared to a little over one percent held in German stalags.

Nearly all of the Japanese companies that want to bring High-Speed Rail to California used POW slave labor. Many of these corporations boast over 100 years of continuous operation spanning three centuries. Many utilized labor from multiple POW camps for their mines, factories, foundries, and docks. Some of the camps were in Japan’s occupied territories. Current research finds the number of camps associated with some of the Japanese companies bidding on California contracts as follows: Mitsui-9; Mitsubishi-5, Hitachi-7, Kawasaki-2, Sumitomo-5, and Nippon Sharyo-2.

None of these companies has acknowledged their involvement in POW forced labor and maltreatment, much less apologized for it. That is in stark contrast to German and French bidders for the High-Speed Rail projects, both of which have not only apologized for their war crimes during WWII, but also committed themselves to supporting projects of remembrance and reconciliation.

Last year, for the first time, the Government of Japan offered its apology and established a visitation program (modeled on a longstanding Japanese program for POWs of other allied nations) for American former prisoners of war of Imperial Japan.

It is time for Japan’s private companies to follow their government’s lead and offer their own apologies. Further, commitment to this apology can be demonstrated through the establishment of a foundation for the remembrance of the POW experience in the Pacific.

To date, the two consortia headed by Japan’s leading passenger rail firms, JR East and JR Central, which are planning to bid on American High-Speed Rail projects, have been silent. As rail operators both companies’ forbearers were complicit in POW abuses; both have roots deep in Japan’s wartime government Railway Ministry.

JR East’s antecedent transported prisoners to 46 POW camps including the infamous Ofuna Interrogation Center where American Naval officers were routinely tortured to death. JR Central’s predecessor transported prisoners to 12 POW camps, including the ones supplying workers to Nippon Sharyo. Now owned by JR Central, Nippon Sharyo made the engines used on the Thai-Burma Death Railway (one of which sits at the entrance of the museum at the Yasukuni Shrine).

That the transportation of POWs to “death-by-work” camps and widespread forced labor constitute war crimes is self-evident. Yet, the Japanese companies involved have refused to publicly acknowledge this history. Their counterparts in the European Axis countries, by contrast, have apologized and atoned for similar wrongdoing.

In 2000, the German government and industrial sector established and funded in equal measure the “Remembrance, Responsibility and the Future” Foundation. Among the fund’s continuing objectives are “anchoring the history of forced labour” in European memory, “fostering commitment to democracy and human rights through history learning,” and “engendering respect for the life histories of those persecuted.”

Over the past three years, the former commander of the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor has written three times to Japan’s premier business organization, Keidanren, to which most companies that enslaved American POWs belong, asking that it apologize on behalf of its members to the American POWs. Keidanren’s corporate responsibility charter states a commitment to “respect human rights” and to “conduct business in a socially responsible manner.” Keidanren has never replied. Further, it refused to meet in with any of the visiting POWs who were guests of the Japanese government in the fall of 2010 and 2011.

For both business and moral reasons, JR East, JR Central and the other Japanese companies that profited from the forced labor of POWs and others now have a chance—and incentives—to right past wrongs. The American POWs do not seek compensation. Justice for my father and his fellow prisoners is a public apology and a meaningful program of visitation, dialogue, memory, and research on the American POW experience in Imperial Japan.

I and other members of the Descendants Group sincerely hope that the State of California will advise these Japanese companies to promptly acknowledge their involvement in wartime forced labor and offer an apology to the American POWs.

These veterans of America’s greatest generation should not be forgotten and Japan’s corporations should no longer be allowed to forget.

Mostly, we ask them to respect these veterans’ dignity and to acknowledge their sacrifices for peace in Asia.

After doing so, these Japanese companies can join in the bidding on California’s High-Speed Rail contracts as honorable, socially responsible companies.

*Yes, there were Black Americans who were POWs of Japan. The POWs above were from the USS Grenadier the only submarine crew that did not go down with their boat. Thomas James Trigg was a Mess Attendant First Class. We will do a post shortly on the Black American POWs of Japan. 

Justice Denied

September 2nd is 66th anniversary of the signing of Japan's surrender document aboard the USS Missouri. Dr. Lester Tenney remembered the day in the Asian Wall Street Journal as the official end of his slavery for Mitusi & Co.

He wrote of the abuse he received as a POW from Mitsui's employees and about his enduring wish to receive a proper apology from the Mitsui company. Mitsui is one of Japan's largest and oldest conglomerates. It has an extensive presence in the U.S. and is hoping to benefit from contracts to build high-speed rail in California and Texas.

My slavery in Japan officially ended on Sept. 2, 1945, when Japanese and American representatives signed the formal surrender documents for the Pacific War. For nearly three years I was an American prisoner of war slave laborer for Mitsui Mining. I had survived the Bataan Death March on the Philippines and a "hell ship" to Japan only to be sold by Japan's military to the Mitsui conglomerate. Since liberation I have struggled to regain the dignity that both Imperial Japan and Mitsui stripped from me.
..........................
I strongly disagree with those that believe reminding Japan of its war crimes is counterproductive. The idea that the process of politely requesting an apology for atrocities creates too much political inconvenience is insulting to all involved. The trust needed to move our alliance forward can only be built upon a frank assessment of the past. Real friendship is forged through the acknowledgment of painful truths. 

The Japanese government had been responsible for the supply and control of the POWs, but Japan's companies maintained the POW facilities and assigned our work. Now my fellow POWs and I wait for corporate Japan's apologies. Over 60 Japanese companies, nearly all still in existence—such as Mitsui, Sumitomo, Mitsubishi, Kawasaki and Hitachi—used POW slave labor to maintain war production. My letters to Mitsui and to Japan's chief business organization, Keidanren, have gone unanswered. 

At the heart of all this effort is a simple truth: the need to remember, recognize and honor those who endured so much. I hope that both Japanese and Americans will support H.Res. 333 which thanks the Japanese government for its historic apology. This resolution encourages Japanese companies to follow this good example by apologizing and honoring the memory of the POWs who labored and suffered as slaves for profit. 

This unresolved past casts a despicable shadow over the reputations of these companies today. It will continue to do so unless reason, fairness and human dignity prevail.

Dr. Tenney was a member of Maywood, Illinois' 192nd Tank Battalion, Company B that defended the Philippines in World War II. He lives in San Diego, California.

His congressman, Brian Bilbray (R-CA), is a co-sponsor of H. Res. 333 as are two of the San Diego region's five members of congress.  The other co-sponsors are Susan Davis (D-CA) and Bob Filner (D-CA).  Thus far, Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Duncan Hunter (R-CA) are not.

Nippon Sharyo

 All rights reserved by CTBarey

In the entrance hall of the Yushukan, the war museum on the property of the Yasukuni Shrine, locomotive C5631 greets visitors. You examine the black engine as you ride up the escalator to the main museum. The museum's entrance hall envelopes its guests in a blinding white.

The C5631 was one of the engines used on the Thailand-Burma Death Railway. This particular engine is said to have been one that opened this infamous Railway, which was the subject of the Academy Award wining movie, Bridge on the River Kwai. The movie immortalized the Allied POWs who slaved to build the railway. PBS hosted a documentary in June 2008 that is truer to the facts of the awful history of building the railway.

Over 240,000 British, Dutch, Australian, Canadian, American, New Zealand, Amonen, Indian, and other civilian and military Allied POWs as well Southeast Asian forced laborers such as Burmese, Malaya, Indonesian (Romusha), Thai, and others participated in creating the railroad from the jungle and mountains. Probably 75 percent died in the process from abuse, malnutrition, disease, overwork, and accidents.

More than 600 American POWs slaved to build the Thailand-Burma Death Railway. They were mostly survivors of the USS Houston CA-30, sunk in the Battle of the Sunda Strait in February 1942, and an artillery battalion of the Texas National Guard (2nd Battalion, 131st Field Artillery) that was taken prisoner on Java after a brief battle in March 1942. Less than half survived the ordeal.

Nippon Sharyo manufactured in 1936 the C5631 that now rests at the Yushukan. It was shipped to Thailand in 1942 and is said to have taken part in the opening ceremony of the Thailand-Burma Death Railway. After the war, it was used in Thailand until it was retired in 1977. Japanese veteran groups raised funds to return the locomotive to Japan in 1979, restore it, and place it on the grounds of the Yasukuni Shrine. Apparently, in Shizuoka at the Oigawa Railway, you can ride a sister engine, C-5633, manufactured by Mitsubishi also in 1936. 

Since 1896, Nippon Sharyo has been Japan's leading railway rolling stock manufacturer. Today, in the United States, it supplies passenger cars to: Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District (NICTD), Virginia Railway Express (VRE), Northeast Illinois Regional Commuter Railroad Corporation (Metra), California Department of Transportation (CalTrains), Maryland’s MARC, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LACMTA), and Sonoma Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART). The company is an essential component of both JR Central and JR East's bids for U.S. high-speed rail contracts, which will be primarily U.S. taxpayer funded. In 2008, the bankrupt Nippon Sharyo was acquired by JR Central to ensure the historic company's survival.

During the war, Nippon Sharyo utilized American POW slave labor at two sites. The largest was at Narumi, which remains an important manufacturing center for the company. Narumi was where Sgt. Sam Moody was tortured (he testified at the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal) and one of the POW camps with the greatest number of convicted war criminals (22). 

Nippon Sharyo-manufactured trains rumble daily past the Maywood Veterans Memorial Park. The village of Maywood, home of Company “B” of the 192nd Tank Battalion (originally the 33rd Tank Company of the Illinois National Guard, activated for Federal service on November 25, 1940), had the highest number of POWs on the Bataan Death March from a single municipality. Of the 89 men of Company "B" who left the U.S. in 1942 for the Philippines, only 43 would return from the war.

Danny Davis (D-IL) is the congressman representing Maywood, Illinois. As of August 5, 2011, he has not yet become a co-sponsor of H. Res. 333.

Wisenthal Center supports the POWs

The Simon Wiesenthal Center a global Jewish human rights organization that teaches the lessons of the Holocaust has long championed the justice for the American POWs of Japan. Imperial Japan’s systematic, state-sponsored program of death through work for the POWs has resonance for those who study the Holocaust. Japan’s failure to abide to even the most basic components of the Geneva Convention is important lesson for future generations about human rights and dignity.

Recent activities of support include:

Wiesenthal Center offers Museum of Tolerance for possible meet between ex-slave laborer POWs and Japanese companies,  Press Release, December 10, 2010.

Lester Tenney, a tenacious 90-year old survivor of World War II’s infamous “Bataan Death March” met with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger this week in San Diego to seek his support in getting Japanese firms bidding on California’s high speed rail project to apologize for their use of American POWs as slave labor during the Second World War.

Japan is responsible for teaching, Op Ed Orlando Sentinel, December 3, 2010,  by Alfred Balitzer, chairman of Pacific Research & Strategies, Inc., a California-based government-affairs and public-relations firm and Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles.

....Time does not heal all wounds. Sixty-five years after the end of the Second World War, we are reminded that while history tells a story, it does not automatically bring justice. From the Nazi death camps to the Bataan Death March to the American POWs and others who suffered at the hands of Imperial Japanese, the scale and scope of barbarities inflicted on humankind during the World War II era remain beyond our full comprehension....

....It behooves the consortium of 11 Japanese companies led by Central Japan Railway Company (JR Tokai), which includes Mitsubishi and Sumitomo, to come clean about their abuse of American and Allied POWs during WWII....

Japanese bidders on high speed rail should have to apologize to World War II POWs, Op Ed, San Jose Mercury News, September 9, 2010 by Alfred Balitzer, chairman of Pacific Research & Strategies, Inc., a California-based government-affairs and public-relations firm and Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles.

....We believe that the overwhelming majority of citizens on both sides of the Pacific agree that now is the time to finally do the right thing. With just seconds to go before the written record replaces living memory of the period, we must unite in bringing a symbolic measure of justice to those few survivors of humankind's most brutal hour.