Impressions of their return to Japan

On September 13, 2010 the Government of Japan offered an official apology for the abuse and misuse of the Americans they held as prisoners of war during World War II. With the apology the Japanese Government initiated a week-long visitation program for six American former POWs of Japan and two descendants. The second POW/Japan Friendship visit was held in October 2011 with seven former POWs. 

These are the first programs for American POWs. Each trip cost less than $200,000. Japan has maintained research and exchange programs with all other Allied former POWs since 1995 spending over $15 million through 2005 alone. From 2001 to 2005, the U.S. Justice Department noted $5.5 million of declared lobbying expenditures by the Japanese government to fight any and all efforts by the American POWs for recognition and justice.

Below are quotes from some of the participants that express the success of this program for American POWs of remembrance and reconciliation. They show the power of apology backed by deeds. The POWs hope that the Government of Japan will expand and enhance the visitation program to include descendants and researchers as well as create a permanent fund for remembrance and reconciliation.

Copies of this report are circulating on Capitol Hill and in the U.S. State Department.

September 2010

Apology to POWs delivered by Foreign Minister Okada

From meeting the various government dignitaries; to having such helpful and caring guides to educate us about their country; to the amazing topography of the land; to the most beautiful accommodations and the graciousness of the Japanese people; for me this has been a trip I will never forget. I feel so privileged to have been able to accompany my father on what I know has been a trip he never imagined he would take again. - Judy Chorley, eldest daughter of former POW Master Sgt., Donald L. Versaw, USMC, who accompanied him to Japan, The Quan, December 2010.

We were met at the Beppu City Senior Citizens Club, by the city’s 'Mayor' and the club’s board members. We enjoyed some green tea and polite conversation, which included Dad sharing some of his experiences as a former POW. This was followed by a question/answer period that was all very polite and I was impressed with the level of concern, expressed by the members, for my father's ability to endure and later prosper, after his mistreatment. At the conclusion of the meeting, one of the members expressed his hope that all evolved would be able to "forget the bad feelings that may linger." - Benjamin Rosendahl, son of former POW Technical Sergeant Robert Rosendahl, US Army, The Quan, December 2010.

Memoiral at Ishihara Sangyo in Yakkaichi

Szwabo said that while he won't ever forget what he witnessed, it's time to forgive."While we were there, the Japanese treated us like kings," he said. "People were interested in hearing our side of the story, and I think it opened some eye." He said his trip to Japan has given him a new peace about the issue. "I figure I was lucky," he said. "A lot of POWs didn't make it back." – Former POW Chief Warrant Officer Earl Szwabo, US Army, St Louis Dispatch, September 29, 2010.

A young Japanese woman followed me onto the bus after the press conference in Japan. She handed me her card-she was a press correspondent for a major United States news magazine. On the bus she proceeded to tell me that she had only recently learned about her grandfather's history. He had been a Japanese camp commandant and had been tried as a war criminal and convicted and imprisoned for five years. She then began to sob and apologize. - Jan Thompson, Descendants Group President, daughter of former POW Robert Thompson, was a Pharmacist Mate on the U.S.S. Canopus, The Quan, December 2010.

On Sept. 14, [Edward] Jackfert visited a Showa Denko factory in Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture [where he had been a slave laborer]. According to sources who were involved in the visit, Jackfert met with Showa Denko's administrative manager and asked that higher-ups in the company be informed of the former POWs' wish for an apology, not financial compensation, to liberate those who still suffer from painful memories and promote reconciliation between the two countries. The company representative promised to deliver the message. Jackfert also toured the factory grounds. Jackfert, who says he has been waiting to hear the words "I'm sorry" for the past 65 years, remained positive about Showa Denko's reception, saying that he hoped his visit will prove to be a launching pad from which to enhance further goodwill between the two countries. Mainichi Shimbun, September 17, 2010.

October 2011

Apology to POWs delivered by Foreign Minister Gemba

 Mr. Roy Friese met up with Mr. Kensuke Morooka, Representative of the Association for Recording Air Raids of Omuta. His family home was completely destroyed in the fire-bombing of June 18, 1945. “I remember I saw POWs when I was a boy of thirteen. The skeletal POWs were crammed upright into trucks,” he told Mr. Friese as they shook hands. “The facts of sixty-six years ago should never be forgotten. But instead of animosity, we have to hold onto our belief that stupid wars should never happen again,” said Mr. Morooka. “I had felt various prejudices but they are all gone now,” said Mr. Friese as he left the POW camp site. Nishi Nippon Shimbun, October 19, 2011, evening edition.

Meeting at Japan Metals & Chemicals

"This trip to Japan is beyond my expectations and my beliefs that this could ever take place," [Robert] Vogler said during a news conference Friday at the Japan National Press Club in Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo…. "We went to the Kamioka mayor's office [in 1997], and they flew the American flag. Then we went to the mine, which was still operating back then, and they also flew the American flag. And then we went to a local school, where the kids sang us three songs they had learned in English," Vogler said. "They also had the American flag, and tears were running down — if you had a hard heart, it was now soft," he said. While his memories of the POW camp will always haunt him, Vogler feels that the delegation's visit and his 1997 trip to Kamioka were helpful in coming to terms with the years he spent as a POW. "Some good can come from forgiveness," he said. Japan Times, October 23, 2010.

In an exchange with officials at Japan Metals & Chemicals Co. (JMC)’s Takaoka Works and Harold Bergbower and Jim Collier: “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.” Ms. Debra Bergbower-Grunwald, the daughter of former POW Chief Master Sergeant Harold Bergbower US Army Air Corps, Comment on the US-Japan POW Dialogue Website.

“I was torn,” said [Jim] Collier, a retired teacher and guidance counselor from Salinas, Calif., who spoke to Stars and Stripes via telephone after touring the Takaoka factory Tuesday. “The company officials were so gracious and well-prepared.” But all the pleasantries essentially distracted him, he said, and the site had totally changed after decades of development. “I didn’t slay any demons today,” Collier said. “It was a very nice distraction. ... But those feelings are always right there lurking under the surface, like a volcano.” Stars & Stripes, October 20, 2010.

Mr. Collier later reflected on the trip to Takaoka, whose natural beauty he had never recognized while being a POW: “After meeting the kind people at JMC and after observing the beautiful surroundings of the city, I realized that I had been robbed of the opportunity of truly knowing this place for the past 66 years. Takaoka had always remained as a dark and depressing place in my mind. Yet this visit has finally afforded me the opportunity to appreciate its beauty.” Comment on the US-Japan POW Dialogue Website.

Exchange with Japanese researchers of the POW issue

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.

At Japan's National Press Club

The Japan National Press Club (JNPC) hosted a press conference with the seven American former POWs of Japan. They posted a brief report (Japanese only) of the press conference as well as a video. A video and summary of the press conference is below.

Summary

• Seven former POWs during WWII were invited through “the US-Japan Grassroots Invitational Program for Peace Exchange” of the Japan Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It is the second year of the program sponsored by the Japanese government.
• Mr. Rober Vogler Jr., the chief spokesman for the former POWs, talked about his experience in the prison camp in Kamioka, where he engaged in the forced labor at a lead mine during the war [for Mitsui Mining, now Mitsui Metals & Smelting]. He introduced his story of meeting and talking with the family of a Japanese prison guard, who was kind to POWs at that time. Mr. Vogler said, in the conference, “I can forgive despite such an awful experience. I can turn it into a friendship although I can never forget it.” 
• Mr. Roy Edward Friese, who was imprisoned in Omuta, mentioned, “my memory of Japan has not been a good one. However, I was overwhelmed by the hospitality of Omuta in this visit, and my bad feelings about Japan have vanished. I think this is about the time to forgive.” 
• Mr. Harry Corre said, “I appreciate the Japanese government, but the Japanese companies have had no sense or recognition of using us as salve labors and made money out of them.” [Mr. Corre was at Omuta at Mitsui's coal mine. Mitsui refused to meet with them or allow them on the property of which they are now minority owners with Nippon Steel and Sumitomo Corp.]
• Deborah, a daughter of Mr. Harold Bergbower, commented, “We talked with the people at the metal company [Japan Metals & Chemicals, JMC] in Takaoka about the camp as we tried to find it on the map [According to ariel photography of this site at liberation, it is same as today where Takaoka Works a JMC facility exists]. We have been able to communicate. That led to a peace in my father. I think this is the beginning of friendship and peace itself.” 
• There were questions on several topics including the atomic bomb dropped by the United States. The POWs were sympathetic to horror and destruction of the bombs. They are, however, convinced that the bombs ended the war and saved their lives as well as the lives of millions of Americans and Japanese.

POW Trip to Japan

Stars and Stripes reporter Charlie Reed writes on October 20, 2011

Note that prisoners of war are not "interned" or "internees." They are military prisoners of war who are imprisoned. Civilians are internees.

Former American POWs return to Japan to visit site of internment

YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan – Time doesn’t heal all wounds.

If it did, 88-year-old Harry Corre wouldn’t be in Japan right now.

Corre and six other men held as prisoners of war by Japan during World War II arrived in Tokyo Sunday for a weeklong “reconciliation tour” sponsored by the Japanese government.

Some 27,000 U.S. troops were captured by Japan during the war and forced into slave labor. The POWs suffered in hellacious conditions at the hands of their Japanese captors; torture, starvation, disease, exposure and the constant deaths of their brothers in arms.

Japan organized the trip to help the men gain a sense of closure to the horrific ordeal. For while they recovered from their injuries and renourished their bodies, many say the pain from their psychological wounds has not dulled with time.

“It doesn’t go away,” said Corre, who works for the Department of Veterans Affairs in Los Angeles. “And it never will.”


Many of the Americans captured by Japan — including Corre and the others in his group — were sent to work directly for Japanese companies fueling the war effort at more than 100 camps throughout Japan. Several of the some 60 companies are still in business today, though only one [Japan Metals & Minerals Co. Ltd.] agreed to participate in the tour.

Those not sent to the companies worked directly for the Japanese military in the Philippines, China and elsewhere in the Pacific.

Tens of thousands of other Allied troops and Chinese, Koreans and Filipinos were also captured by Japan during WWII and the preceding Sino-Japanese War and worked alongside the Americans at the corporate and military work camps.

Corre attributes his own survival at a work camp in Omuta [coal mining for Mitsui Mining, now Nippon Coke & Engineering]  in southwestern Japan to the demise of his fellow soldiers, some of whom would trade their meager daily mush rations for his cigarettes.

“I’m sure there’s a lot of guys I starved to death,” he said during a lecture Monday night at Temple University in Tokyo.

“I’m not proud of it, but I survived,” Corre said. “When you are a POW, the only thing you think about is how to live, not the next guy.”

The guilt and horror still consume his thoughts, even his dreams.

“The best thing you can do is talk about your experience,” Corre said, echoing advice he said he doles out to other veterans at the VA hospital in Los Angeles. “But there’s no way you forget it.”

Following their release after Japan’s surrender in August 1945, the POWs said they tried to forget. Most failed.

“The government said go home, forget about the war and don’t tell anyone about the atrocities,” Harold Bergbower, 91, said Monday at the Temple lecture. “It was terrible.”

Bergbower, who now lives in Peoria, Ariz., returned to Japan with his family in the mid-1950s while still in the Air Force to help train the Japanese military. The Japan Self-Defense Forces were established under the auspices of the U.S. during its occupation of Japan following WWII.

Bergbower spent three years in Japan following the war, but until Tuesday had never gone back to the site of the chemical plant where he worked after being shipped to Japan from the Philippines after his capture.

He was joined by 88-year-old James Collier, also held captive at the chemical plant.

“We wanted to participate in the program in hopes that their visit to our company will help to mitigate the pains that they had to go through and the feelings they have harbored for many years,” said company spokesman Takao Hamada. “I understand that it was a hard decision for them to make to come back here.”

But hard doesn’t come close to the emotions that played into Collier’s decision to return to Japan.

“I was torn,” said Collier, a retired teacher and guidance counselor from Salinas, Calif., who spoke to Stars and Stripes via telephone after touring the Takaoka factory [Japan Metals & Chemicals, JMC] Tuesday. “The company officials were so gracious and well-prepared.”

But all the pleasantries essentially distracted him, he said, and the site had totally changed after decades of development.

“I didn’t slay any demons today,” Collier said. “It was a very nice distraction. ... But those feelings are always right there lurking under the surface, like a volcano.”

Correction
An earlier version of this story incorrectly characterized the number of U.S. POWs who died or were killed after being captured by Japan during WWII. Of the approximately 27,000 POWs, roughly 40 percent perished, 1,115 of them after being sent to Japan to work as forced laborers.

The POWs who came to Japan were dispersed among more than 100 camps run by approximately 60 companies.

2nd US POW Delegation to Japan, October 15-23, 2011

On Saturday, October 15, 2011, the second delegation of American former POWs of Japan left the United States to visit Japan. They are guests of the Japanese government. It is unclear when the Japan's Foreign Ministry will announce the trip.

To honor these men, Representative Mike Honda (D-CA) took to the floor of the House on October 13th:

Mr. HONDA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor veterans from America's greatest generation and thank the Government of Japan for recognizing the sacrifices of these men. On Saturday, October 15, seven former members of the U.S. Army and Army Air Corps, who fought in the Battle for the Philippines at the start of World War II, from December 1941 to May 1942, will travel to Tokyo as guests of the Japanese government. These brave soldiers and airmen were all prisoners of war of Imperial Japan.

The conditions in which they were held are unimaginable. Their first trip to Japan was on aging freighters called "Hellships,'' where the men were loaded into suffocating holds with little space, water, food, or sanitation. At the POW camps in the Philippines, Japan and China, they suffered unmerciful abuse aggravated by the lack of food, medical care, clothing, and appropriate housing.

Each POW also became a slave laborer at the mines, factories, smelters, and docks of Japan's largest companies, including Mitsui, Nippon Steel, Showa Denko, Mitsubishi, and Japan Metals & Chemicals Company. In the end, nearly 40% of the American POWs of Japan perished; compared to the two percent of those in Nazi Germany's POW camps.
 
The men traveling to Japan this weekend include five residents of California, one from Arizona and one from Missouri. There are two survivors of the infamous Bataan Death March and four who were captured during the surrender of Corregidor. Furthermore, two of the veterans believe that they were subject to medical experimentation.

In September 2010, the Japanese government delivered to the first American POW delegation an official apology for the damage and suffering these men endured. Although the Japanese government had hosted POWs from U.S. wartime Allies, this was the first trip to Japan for American POWs. It was also the first official apology to any prisoners of war held by Japan.

I know that the American POWs fought hard for this recognition. I appreciate the courage of the Japanese government for their historic and meaningful apology. I thank the POWs for their persistent pursuit of justice, and commend the U.S. State Department for helping them. Now, it is time for the many Japanese companies that used POWs for slave labor during World War II to follow the example of their government by offering an apology and supporting programs for lasting remembrance and reconciliation. Furthermore, I invite my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join me in a making a small, but significant, gesture to show these men that Congress has not forgotten their experience and sacrifice by cosponsoring House Resolution 333, which I introduced earlier this year.

I wish these men a fulfilling trip to Japan, and I hope that their trip contributes to securing the historic peace between the U.S. and our important ally Japan. Second U.S. POW Delegation to Japan, October 15-23, 2011

Harold A. Bergbower, 91, lives in Peoria, Arizona. He joined the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1939 and was part of V Bomber Command, 19th Bomb Group, 28th Bombardment Squadron, Far East Air Force. He was at Clarke Field when Japan attacked on December 8, 1941. He was knocked out in the bombardment and when he awoke he found himself in the morgue at Fort Stotsenburg. Bergbower crawled out and went back to his squadron to fight in the Battle of Bataan. By escaping to Mindanao after surrender, he avoided the Bataan Death March and was captured in May. On the Philippines, he was imprisoned at Malaybalay on Mindanao and the Davao Penal Colony. In August 1944, he survived the sinking of several Hellships only to end up on Mitsubishi's Noto Marti; a trip he has completely blocked out. He was a slave laborer scooping iron ore into an open hearth furnace at the Nagoya-6B-Nomachi (Takaoka) camp for the Hokkai Denka Company which was involved in ferro-alloy smelting. Today, the site remains in ferro-alloy business as Takaoka Works. It is, as was Hokkai Denka, still part of Japan Metals & Chemicals Co., Ltd (JMC, Nihon Jukagaku Kogyo). Bergbower stayed in the U.S. Air Force and returned to Japan (1954-1957) to train Japan's Air Self-Defense Force. He and his family lived near air bases in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture and in Fukuoka (Itazuke), Fukuoka Prefecture. After retiring in 1969, he became a golf pro for Dell Webb's Sun City, Arizona. He is a past Commander of the American Defenders (2005-6) and helped to establish its Descendant's Group.
POW#89
Trent Franks (R-AZ) 

James C. Collier, 88, lives in Salinas, California. He enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1940 at the age of 16. As a member of U.S. Army 59th Coast Artillery, Battery D ``Cheney'' he was captured on Corregidor. Before being shipped from the Philippines to Japan on Mitsubishi's Noto Maru in August 1944, he was held in Cabanatuan and Clark Field. Collier was a slave laborer feeding iron ore into the open hearth furnace at the Nagoya-6B-Nomachi (Takaoka) camp for the Hokkai Denka Company, which was involved in ferro-alloy smelting. Today, the site remains in ferroalloy business as Takaoka Works. It is, as was Hokkai Denka, still part of Japan Metals & Chemicals Co., Ltd (JMC, Nihon Jukagaku Kogyo). After WWII, he earned two master's degrees: one in the Teaching of English from San Jose State and another in School Counseling from the University of Oregon, Eugene. He taught English and Psychology and worked as a guidance counselor in a high school and community college for 31 years.
POW#130
Sam Farr (D-CA) 

Harry Corre, 88, lives in Los Angeles, California. He joined the U.S. Army in 1941 and was sent to the Philippines as part of the 59th Coast Artillery Regiment, Battery C "Wheeler.'' He was captured by the Japanese with the surrender of Bataan on April 9, 1942 and began the infamous Bataan Death March. He escaped by swimming, with the assistance of a hastily improvised floatation device, the three-and-a-half miles to Corregidor, where he rejoined his unit. Corre was surrendered on Corregidor and imprisoned at Cabanatuan #1 and #3. He was shipped to Japan in July 1943 on Mitsubishi's Clyde Maru to mine coal at Omuta Fukuoka #17 Branch POW Camp for Mitsui Mining (now Mitsui's Nippon Coke & Engineering Company Co., Ltd., NB: Mitsui-aflliated companies now have a minority stake in this company, of which Nippon Steel and Sumitomo hold the majority of shares. See FY2010 Annual Report, page 27, in Japanese only.). After the war he worked odd jobs for several years and then moved to California to work in the aerospace industry. He returned to school in 1971 and graduated from Western Electronic Institute in Los Angeles as an electronics engineer. He worked in the aerospace industry for 40 years with his last position at TRW. Corre presently works at the Los Angeles, California Veterans Administration Hospital as a Patient Advocate and as a Veterans Service Officer for the American Ex-Prisoners of War as well as a POW Coordinator for the Veterans Administration Hospital & West Los Angeles Veterans Administration Regional Office.
POW# 283
Karen Bass (D-CA) 

Roy Edward Friese, 88, lives in Calimesa, California. He joined the U.S. Army in 1941 and became a member of the 60th Coast Artillery Regiment Battery E ``Erie.'' He arrived in the Philippines in April 1941 for basic training. He was assigned to a searchlight battery on the tip of Bataan and then evacuated to Corregidor when Bataan fell April 9, 1942. He was imprisoned on the Philippines in Bilibid and Cabanatuan. Friese was shipped to Japan in July 1943 on Mitsubishi's Clyde Maru to mine coal at Omuta Fukuoka #17 Branch POW Camp for Mitsui Mining (now Mitsui's Nippon Coke & Engineering Company, NB: Mitsui-aflliated companies now have a minority stake in this company, of which Nippon Steel and Sumitomo hold the majority of shares. See FY2010 Annual Report, page 27, in Japanese only.).  After WWII, he reenlisted in the U.S. Army and in 1947 transferred to the U.S. Air Force. He retired after 20 years of service. In civilian life he was employed doing various types of electronics work. In 1975, Friese established his own company installing & repairing micrographic equipment. In retirement he pursues hobbies of travel, photography, woodworking, and collecting antique clocks.
POW#173

Jerry Lewis (R-CA)

Ralph E. Griffith, 88, lives in Hannibal, Missouri. He enlisted in the army in 1941 at the age of 17 and received his basic training on Corregidor, the Philippines. He was captured on Corregidor in May 1942 with his unit, the U.S. Army 60th Coast Artillery Regiment Battery F ``Flint.'' On the Philippines he was a POW in Bilibid and Cabanatuan. He was shipped to Mukden, China (today's Shenyang) in October 1942 on Mitsubishi's Tottori Maru via Korea to Manchuria. Griffith was a slave laborer at MKK (Manshu Kosaku Kikai, which some researchers believe was owned by Mitsubishi and known as Manchuria Mitsubishi Machine Tool Company, Ltd.) factory working as a planer operator. He believes that the multiple shots and blood tests that he received while at Mukden were part of human medical experiments conducted by the Imperial Army's 731st Biological Warfare Unit. At liberation, he walked out the main gate of the POW camp and was immediately taken by the hand by a little Chinese girl. She brought him to her home where her family had prepared a meal for him. This family fed and cared for him until he was repatriated. Ever since, whenever he sees a Chinese family dining at a restaurant he quietly pays their bill. After the war, he went to work for railways both in Missouri and Alaska. Not liking the cold weather, he went to work for the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern Railway in northern Indiana. After 37 years, he retired from the Railway and returned to his hometown of Hannibal, Missouri where he was born and raised.
POW#552
Sam Graves (R-MO)

Oscar L. Leonard, 92, lives in Paradise, California. He joined the Idaho National Guard 116th Cavalry in 1939 and the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1940. He was sent to the Philippines to be an airplane mechanic with 28th Heavy Bomb Squadron at Clark Field. He was surrendered on Mindanao in May 1942 and held as a POW in Malaybalay and Bilibid. Leonard was then shipped to Japan on Mitsubishi's Tottori Maru in October 1942. In Japan, he was held in a prison in Kawasaki and at Tokyo-2B-Kawasaki POW Camp (Mitsui Wharf Co., Ltd. known as "Mitsui Madhouse'') to be used as stevedore and steel mill slave labor for the Mitsui Corporation as well as mixing chemicals for ammunition for Showa Denko. He was then held at Tokyo-5D-Kawasaki POW Camp where he was forced to work at a steel mill for Nihon Kokan (Japan Steel Pipe, now part of JFE Holdings). He was sent finally to Tokyo-7B-Hitachi POW Camp to refine copper ore for Nippon Mining (today, JX Holdings Ltd., Inc.). He weighed only 85 pounds at liberation. After World War II, Leonard felt he was too old to return to medical school and decided to become a pharmacist. He attended Marin College and graduated from Idaho State College School of Pharmacy Pocatello in 1954. He still works relief at local pharmacies, sometimes helps his youngest daughter plant trees on her ten acres of land, cuts and chops his own firewood, and enjoys world travel.
POW#247

Wally Herger (R-CA)

Robert J. Vogler, Jr., 90, lives in Rancho Bernardo, San Diego, California. He joined the U.S. Army Air Corps in January 1940 at the age of 19. Stationed in Manila as part of the 24th Pursuit Group 17th Pursuit Squadron, he completed aircraft instrument training and attended the University of Philippines to study engineering. He serviced aircraft and then fought as an infantry soldier during the Battle of Bataan. As a POW, he survived the Bataan Death March, Camp O'Donnell, and Cabanatuan in the Philippines. He was shipped to Mukden, China (today's Shenyang) in October 1942 on Mitsubishi's Tottori Maru via Korea to Manchuria. Vogler was a slave laborer at MKK factory (Manshu Kosaku Kikai, which some researchers believe was owned by Mitsubishi and known as Manchuria Mitsubishi Machine Tool Company, Ltd.), working as a grinding specialist. He believes that the multiple shots and rectal probes that he received while at Mukden were human medical experiments conducted by the Imperial Army's 731st Biological Warfare Unit. In May 1944, he and 150 American POWs were transferred to Nagoya-1B-Kamioka, Japan as punishment for bad behavior to be slave laborers for Mitsui Mining (now Kamioka Kogyo, a 100% subsidiary of Mitsui Mining & Smelting Co., Ltd.) mining lead and zinc. Mitsui now operates a recycling center at the former POW camp site. The mine was also the source of one of Japan's four major cases of mass industrial poisoning in the 1960s. After the war, he remained in the U.S. Air Force, retiring in 1960. He was then employed by General Dynamics as a manufacturing and development engineer, but was forced to retire in 1976 due to health issues caused by his POW experience. In 2000, Mr. Volger and his wife returned to Kamioka to a warm welcome from mine representatives, town officials, citizens, and school children. He said that the visit brought him to tears and helped rest the many demons that haunted him from his maltreatment in Japan's POW camps.
POW#138 and #0336
Darrell Issa (R-CA) 

None of these veteran's Representatives have become co-sponsors of H. Res. 333. (November 1, 2011)