The Last Train

October 14th is Railway Day in Japan. It celebrates the opening day in 1872 of Japan's first railway, which was between Shimbashi Station in Tokyo and Yokohama. This was a significant step in the modernization of Japan.

October 17th is celebrated by only a few. It is remembered, however, as the day in 1943 of the opening ceremonies of the Thai-Burma Death Railway. Engine C5631, built by Nippon Sharyo in 1938 at its Narumi plant, was the locomotive used at the opening. It was hauling a cargo of Comfort Women.

This notorious engine now sits restored at the entrance of the Yasukuni Shrine's war museum in Tokyo. The museum celebrates the "Bushido" of Imperial Japan's military and it success in liberating Asia. A recent article in the right wing propaganda online magazine Japan Forward highlights the annual celebration for this wartime relic. The author dismisses the atrocities associated with building the infamous tract. 

Between June 1942 and October 1943 the POWs and forced laborers laid some 258 miles (415 km) of track from Ban Pong, Thailand (roughly 45 miles [72 km] west of Bangkok), to Thanbyuzayat, Burma (roughly 35 miles [56 km] south of Mawlamyine). Japanese forced approximately 200,000 Asian conscripts and over 60,000 Allied POWs to construct the Burma Railway. Among them were nearly 700 Americans, survivors of the USS Houston and the 131st Field Artillery/2nd Battalion (known as the “Texas Lost Battalion”), both captured on Java.

Ralph Levenberg

The truth is that more than 100,000 Asian and Allied POWs died in its making from abuse, torture, starvation, and lack of medical care. No one is sure how many of 200,000 Asian laborers died, as the Japanese did not consider them human enough to count. There were Allied POWs. As the dead cannot speak, I urge readers to comment on the piece and alert veterans groups in Australia, England, and the Netherlands. Japan Forward was created in January 2017 by the rightwing Sankei Shimbun as part of the Abe Government's stepped up PR and history revision campaign.

October 18th (2019) was the funeral for former POW of Japan Air Force Major Ralph Levenberg (September 12, 1920 – July 29, 2018) and his wife Kathie at Arlington National Cemetery. They were buried with full military honors: an Air Force Rabbi, a horse-drawn caisson, an Air Force casket team, an Air Force firing party (three shots), a bugler, an Air Force escort platoon, and an Air Force military band.

Major Levenberg was with the Army Air Corps' 17th Pursuit Squadron at Nichols Field in the Philippines when Japan attacked on December 8, 1941. The Field was destroyed on December 10th and the surviving airmen were moved to Bataan to form a provisional infantry. He and all American-Filipino troops on Bataan--estimated to be 85,000--were surrendered on April 9, 1942.

From the funeral

He was one of the small number of Jewish soldiers on the infamous Bataan Death March to Camp O'Donnell. From mid-April until most of the camp was shut down in early June 1942 and the POWs moved to Cabanatuan, thousands died. Levenberg participated in a number of grueling work details outside the camp in the Philippines before he was shipped to Japan to be a slave laborer.

Aboard the hellship Nissyo Maru, via Formosa, he arrived at the Port of Moji early August 1944. There he as taken north to the Nagoya POW Camp #2-B Narumi. This camp provided labor to Nippon Sharyo, where train engines were built and repaired. The same factory that built Engine C5631 that opened the Thai-Burma Death Railway.

Most of the time Levenberg worked in the "kitchen" boiling water for the thin soup to feed the POWs. Two weeks before the end of the war, he was savagely beaten by a guard and fell into a month-long coma. He did not revive until September 3 when he was evacuated to an American hospital ship. At liberation, he weighed 72 pounds and could not walk.

Nippon Sharyo factory still maintains the factory at Narumi where Levenberg toiled and was beaten. The Company is now owned by the rail corporation JR Central. The company is promoted by the Japanese government as wanting to build high-speed rail in the US with proposed projects between Dallas and Houston, and Baltimore and DC. The firm, however, has never apologized to nor acknowledged its American POW slaves. 

Both Nippon Sharyo and JR Central have offices in the United States. Both were alerted to Major Levenberg's funeral. Neither replied nor sent condolences.

Major Levenberg remained in the US Air Force after the war and saw combat in the Korean War. He held numerous world-wide assignments as a security professional in the Strategic Air Command and then as a U.S. civil service member of Naval Air System Command.

In retirement, Levenberg donated his time and energy to support other former POWs at the VA Hospital in Reno, Nevada. He also served on the VA's National Advisory Commission of Former Prisoners of War and as National Commander of the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor (ADBC) from 1979 to 1980.

In 1994, he joined, on behalf of ADBC, the group of ex-POWs of the Japanese from other former Allied countries in an appeal to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights regarding these countries' failure in addressing the injustice suffered by POWs of the Japanese during WWII. The appeal was based on the denial of a previous appeal with respect to the "gross violations of human rights" committed by Japan against American POWs during WWII. (Excerpts from the appeal document for UNCHR prepared by Mr. Levenberg) Although their appeal was again denied, it led to the payment by Canada, the United Kingdom, Isle of Man, Norway, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and Australia to their former POWs of the Japanese. The United States is the only country that has not done so.

His oral history was recorded by the Library of Congress and the University of Nevada (“Nothing Had Prepared Me For This Kind of Brutality” p 570). In 1996, Dick Cavett interviewed Levenberg for his HBO series Yesteryear...1942 -- a look at the first year of America's involvement in WWII.

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.

April 25 - Heroes of Bataan & Corregidor in Washington

Painting of the Bataan Death March by Ben Steele

COMMEMORATING THE HEROES 
OF BATAAN & CORREGIDOR

Including the American Defense Forces of the Philippine Archipelago, 

The Asiatic Fleet, Wake Island, China, Marianna Islands, 

Midway Island and the Dutch East Indies

Veterans of the Battle of Bataan, the Bataan Death March, and the capture of Corregidor will be in Washington, DC from April 24 to April 26 to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Battle of the Philippines. All became POWs of Imperial Japan. The history of these survivors of jungle warfare, torture, abuse, starvation, and slave labor and of their success in reconciling with the Japanese is a timeless inspiration.

Congress did not commemorate the 70th anniversaries of Pearl Harbor, Wake Island, the USS Houston, or Texas’ Lost Battalion. These were all among the first battles of American involvement in World War II. To make up for this oversight, a series of commemorative events is being planned with the veterans of the Philippines defense to provide a venue to remember these early months of World War II and their unique contribution to American history.

The 70th Anniversary of the Bataan Death March is April 9th and the surrender of Corregidor is May 6th. The valor of the Filipino and American soldiers is celebrated annually on April 9th in the Philippines as Valor Day or Araw ng Kagitingan.

The veterans coming to Washington include past national commanders of the now-disbanded American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor (ADBC) who traveled to Japan in 2010 and 2011 to receive an official apology from the Government of Japan for their maltreatment and to visit their former POW camps. The death rate and incidence of post-traumatic stress for American POWs of Japan was the greatest of any American conflict. One invitee, Dr. Lester Tenney, the last national commander of the ADBC was instrumental in persuading the Government of Japan to offer American former POWs an apology and to begin a program for them to visit Japan. He also founded Care Packages from Home for soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Another invitee, Mr. Ralph Levenberg who was on the Death March, was until recently an advocate for veterans benefits as a member of the Advisory Committee on Former Prisoners of War, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Mr. Ben Steele of Montana, another Death March survivor, has chronicled the Death March and Japan’s POW camps through his award-winning paintings and drawings. Mr. Ed Jackfert of West Virginia has championed and helped establish the ADBC Museum and Archive to preserve the memory of the American POWs of Japan and their lessons for war and peace.

Program

• Reception on Capitol Hill the evening of April 25 hosted by Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and others
• Roundtable discussion hosted by members of the House of Representatives on the Bataan Death March and the success of the two POW visitation programs to Japan
• Wreath laying at the WWII memorial Bataan/Corregidor site
• Lunch program with contemporary veterans for all to share their experience with PTSD (not recognized until the mid-70s), other war-related disabilities, and reintegration into society
• Dinner with Commemoration donors and the American and Japanese officials who encouraged the Government of Japan to establish a program of reconciliation for American POWs

Veterans

The final list of veterans who will attend will be made closer to the event taking into consideration the health of each participant. Each veteran will be accompanied by a caregiver. The veterans have also requested that Ms. Kinue Tokudome, who has spent years working to help them communicate their story to Japan, be included.

• Dr. Lester Tenney, 92, San Diego, CA. Bataan Death March, Illinois National Guard, B Company, 192nd Tank Battalion from Maywood, Illinois
• Mr. Harold Bergbower, 92, Peoria, AZ. Bombing of Clark Air Field, Army Air Corps, , 28th Bombardment Squadron, 19th Bomb Group,V Bomber Command
• Mr. Edward Jackfert, 90, Wellsburg, WVA. Bombing of Clark Air Field, Army Air Corps 28th Bombardment Squadron, 19th Bomb Group, V Bomber Command
• Mr. Joseph Alexander, 85, San Antonio, TX. Bombing of Clark Field, Army Air Corps 440th Ordnance Aviation Bombardment Squadron
• Mr. Ralph Levenberg, 92, Reno, NV. Bataan Death March, Army Air Corps, 17th Pursuit Squadron
• Mr. Earl Szwabo, 91, Florissant, MO. Corregidor, US Army, Battery C, 59th Coast Artillery
• Mr. Ben Steele, 94, Billings, MT, Bataan Death March, Army Air Corps, 7th Material Squadron, 19th Bomb Group (his painting is above)
• Special Guest: Ms. Kinue Tokudome, Kagoshima, Japan. Founder of the US-Japan Dialogue on POWs, who accompanied the POWs on their return to their POW camps.

Funding

Funding is needed for all the expenses of this program. Your help is requested to make these veterans of our greatest generation comfortable in their trip to Washington and to cover the program costs.

Donations can be made to one of two nonprofit, 501(c) (3) organizations: 

Asia Policy Point, 1730 Rhode Island Avenue, NW, Suite 414, Washington, DC 20036, (202) 822-6040. APP is organizing this program in Washington.

Brooke County Public Library Foundation, 945 Mail Street, Wellsburg, West Virginia 26070, (304) 737-1551. The Library houses the ADBC museum and archive.

For more information contact APP. Donate by clicking the DONATE button on the left side bar.

Where is Congress?

Congress Is Missing in Action for the POWs/MIAs


by Ralph Levenberg, USAF (Retired)
The Huffington Post, September 16, 2011


On this National POW/MIA Recognition Day, I am at a loss as to why H. Res. 333 honoring POWs from World War II languishes in the House of Representatives. The Resolution, introduced by Representative Mike Honda (D-CA), thanks the Government of Japan for offering last year an apology to the American POWs of Japan and encourages the Japanese companies that used them as slave labor to follow the example of their government. Most important, it acknowledges the sacrifices of these veterans of whom nearly 40 percent died in merciless captivity.

My story is not much different than many Americans captured by Japan. I was a member of the Army Air Corps stationed on the Philippines when the Japanese invaded in December 1941. I was surrendered by my commanding officers on April 9, 1942 and survived the infamous 65-mile Bataan Death March in the tropical sun with little water and no food. I saw my friends beheaded, bayoneted and beaten to death.

The violence did not end at the POW camps on the Philippines where I helped bury hundreds of fellow POWs who died of disease, abuse, and malnutrition. In 1944, I was shipped to Japan in a Hell Ship, the Nissyo Maru, owned and operated by Mitsui. Nearly 1,600 POWs were herded into the freighter's dark hold and given little food or water. After 17 hellish days with no sanitation or fresh air, we arrived in Moji, Japan.

We were then transported by train to the village of Narumi on the main island of Honshu. The military had sold 200 Americans as property to Nippon Sharyo to labor at its locomotive factory to maintain war production. Both the guards and company employees routinely and capriciously beat us. We subsisted on little food, clothing and medical care. We were never given Red Cross boxes or mail.

Nippon Sharyo profited from our labor. The company, now owned by the Shinkansen operator JR Central, remains one of Japan's principal rail car makers and has robust sales in the United States. It is also a central player in Japan's bid for American high-speed rail contracts.

At Nippon Sharyo, I remember watching a starving Staff Sergeant, Sam Moody, brought to the camp yard after stealing a cup of rice. He was beaten and left to stand at attention in the summer sun with six other POWs. The slightest movement or twitch led to a harsh blow from the passing guards. He stood there for a remarkable 53 hours until he was tossed back into the barracks. Rep. John Mica (R-FL)*, chair of the House Transportation Committee reprinted Moody's POW memoir to distribute to all visiting veterans.

The abuse, violence, and murders in Nippon Sharyo's Narumi POW camp and factory led to one of the highest number of convicted Japanese war criminals: 22.

But this doesn't make up for the fact that both the Japanese government and its wealthiest companies colluded to enslave tens of thousands of American and Allied POWs, in clear violation of the Geneva Convention. Companies like Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Sumitomo, Kawasaki and Hitachi requested and purchased us from Japan's War Ministry. Often these corporations were more abusive than Imperial Japan's military.

Last September the Japanese government officially apologized to the American POWs and, in March, to the Australian POWs. The government established a provisional visitation program to Japan for U.S. veterans and our descendants -- 15 years after Tokyo had established a similar program for Allied POWs. Although my health prevented me from participating, it was profoundly meaningful for me to know that my fellow POWs who participated in the inaugural visit were treated with kindness and respect. 


The experience of being a POW and slave laborer for Japan stripped me of my dignity and my youth. It astounds me that Nippon Sharyo and other Japanese corporations neither acknowledge nor apologize for willfully enslaving American forces. But it bothers me more, that members of Congress, many who exhibit POW/MIA flags outside their Capitol Hill offices, hesitate at becoming co-sponsors of H.Res.333.

It is time for Japan's companies to follow their government's lead, and apologize to the POWs and establish a program of remembrance. Our blood and despair helped sustain these companies. I do not want compensation. I simply ask for a genuine apology and that my presence be remembered. But first, Congress must stand by our side.


* Congressman John Mica has not become a co-sponsor of H.Res. 333. You can find the introduction he wrote for Sam Moody's memoir HERE.