75th Anniversary of the opening of the Thai-Burma Death Railway

Death Railway Engine at Yasukuni
Manufactured by Nippon Sharyo

Seventy-five years ago today, 17 October 1943, the Thai-Burma Death Railway opened. The ceremony was timed to coincide with the first day of the Autumn Festival [Shuki Reitaisai  秋季例大祭] at the Emperor-focused, war-memorializing Yasukuni Shrine. The train engine, C5631, that ran that first day is now displayed at the entrance of the Yasukuni Shrine's entrance.

What distinguishes the Spring and Autumn Yasukuni rites above all is the presence of an emissary (chokushi) from the Imperial Court. The emissary brings the Emperor's offerings of silk in five colours to add to those which the shrine priests place before the kami at the start of the rites. Whereas the Emperor has not visited Yasukuni since 1978, an Emperor’s representative has attended the principle ceremonies that merge the Emperor with the state.

Japanese Prime Minister Abe celebrated today's Yasukuni fall festival by sending his usual ritual offering. A number of members of his Cabinet also sent offerings to Shrine and some members of his Party visited. No mention was made of the Railway anniversary.

What gave the Death Railroad its gruesome notoriety was not its uniqueness as an engineering achievement, remarkable feat though it was, but the ruthless determination of its architects to have it completed on time, however daunting the task in the inhospitable climate and topography of the region, and regardless of the cost in human life.

In many respects, it was this callous pursuit that was celebrated on this day in 1943. A group of high-ranking Imperial Japanese Army officers and engineers gathered in the tropical heat in Thailand, some 11 miles south of the Three Pagodas Pass, to ceremoniously mark the completion of the Burma-Thailand Railroad construction project. Since June 1942, the Japanese had forced some 200,000 Asian and 61,000 Allied POW laborers to construct two sections of railroad tracks—one originating in Nong Pladuk, Thailand; the other originating in Thanbyuzayat, Burma.

Some 80,000 Asians and approximately 13,000 Allied POWS had died of starvation, beatings, and various tropical diseases from lack of medical care while building hundreds of trestles, placing thousands of railroad ties, and laying over 258-miles of tracks. But now, as the two sections of railroad tracks were about to be joined together at Konkuita, the Japanese had decided that “the final act of labor” in the railway construction project—the installation of the last spike into a wooden sleeper—would be a special celebratory moment, carried out and shared by the senior Japanese officers and engineers, themselves.

By this time, 668 (of the 902 total) American POWs who had been captured on Java—survivors of USS Houston (CA-30) and soldiers of the 131st Field Artillery/2nd Battalion (known as the “Texas Lost Battalion”)—had joined the Allied POW labor force working on the railroad Most of the 220 USS Houston (CA-30) survivors and the 448 Lost Battalion soldiers had worked on the Burma side of the line. On this particular day, none of these Americans was at Konkuita to witness the senior Japanese officials as they pounded in a “final spike” into a railroad tie, and congratulated each other on the railroad’s completion.

Officially, the railway project was finished. But, for the Allied POWS who’d survived its construction, their ordeal was hardly over. Nearly two more brutal years were to pass before Japan would surrender and Allied prisoners of war would be liberated. 

And during those two years, the railroad—built to carry some 3,000 tons of Japanese supplies per day, which included Comfort Women—would become the constant target of allied bombing attacks, and thus, would require constant repair. The rail line would never stay completely “finished,” per se. In the end the so-called “completed” Burma-Thailand Railroad would never achieve the Imperial Japanese Army’s objectives; most of the tracks would be dismantled after the war; and the Japanese-controlled rail line, which once linked Nong Pladuck and Thanbyuzayat and cost approximately 100,000 lives—including the lives of 77 USS Houston (CA-30) survivors and 89 soldiers of the 131st Field Artillery/2nd Battalion—would become known forever as “the death railroad.”

It should be noted that Nippon Sharyo, the company that manufactured Engine C5631, still exists and is active in the U.S. The company was able to maintain production during the war due to POW slave labor: Nagoya POW Camp #2-B, Narumi. 

The founder of the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor, Sam Moody (Reprieve from Hell), was a POW who was tortured at the Narumi factory. The company is now owned by JR Central. This company, created by a close friend and adviser of Prime Minister Abe, Yoshiyuki Kasai, heads the main consortium bidding on high-speed rail projects. 

If you want to know more about the Lost Battalion and the USS Houston (CA-30) see:

Hell under the Rising Sun: Texan POWs and the Building of the Burma-Thailand Death Railway by Kelly Crager, 2008.

Ship of Ghosts: The Story of the USS Houston, FDR's Legendary Lost Cruiser, and the Epic Saga of Her Survivors by James D. Hornfischer, 2007

Remembering Eddie Fung

Typical labouring scene. Shows Hammer
and Tap, Embankment. Labouring, Timber felling
and an excavated cutting by Lt Fred "Smudger" Smith 

At the entrance of the Yushukan, the museum at the Yasukuni Shrine to selected members of Japan's war dead in Tokyo, sits Nippon Sharyo's engine C5631. It is infamous for having pulled the first train over the Thai-Burma Death Railway in October 1943. Reportedly, Korean Comfort Women were the train's first cargo.

The Japanese forced over 200,000 Asian conscripts (romusha) and over 60,000 Allied POWs to construct the Railway. Among the Allied POWs were some 30,000 British including colonial troops, 13,000 Australians, 18,000 Dutch, and 700 Americans. 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). During this time, prisoners suffered from disease, malnutrition, injury, and cruel forms of punishment and torture inflicted by the Japanese.

One of the Americans was Eddie Fung. He was a private with the Texas Lost Battalion that fought the Japanese on Java in early March 1942. 

Dr. Fung, 96, died peacefully at home in his sleep on March 25, 2018. He will be buried with full military honors at Cypress Lawn Memorial Park in Colma, California on June 20, 2018. All are welcome to attend.

Dr. Fung had nothing less than an “extraordinary” life. 

Eddie became the only Chinese-American soldier captured by Imperial Japanese forces during World War II. His battalion—all white Texans, except for Frank Fujita, a Japanese-American from Abilene, Texas—became known as the “Lost Battalion” as it was surrendered on March 8, 1942 by its Dutch Commanders on Java and its fate unknown until near the end of the war.

In the statement below inserted in the Congressional Record on June 14th by US Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA), the quote by Eddie is incomplete. It should continue on with:

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 When people ask if I’ve had a good day, and I know them fairly well, I’ll say that I’ve never had a bad day since August 19, 1945 [his liberation in Burma], because nothing can be as bad as those camp days.  Whenever I start feeling sorry for myself, I can always say, ‘No, no, Ed, you’ve got a short memory, you’ve forgotten the lessons that you have undergone.’  One lesson I’ve learned well is that every moment that you’re alive, you’d better take advantage of the fact and enjoy it.

REMEMBERING EDDIE FUNG 

[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 99 (Thursday, June 14, 2018)] [Page S3949]

Ms. HARRIS. Mr. President, California and the nation lost a trailblazer and a war hero. Mr. Eddie Fung served our country bravely throughout his tour with the Army National Guard as part of the 2nd Battalion, 131st Field Artillery of the 36th Infantry Division, including 3\1/2\ years in a Japanese prisoners of war camp. Mr. Fung will be buried with full military honors at Cypress Lawn Memorial Park in Colma, CA, on June 20, 2018. 

Born in San Francisco in 1922, Eddie left home at 16 to become a cowboy in Texas. He joined the National Guard at 17, and his unit was activated in November 1941 as part of the 2nd Battalion, 131st Field Artillery of the 36th Infantry Division that was sent to Java, now part of Indonesia, to fight the invading Japanese in the early months of WWII. 

Eddie became the only Chinese-American soldier captured by Imperial Japan during World War II. His battalion was known as the Lost Battalion, as it was not until near the end of the war that there was any news of what happened to the men. 

Of the 558 men and officers who landed on Java on January 11, 1942, 534 became prisoners of war, POWs. Ninety-nine were sent to Japan to be slave laborers at Japanese factories and mines, and 435, including Eddie, were sent to work on the Thai-Burma "Death'' Railway that was made famous by the film "The Bridge on the River Kwai.'' Eddie endured nearly 4 years of grueling work, near-starvation, beatings, and tropical diseases as he worked on the infamous railroad project that resulted in the loss of over 12,000 Allied POW and 70,000 Asian lives. Eighty-nine of the men from the battalion died in captivity. 

Although Eddie said his capture was a defining moment in his life, the horrific experience is just one aspect of his long and rich life. It includes his Chinese-American upbringing and his life after the war, when he studied chemistry at Stanford University on the GI bill. He also worked as a metallurgist at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory and became a Tai Chi master after retirement. 

As he concluded in his autobiography, "The Adventures of Eddie Fung: Chinatown Kid, Texas Cowboy, Prisoner of War,'' University of Washington Press: ``Taking my life as a whole, I've had many more good days than I've had bad ones. But even the bad days serve a purpose. They remind me of how good I have it now, in the sense that if you have never known hunger, you will not appreciate food; if you have never been enslaved, you will not appreciate what it means to be free.'' 

Eddie Fung is a hero and a role model, and we will miss his vibrant spirit. The thoughts of San Franciscans and Californians are with his wife, Judy Yung of Santa Cruz.

Senator John Cornyn's tribute to the Lost Battalion

REMEMBERING THE SOLDIERS OF 2ND BATTALION 

131ST FIELD ARTILLERY REGIMENT

U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX)

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, this week, we remember the brave men of Texas who gave so much to preserve freedom in the Pacific and survived the greatest horrors of World War II. Soldiers of 2nd Battalion, 131st Field Artillery Regiment from Camp Bowie, TX, a Texas National Guard unit, were fighting alongside Australian forces on Java, an island in Indonesia, against invading Japanese forces. On March 8, 1942 the Americans and their Australian allies were captured by the Japanese. A report was never filed by the Japanese to identify the captured unit. As a result, the Texas soldiers had disappeared and were dubbed ``the Lost Battalion.''

They were combined with survivors of the USS Houston, CA-30, which had been sunk in the Battle of Sunda Strait on March 1, 1942, and dispersed to POW labor camps located in Burma, Thailand, and Japan to work as slave laborers. They worked on the Burma-Siam Death Railway, building a railroad through the jungle and into the coal mines, docks, and shipyards in Japan and other Southeast Asian countries. For 42 months, the men of 2nd Battalion, 131st Field Artillery and the USS Houston suffered together through humiliation, degradation, physical and mental torture, starvation, and horrible tropical diseases, with no medication.

Five hundred and thirty-two soldiers of the battalion, along with 371 survivors of the USS Houston were taken prisoner. As many as 163 soldiers died in captivity, and of those, 133 are estimated to have died working on the railroad.

In August of 1945, after 42 months of captivity and forced labor, the survivors of 2nd Battalion, 131st Field Artillery Regiment and the survivors of the USS Houston were returned to the United States. March 8, 2017, marks the 75th year since their capture on the island of Java, and these soldiers deserve to be remembered for their heroic service and sacrifices in the Pacific theater of battle.

From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office
March 8, 2017
115th Congress, 1st Session
Issue: Vol. 163, No. 40 — Daily Edition
[Page S1686]

Jungle Journal

A Jungle Journal page

Jungle Journal: Prisoners of the Japanese in Java 1942-1945 is a true account of the alternate horror and banality of daily life, and the humor that helped British POWs of Japan on Java survive the beatings, deprivation, and death of comrades.

Told through the diary and papers of Lt Ronald Williams, an officer in the 77th Heavy Anti Aircraft Royal Artillery and others, Jungle Journal includes many cartoons and poems produced by the prisoners, as well as extracts from the original Jungle Journal, a newspaper created in the first months of captivity by the men under the noses of their guards.

Williams was the "editor" of this potentially fatal "publication" produced at the Tanjong Priok POW Camp just north of Batavia (Jakarta). Over 6,000 POWs of all nationalities were kept there. Americans were survivors from the USS Houston and the Texas Lost Battalion.

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At the end of the war Williams kept as many of the newspapers as he could and stored the collection in a trunk in the attic of his home in Powys, Mid Wales.

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The first issue carried the message:

If this production can make one gunner forget for five minutes the disappointments and discomforts of his present position, then our editorial efforts will not be in vain.

The book was compiled and edited by Williams' son, Frank, and published in June. In an interview with The Daily Mail, Frank Williams observed "You can see hatred all the way through. They detested their captors but the men kept a level of humanity which I think is incredible really."

The Imperial War Museum has a good collection of artifacts, diaries, and oral histories from Commonwealth POWs held on Java. The BBC's "People's War" features a number of oral histories from POWs on Java. See Tommy Scott who was in the same regiment as Lt. Williams.

Japanese American POW "unmasked"

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Martin Cherrett in his excellent daily blog, World War II Today, points out that June 1 was the 70th anniversary of the "discovery" by Japanese guards that Staff Sergeant Frank Fujita of the Texas National Guard, their prisoner, was Japanese.

Fujita was a member of the 2D Battalion, 131st Field Artillery, Texas National Guard during World War II. Known as the Lost Battalion, they were captured in March 1942 on Java. Its members were sent to build the infamous Thai-Burma Death Railway. SSgt Fujita was then sent to be a slave laborer for Kawanami Shipyards at Fukuoka #2B near Nagasaki. He was also sent for interrogation to the infamous Ofuna Naval Interrogation Center and then forced to do radio propaganda at Omori where he was liberated.

Because SSgt Fujita was not part of the famous Japanese American 100th Infantry Battalion and the 442nd Regimental Combat Team nor a member of Military Intelligence Service (MIS) during WWII, he was not honored by Congress on November 2, 2011 with a gold medal. There has been no  gold medal for the American POWs of Japan.

An excerpt from his memoir with military historian Stanley L. Falk, Foo, A Japanese-American Prisoner Of The Rising Sun: The Secret Prison Dairy of Frank “Foo” Fujita (1993), of his "unmaking" is below.

On June 1, 1942 almost one year and three months after we were captured in Java, a Japanese guard realized that my name was Japanese, here in Nagasaki, Japan. This guard, like so many people in Japan, could read something printed in English, but they could not understand when it was read back to them.
…
As room chief my name was at the top of the roster and when he saw it, his eyes liked to have popped out and he pointed to my name and said: ‘Fujital Fujita Nippon no namai!’ (Fujita is a Japanese name!’) And then he asked me where Fujita was, and I told him that he had gone to the benjo [toilet]. He said that he would wait and I moved towards the back of the room with my heart in my mouth and shaking like a leaf. I was as close to being scared to death as I will ever come. The guard remained at the front of the room and asked everyone that came into the room, where Fujita was. 

Almost everyone in the room was as keyed up as I was, for they had sweated my being found out, too, and now that the time had come they all stood around with bated breath to see what would happen next. 

Another man came into the room and the guard asked him where Fujita was and he looked around and saw me, and before anyone could caution him, he pointed to me and said ‘There he is!’ 

The guard looked surprised and also a little put out with me for having told him that Fujita had gone to the benjo. Any other time I would have been beaten up on the spot, but this time he was much too excited over his discovery to think of bashing me about.
He called me back up to the front of the room and looked me up and down, sucking his teeth and muttering something incredulously about Fujita being a POW. He tried to carry on a conversation with me, about me, and finally decided that I really could not speak the language. He would feel of my skin and then put his arm next to mine and compare them, and like the guard at the wash rack, he said ‘Somma, Somma! He would turn to the other guys in the room and then point to me and then to himself and tell them that we were somma, somma. 

Finally he could not stand it any longer, that he was the only Japanese to know this so he took off for the guard house. 

I really became frightened then and felt very strongly that my untimely demise could be forthcoming posthaste! Even though I felt like this, I still felt hope way down deep that I would survive the war in one piece. 

In a little while he brought another guard with him to look me over, only to have the lights go out, for it was bedtime and all room lights were turned out at 10:00 PM. 

Well, there was no sleep for me this night and Sgts. Heleman and Lucas were trying to comfort me and convince me that maybe they would not kill me after all. I was in such mental anguish that even the bedbugs, fleas, and mosquitos were not bothering me. 

During the night, each time the guard shift changed, the guards would take turns coming to my room and looking at me, even those who normally patrolled the other side of the camp 

Fujita became an object of curiosity for the Japanese but he survived several interrogations by pretending to be stupid. He upset them by refusing to join the Japanese Army and in the end they let him return to the ranks of the other U.S. POWs.

Lost Battalion's Compensation

Below is an excellent article from a Texas newspaper on the US government's compensation to the American POWs of Japan for their "undue hardships" and suffering. As Linda Goetz Holmes writes in Chapter 14 of her seminal account of how Japan's great companies benefited from slave labor, Unjust Enrichment: American POWs Under the Rising Sun, the US government was unsure as to how to compensate the POWs.

Thus, according to Ms. Holmes, they referred to a 1936 War Department field manual that gave soldiers on bivouac $1/day for lost meals. This compensation was approved under the War Claims Act of 1948. Following bitter complaints and the fact that the US in the San Francisco Peace Treaty had waived the right of its citizens to sue Japan, Congress in 1952 approved a second trance of $1.50/day for being "subjected to inhumane treatment." Many of the former POWs, however, never received the second payment as they had died, moved, or never heard of the offer.

In 2000, a number of countries--UK, Isle of Man, Norway, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand--granted their former POWs ex gratia benefits for their brutal treatment. In 2011, the Government of Australia approved for all surviving POWs of WWII and the Korean War a fortnightly grant of AU$500 (US$530) for the next four years. In 2001, Australia’s POWs of Japan had also been awarded a one-off ex-gratia payment of AU$25,000. In contrast, the US Congress has never allowed a vote for additional compensation to the American POWs.

Looking Back: Lost Battalion POW receives maltreatment compensation

DOUG McDONOUGH | Plainview Daily Herald Editor | Saturday, January 12, 2013

What is adequate compensation for 42 months of pain and suffering as a Japanese prisoner of war who was forced to work on the “Burma-Siam Death Railway” which connected with the infamous bridge over the River Kwai?

For several local veterans who were members of the 2nd Battalion, 131st Field Artillery, compensation for their compulsory labor and inhumane treatment during the darkest days of World War II amounted to just over $1,900, which was paid in 1953. According to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Consumer Price Index calculation, that amount would have the same buying power today as approximately $16,500.

A photo and article in the Jan. 11, 1953, issue of the Plainview Sunday Herald shows Floyd R. Lamb receiving a $1,906.50 check from local Veterans Service Officer Harry McCain.

Lamb, a Plainview police officer at that time, was the first of less than a dozen local veterans from the same “Lost Battalion” to receive governmental checks as additional payment for compulsory labor and inhumane treatment suffered while being held in Japanese prison camps during World War II.

Lamb happened to be the first in the county to receive both the 1953 payment as well as another governmental check two years earlier, sent as compensation for the undernourishment he and his fellow POWs suffered during their captivity.

According to the article accompanying the 1953 photograph, Lamb and his comrades were captured March 8, 1942, while resisting the Japanese invasion of Java.

They were held 42 months in various camps from Java to French Indo-China. During that time he was starved, beaten and contracted beriberi, malaria and other tropical diseases.

“He was forced to work on a railroad in the Burma jungles covering over a thousand miles,” the Herald reported in 1953, “and for which he said more men died than the number of cross-ties laid in the roadway constructed entirely by hand labor.”

Lamb, who died Aug. 19, 1988, told the Herald that he weighed just 89 pounds when he was freed from a camp in French Indo-China — now Vietnam — by the U.S. Air Force and flown to Calcutta, India. From there he was sent to Washington, D.C., where he was admitted to Water Reed Military Hospital to recover.

According to the Herald, just nine survivors of the “Lost Battalion” still lived in the Plainview area in 1953. The A Battery of the 2nd Battalion was largely composed of National Guardsmen from the Panhandle-South Plains region, including Plainview and Lockney, who were activated a few weeks before the United States was drawn into the growing global conflict.

According to the Texas Military Forces Museum at Camp Mabry in Austin, the 2nd Battalion, 131st Field Artillery was mobilized on Nov. 25, 1940, along with the 36th Infantry Division, Texas National Guard, and sent to Camp Bowie at Brownwood. Originally intended to be part of a force to be sent to reinforce American troops in the Philippine Islands, the battalion was detached from the 36th Infantry Battalion and sailed on the USS Republic on Nov. 21, 1941. The ship was diverted from the Philippines when Pearl Harbor was bombed on Dec. 7, 1941, and landed on the island of Java in the Dutch East Indies on Jan. 11, 1942, to reinforce Dutch, British and Australian troops already there.

The Japanese landed on the island and the Dutch surrendered on March 8, 1942, after token resistance. The entire battalion was taken prisoner.

The battalion (less Battery E) and the survivors of the cruiser USS Houston, which had been sunk off the Java coast, were sent to Burma, Thailand, or Japan to work for the Japanese as slave laborers. They worked on the “Burma-Siam Death Railway” building a railroad through the jungle and in the coal mines, docks and ship yards in Japan and other southeast Asian countries. They spent 42 months in captivity suffering humiliation; torture, both mental and physical; starvation and disease (without medication).

A total of 532 soldiers from the battalion, along with 371 survivors of the USS Houston, were taken prisoner. Of that number, 668 were sent to Burma and Thailand and 235 to other locations. Altogether, 163 soldiers died in captivity, and of those 133 died working on the railroad. Many more died as a result of diseases contracted while in captivity after the war.

For almost three years, no one heard from any of the members of the battalion, hence the name, “Lost Battalion.”

Lamb, who was 69 when he died Aug. 19, 1988, was a member of the Plainview Police Department for 13 years. Later, he was a sporting goods salesman for Gibson’s Discount Center.

He was a member of Seth Ward Baptist Church, Disabled American Veterans, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, American Legion and the Lost Battalion Association.

N.B.: An excellent book on the Lost Battalion is Hell under the Rising Sun: Texan POWs and the Building of the Burma-Thailand Death Railway (Williams-Ford Texas A&M University Military History Series)

Lost Battalion

Seventy years ago today, March 8th, Texas’ famous “Lost Battalion” became “lost.” The 2nd Battalion, 131st Field Artillery Regiment, 36th Infantry Division of the US Army from Fort Richardson, Jacksboro, Texas was captured by Japanese forces on Java. They were considered “lost” because no one knew what happened to them until the war was nearly over. To the War Department they had simply disappeared.

Originally National Guardsmen from Wichita Falls, Abilene, Lubbock, and other towns throughout northwest Texas, the unit was activated into federal service in November 1940. They left the United States on 21 November 1941 and were on their way to the Philippines when Pearl Harbor was bombed. The unit was diverted to Australia and put under Dutch command, then sent to Java Island of the Dutch East Indies. They arrived at Soerabaja, Java on 11 January 1942.

The Japanese started bombing Java on 3 February 1942. After a series of brief, fierce battles, the Island fell to the Japanese on 8 March 1942. The Texans were the first Americans to fight alongside Australian troops. Of the 558 men and officers of the 131st who fought on Java, 534 became prisoners of war of the Japanese. These soldiers were transferred to prison camps throughout the Empire, including Singapore, Burma, Manchuria, Burma, and Japan. Most were sent to slave on the Thai-Burma Death Railroad popularized by the film The Bridge on the River Kwai.

Eighty-nine men, one out of six, perished during the Battalion’s 42-month “invisible” captivity. Those that endured the ordeal emerged from the liberated POW camps sick and emaciated, little more than walking skeletons whose health was permanently impaired. The survivors held an enduring bond with the survivors of the USS Houston with whom they were imprisoned and many viewed themselves are one unit.

 Located at the other end
of the parking lot from the interpretive
center of Fort Richardson State Historical Park.

Illness and death were constants. What was the secret of their survival? When that question was put to an elderly veteran of the "Lost Battalion," he answered, "The thing that brought most of us through it was the comradeship we showed for each."

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One of the most distinctive features of the 131st was that it included both a Japanese-American and a Chinese- American soldier.  Frank Fujita was a farm boy from Abilene, Texas. His fellow soldiers called him “Foo” that his biography is entitled, Foo : A Japanese-American Prisoner of the Rising Sun : The Secret Prison Diary of Frank 'Foo' Fujita. It took his captors two years to recognize that he was Japanese. 

Eddie Fung had gone to Midland, Texas from San Francisco as a 16-year old to become an cowboy. At 17, he enlisted in the Texas National Guard. After the War, he used the GI Bill to study chemistry at Stanford University. He gives his account of his life in The Adventures of Eddie Fung: Chinatown Kid, Texas Cowboy, Prisoner of War.

Both men were among those who returned home after the War.

The "Lost Battalion" remains the "Most Decorated Unit" in Texas of any War and USS Houston CA-30 remains the "Most Decorated" vessel of it's class in the U.S. Fleet.

Asian laborers or rǒmusha made up the majority of the deaths on the Thai–Burma Death Railway. Malay and Burmese workers had the largest number of dead. By comparison, Australians deaths totaled over 2,700 and American 25. [Data from Rod Beattie, The Death Railway: A Brief History of the Thailand–Burma Railway, TBRC Co., Kanchanaburi, 2009.]

The Wise County Heritage Museum in Decatur Texas has an entire room devoted to the Texas Lost Battalion. Two books are of special interest are: a first-person account of the horrors  a POW from a Battalion survivor, A Thousand Cups of Rice: Surviving the Death Railway, and a scholar's recent research, Hell under the Rising Sun: Texan POWs and the Building of the Burma-Thailand Death Railway. 

This video recounts one POW's experience: Missing In Action: The Story of Paul D. Stein and the Lost Battalion.


To the best of our knowledge, not one Texas Senator or Congressperson acknowledged the 70th anniversaries of either the sinking of the USS Houston or the capture of the Lost Battalion. Kay Granger (R-TX) represents Decatur and Mac Thornberry (R-TX) represents Jacksboro in Congress. Neither has yet to become co-sponsors of H. Res. 333 that asks Japan to do more to honor and remember these POWs from Texas. Thornberry's nonresponse is surprising as he owes his political career to a former American POW of Japan, Roland Towery who fought on Corregidor. Towery went on to be a prominent newspaperman in Texas and winner of the Pulitzer Prize.

As an aside, in November 1944 as members of the "Lost Battalion" toiled in Burma as POWs of Japan, another Texas Battalion was "lost." This time in Europe, Vosges, France. The 141st Infantry Regiment from the 36th Texas Division was surrounded by the German army and cut off from supply lines. The Japanese American  442nd Regimental Combat Team (about 3,000 men) was ordered to rescue the this "Lost Battalion." After days of near constant fighting, the 442nd suffering roughly 1,000 casualties fulfilled their mission. Two hundres soldiers were killed in action (or missing) with over 800 seriously wounded. The 442nd for its heroic action in the Vosges received 5 Presidential Unit Citations and last year (2011) a Congressional Gold Medal. Texan Frank Fujita, it should be noted, was not included in the Nisei Congressional Gold Medal.

As an aside, Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe visited Burma on May 25, 2013 where he paid his respects to Japan's war dead by visiting the Yeway Cemetery. The is no mention if he visited the memorials to the other laborers for Emperor.

Updated 7/28/13

Heroes All

SSgt Frank Fujita
POW of Japan

On November 2, Japanese-American war veterans received one of the highest U.S. awards. These veterans of the 100th Infantry Battalion and the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, as well as the Military Intelligence Service (MIS) were collectively awarded a Congressional Gold Medal. It will be stored at the Smithsonian. Veterans can buy a bronze replica if they want.

The awards ceremony was held in the great hall of the Capitol Visitor's Center and hosted by the House and Senate leadership. A full military color guard participated.

Later that week on November 4th many of these veterans met for the first time with Navajo and African-American recipients of the same honor for a celebratory dinner in Beverly Hills, California involving the three historically segregated military units.

 The other groups received the Congressional Gold Medal in 2000 and 2006, respectively. The dinner was organized by the Go For Broke National Education Center, a group working to preserve the history of the ''Nikkei'' World War II veterans.

Meeting men from the other segregated units had a deep emotional impact, a Japanese-American veteran said. ''I just hope the world will be a safer place to live now, for all of us,'' he said.

Interestingly, at least five Japanese-American WWII veterans did not serve in these units. They are believed to have been in the Army Air Corps like Ben Kuroki, who flew 28 missions over Japan. Cmdr Douglas Wada was the only one in the Navy. One, however, was from the Texas National Guard and became a POW of Japan. He did not receive an honor on November 2nd.

Staff Sergeant Frank Fujita was a member of the 2D Battalion, 131st Field Artillery, Texas National Guard during World War II. Known as the Lost Battalion, they were captured in March 1942 on Java. Its members were sent to build the infamous Thai-Burma Death Railway. SSgt Fujita was then sent to be a slave laborer for Kawanami Shipyards at Fukuoka #2B near Nagasaki. He was also sent for interrogation to the infamous Ofuna Naval Interrogation Center and then forced to be used for radio propaganda at Omori where he was liberated.

During his three-and-a-half year incarceration, Fujita kept a diary, from which he wrote his autobiography: Foo: A Japanese-American Prisoner of the Rising Sun : The Secret Prison Diary of Frank 'Foo' Fujita. He endured years of beatings and disgrace. Yet, his loyalty to the U.S. and his unit never wavered, even when the Japanese offered him a commission, money, and women. He turned it all down, accepting unending abuse and refused to assist in Japan's propaganda effort. His strength of character was an inspiration to his comrades.

SSgt Fujita became an Air Force illustrator after the war and died in 1996 in Abilene, Texas.

Segarent Richard Sakakida was also a POW of the Japanese. He was a member of MIS, which was included in the collective Congressional Gold Medal. Sakakida was captured on Corregidor and endured months of torture by the Kempeitai at several POWs camps in the Philippines. See, A Spy in Their Midst: The World War II Struggle of a Japanese-American Hero, Richard Sakakida, as told to Wayne S. Kiyosaki. Madison Books, 1995. Lt. Col. Sakakida died in 1996.

National Guard Units Captured by Japan

Below are the National Guard Units captured on Bataan and Java in the first months of World War II. Each Unit is matched with its current Congressman/woman. A majority of the American POWs of Japan were from these battalions.

UPDATE: As of July 21, 2011, only two of these Congressmen, Ben Chandler (KY-6-D) and Martin Heinrich (NM-1-D) have signed on as co-sponsors of H. Res. 333 (*). Paul Ryan (WI-1-R) became a cosponsor on September 14, 2011 and Sam Farr (D-CA) on November 30, 2011. Steve Pearce became a co-sponsor December 9, 2011.

Captured on the Philippines (Bataan Death March)
>192nd Tank Battalion (Kentucky, Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin) Activated: November 25, 1940 Sent to Philippines: October 24, 1941

CONGRESSMEN (as of Summer 2011):
*Company A: PAUL RYAN (WI-1-R) [co-sponsor 9/14/11]
Company B: Danny Davis (IL-7-D)
Company C: Marcy Kaptur (OH- 9-D)
*Company D: BEN CHANDLER (KY-6-D)

Resources
The Origin of Bataan Day
Maywood Bataan Day Organization
Proviso East High Bataan Commemorative Research Project; Maywood, IL
National Guard History eMuseum; Kentucky Guardsmen of the 192nd Tank Bn
Company C, 192nd Tank Battalion, Port Clinton, OH


>194th Tank Battalion (Minnesota, Missouri, California) Activated: February 10, 1941 Sent to Philippines: September 8, 1941

CONGRESSMEN (as of Summer 2011):
Company A: Chip Cravaack (MN-8-R)
Company B: Wm. Lacy Clay (MO-1-D)
*Company C: SAM FARR (CA-17-D) [co-sponsor 11/30/11]


Resources
A History of the Salinas National Guard Company 1895-1995
California Militia and National Guard Unit Histories; Company C, 194th Tank Bn


>200th Coast Artillery (New Mexico) Activated: January 6, 1941 Sent to Philippines: August 17, 1941

CONGRESSMEN (as of Summer 2011):
*Troop A: MARTIN HEINRICH (NM-1-D)
Troop B: STEVAB PEARCE (NM-2-R)

Resources
A Brief History of the 200th and 515th Coast Artillery
The Bataan Corregidor Memorial Foundation of New Mexico
The FReeper Foxhole Remembers The 200th Coast Artillery (AA) - (12/8/1941)


Captured on Java (“The Lost Battalion,” USS Houston, and labor on the Thai-Burma Death Railway)
>2nd Battalion, 131st Field Artillery Battalion (Texas) Activated: November 25, 1940 Sent to Pearl Harbor: November 21, 1941, Sent to Java: November 28, 1941 (diverted to Java, instead of the Philippines after Pearl Harbor)

CONGRESSMEN (as of Summer 2011):
Battery A: Charles A. Gonzalez (TX-20-D)
Battery B: Mac Thornberry (TX-13-R)
Battery C: K. Michael Conaway (TX-11-R)

Resources
2nd Bn, 131st Field Artillery, USS Houston; HISTORY Of THE LOST BN
Book Review: Kelly E. Crager. Hell under the Rising Sun: Texan POWs and the Building of the Burma Thailand Death Railway
USS Houston
USS Houston Memorial Site