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

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.

Sourcing Japanese Denier History

Denying cannibalism by Japanese troops is a popular trope used by Japan's Rightwingers to discredit the book and film Unbroken. The net-uyoku have accused the author of Unbroken of spreading a lie about Japanese having a “custom” of cannibalism. They proudly declare that Japan has no "food culture" of cannibalism, thus it is simply untrue that Imperial Japanese soldiers and sailors consumed POWs out of hunger or triumph. This denial is at the heart of the online petition to ban the movie in Japan. However, neither the book nor the movie depict acts of cannibalism.

Unbroken is a biography of Olympian and former American POW of Japan Louis Zamperini. The author, Laura Hillenbrand, tries to capture in one paragraph (p 315), the litany of abuses heaped upon those captured by the Japanese. One clause in one sentence refers to "eaten alive in ritual acts of cannibalism." Nowhere else is this mentioned.

The book has not been translated into Japanese nor has the film been shown in Japan. Thus, what is the source of this misperception?

It seems that it can be traced to an one-word mistranslation in a book review of Unbroken in Wedge, a conservative magazine published by a subsidiary of JR Central [see below]. The honorary chairman of JR Central is Yoshiyuki Kasai and the then-adviser to the magazine and JR Central was Tomohiko Taniguchi. Kasai is a confidante of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and lead promoter of hi-speed rail in the United States. Taniguchi is now in charge of the Abe government's international public relations. 

Neither man has moved to clear up this misunderstanding. Both are deeply concerned with Japan's global public image. The result is that the campaign  against Unbroken is intensifying and in December a book was published embellishing the false notion that Unbroken is part of a campaign to dishonor Japan. This view is part of a greater ideology that the war crimes trials were based of falsified information and the product of victor's justice.

As many readers of this blog know, JR Central now owns the railcar manufacturer Nippon Sharyo, a company that used American and Allied POWs as slave labor at its factory in Narumi. A founder of the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor, Sam Moody, was tortured at the camp. JR Central is vying for high speed rail contracts in Texas and the East Coast. Nippon Sharyo will be part of these bids as well as bids by JR East for this year's high speed rail contracts in California.

The reports of cannibalism are true. Officers were prosecuted in war crimes trials and hanged. Imperial Japan's excessive abuse of its military and civilian prisoners is also true.

The following, for scholarly understanding and analysis, is a provisional, annotated translation of the Wedge article that propagated the campaign against Unbroken.

Very Popular Book In U.S.A. Stirs-up Anti-Japan Feelings
-- Japanese Military's Abuse of POWs, Why Bring It Up Now?

Wedge Magazine, February 20, 2011
By Soichiro MORIKAWA -- Journalist who has experience of living in New York during the time of IT Bubble
Link: 反日感情をあおる本が米国で大人気

* * * * * * * * * *
COLUMN: What best-seller books are being read in America? Learn about trends/signs of the times. You think you know, but may not really know, the true state of affairs in America -- and this is essential for thinking about Japan.
* * * * * * * * * *

"UNBROKEN", by Laura Hillenbrand, published by Random House. $27.00

A non-fiction book which describes the true story, in great detail, how a Japanese soldier abused a U.S. POW during World War II. It is unmistakably a book which will certainly heighten anti-Japanese feelings in America, and is being widely-read in the U.S. It is a special category book listed in the New York Times weekly non-fiction bestseller list, and has ranked in the top-five for thirteen-straight weeks. Most recently it dropped to number two, but for six weeks before that it was at the top of the list.

-- JAPANESE MILITARY'S ABUSE OF POWS

Louis Zamperini, is currently a healthy 93-year-old American man of Italian ancestry. The book follows/describes the misfortunes he experienced during his lifetime -- in particular how he had to deal with inhumane treatment as a POW held by the Imperial Japanese military.

As a young 19-year-old middle-distance runner, he raced in the 1936 Berlin Olympics as part of the U.S.A.'s team. He did not win a medal, but his hard-running style drew the attention of Adolf Hitler, who was watching from the stands -- and there is an anecdote that later on,

Hitler shook Zamperini's hand.

Thereafter, Zamperini continued to train as a runner, hoping to compete in teh 1940 Olympics, which were schedule to be held in Tokyo -- but due to the Japan-China War, those games were postponed, and he joined the U.S. Army Air Force. However, bad luck later struck when his aircraft developed engine trouble and it crashed. He eventually drifted ashore on Kwajalein Island, located in the Marshall Islands, about 3,900 KM southwest of Honolulu, Hawaii.

That was when Zamperini became a POW of the Japanese military, in a place which was called "Execution Island." Zamperini was not executed, once the Japanese military realized he was an Olympic athlete, and he was sent bakc to the mainland Japan.

After that, we had to survive being a POW, who was moved from place-to-place in camps at Ofuna, Omori, and Naoetsu, and eventually returned alive to America in August 1945. The book describes, in a cool/factual style, the numerous cases/examples of maltreatment Zamperini received while in the POW camps -- and, conversely, this really causes the image of the cruel Japanese soldiers to vividly emerge.

In particular, the most involved/powerful descriptions of abuse and cruelty are those which cover the actions of Japanese Corporal Mutsuhiro Watanabe, who came to be called "The Bird." The book calls Watanabe a sadist, who seemed to derive sexual pleasure feelings from punishing/tormenting the POWs. For example, the following is one example of innumerable POW-abuse scenes which
are written in the book:

--"THE BIRD," SADISTIC WATANABE

"The Bird swung the belt backward, with the buckle on the loose end, and then whipped it around himself and forward, as if he were performing a hammer throw. The buckle rammed into Louie’s left temple and ear. Louie felt as if he had been shot in the head. Though he had resolved never to let the Bird knock him down, the power of blow, and the explosive pain that followed, overawed everything in him. His legs seemed to liquefy, and he went down. The room spun." (page 251)

Corporal Watanabe, aka "The Bird", made Zamperini his personal enemy, and almost every day he would beat Zamperini, and would also prevent him from receiving adequate amounts of food. The book also states that Japanese soldiers would seize food from International Red Cross relief packages, and prevent distribution of such food to the POWs.

The book further describes, using statistical information, to show that Japan's treatment of POWs was clearly much worse and cruel than Nazi Germany.

"In its rampage over the east, Japan had brought atrocity and death on a scale that staggers the imagination. In the midst of it were the prisoners of war. Japan held some 132,000 POWs from America, Britain, Canada, New Zealand, Holland, and Australia. Of those, nearly 36,000 died, more than one in every four. Americans fared particularly badly; of the 34,648 Americans held by Japan, 12,935? more than 37 percent?died. By comparison, only 1 percent of Americans held by the Nazis and Italians died." (pages 314-315)

POWs were subjected to especially cruel treatment, supposedly, as described in the following passage...

"Thousands of other POWs were beaten, burned, stabbed, or clubbed to death, shot, beheaded, killed during medical experiments, or eaten alive in ritual acts of cannibalism. And as a result of being fed grossly inadequate and befouled food and water, thousands more died of starvation and easily preventable diseases." (page 315)

** TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: Here Mr. Morikawa (mis)translated the phrase "ritual acts of cannibalism" as hito-kui fushu de-- he used the word fushu for "ritual," but,  fushu's meaning is "customary, or common practice -- which does not really match the nuance of ritual.**

The book then tries to explain why the Japanese military's abuse of POWs occurred so routinely/commonly. As is shown in the following quote, the cause can be seen from one aspect of the Japanese military's unique "culture": "In the Japanese military of that era, corporal punishment was routine practice. “Iron must be beaten while it’s hot; soldiers must be beaten while they’re fresh” was a saying among servicemen. “No strong soldiers,” went another, “are made without beatings.” For all Japanese soldiers, especially low-ranking ones, beating was inescapable, often a daily event." (page 194)

Since Japanese soldiers themselves routinely experienced being beaten, their resentment/anger was thereafter directed at the POWs.

This writer, Morikawa, at the time of reading this section of the book, recalled reading the war novel: "The Human Condition", by Junpei Gomikawa, which described the irrational/unreasonable aspects of the army, and I found myself nodding in agreement with what was written about the reality/true nature of the Japanese military in UNBROKEN.

-- JUSTIFICATION OF THE A-BOMBINGS

However, I cannot accept the logic deployed by the book that: since POWs were abused/treated cruelly, therefore, the large-scale bombings of Tokyo and other cities, and the A-bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were unavoidable.

For example, the book tells of a newly-released POW, right after the end of the war, travelling by train through central Hiroshima after the dropping of the a-bomb, and looking at the scene he said:

“Nothing! It was beautiful.”

The American POW felt it was due to the A-bombings that he was able to meet/reach the end of the war, where he were released from captivity. So this is the deep emotion he had when he saw devastated nothingness of the central explosion area -- and to him it looked beautiful. The book records the ex-POW's comment using the following expression:

“I know it’s not right to say it was beautiful, because it really wasn’t. But I believed the end probably justified the means.” (p320)

-- IS JAPAN'S DIPLOMACY COPING/ABLE TO DEAL WITH THIS BESTSELLER?

The typical thinking/logic of America's conservative class can be seen in the assertion that the A-bombings were unavoidable actions, which were required to end the war. While UNBROKEN goes into great detail explaining the abuse of POWs by Japanese soldiers, it does not mention at all that hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed by the A-bombings. The following passage from the book is written as if to say that, from the start, the Japanese government was really responsible for the victims of the A-bombings:

"That same night, B-29s showered leaflets over thirty-five Japanese cities, warning civilians of coming bombings and urging them to evacuate. The Japanese government ordered civilians to turn the leaflets in to authorities, forbade them from sharing the warnings with others, and arrested anyone with leaflets in their possession. Among the cities listed on the leaflets were Hiroshima and Nagasaki." (page 297)

To be honest, this writer, Morikawa, had no previous knowledge about the issue of how Japan handled/treated POWs during the Second World War. So, I had numerous confused/bewildered thoughts as I read UNBROKEN. I also have no ability to judge/verify the statistical information which was cited in the book.

Furthermore, what I cannot understand is why this book was published at this time -- and, beyond that, that fact of how it has become a top best-seller.

Japanese should take notice/be aware that such a book is selling well in America. I think it would be wise for Japan's MOFA to read and analyze the contents of UNBROKEN, and then develop a countermeasures plan as part of a diplomatic strategy to improve the image of Japan.

71ST ANNUAL MAYWOOD BATAAN DAY - SEPTEMBER 8TH

Sunday, September 8th

3:00 PM

Maywood Veterans Memorial Park

Corner of 1st Avenue and Oak Street

Maywood, Illinois

In October of 1941, 89 men from Maywood, Illinois left the United States for the Philippine Islands with Company “B” of the Army’s 192nd Tank Battalion.

Only 43 would return from the War.

They had arrived in Philippine Islands on November 20, 1941 — Thanksgiving Day—and were stationed at Clark Field on Luzon, 60 miles to the north of Manila. On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii and Clark Field in the Philippines.

At Clark Field, Robert Brooks, of D Company became the first American “tanker” killed in WWII. He is likely also the first African-American killed in the War. Brooks Field at Fort Knox, Kentucky is named in his honor.

The 192nd Tank Battalion fought for four desperate months against the invading Japanese. Exhausted, sick, starving, and out of ammunition, they were surrendered by their commanding officers on April 9, 1942. On the infamous 65-mile Bataan Death March, the soldiers of Maywood made up the largest number of POWs from a single American town.

>Maywood’s Bataan Day has been held every year since 1942, on the Second Sunday in September<

As POWs of Japan, the Maywood men endured indescribable deprivation, abuse, and degradation. Many became slave laborers for prominent Japanese companies. One that used American POW slave labor was Nippon Sharyo, which manufactured the engines for the Thai-Burma Death Railway. The company still manufactures rolling stock on the same site that it did during the War. Nippon Sharyo passenger cars now cast daily shadows on the Maywood Veterans Memorial Park. A METRA (Chicago area) commuter rail track runs on one edge of the Park. METRA is a major client of Nippon Sharyo. American tax incentives and METRA contracts were used to encourage Nippon Sharyo to build manufacturing facilities in Illinois. The company is planning to benefit from upcoming high-speed rail contracts.

Nippon Sharyo has never acknowledged nor apologized to the POWs it used as slave labor.

Click here for more information on the memorial events and celebration.

Contact Information:
Col. Richard A. McMahon, Jr. (USA, Ret.), President
Phone: (708) 366-8761
Email: Ramcmahon1@aol.com
Website URL: http://mbdo.org

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.            

Nippon Sharyo

 All rights reserved by CTBarey

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Motionless

Everett Reamer 2011

Standing at attention in the hot sun, with beatings if you even twitched, was one of the tortures endured by the POWs of Japan. Two Americans were once noted in Guinness Book of Records for their endurance to this treatment. Today, the category “motionless” does not appear in the print edition and the current “record” is inexplicably days less than those held by the American POWs.

According to a Guinness official we contacted, Om Prakash Singh of India holds the record of standing motionlessness with 20 hours 10 minutes and 6 seconds. Mr. Singh’s record was last included in 2006 Edition of the Guinness Book of World Records. Thereafter, the record was removed from the book, but not from the database, due to the space limitations according to the Guinness representative.

Eliminated from the Guinness database--and we asked--appear to be two records that far exceed Mr. Singh’s. The Guinness Book of World Records in the 1987 through 1991 editions all noted Pvt Everett Reamer stood at attention for 132 hours without food, water or relief.

Ohio native, Pvt Reamer fought on Corregidor with the 60th Coast Artillery Antiaircraft. As a POW he was sent to Japan to be a slave laborer for Nippon Express (Nippon Tsuun) at the Osaka Main Headquarters Camp No. 1-B (Chikko). After “stealing” Red Cross boxes that the Japanese had withheld, he and others were tortured and forced to stand at attention on August 15, 1944. He was the last to drop, 132 hours later on August 20, 1944.

He was then taken to Japanese Army Headquarters in Osaka where he was sentenced to solitary confinement at Osaka's Sakai Prison. His cell was 5 x 8 feet with solid concrete walls. There were no bars and no window—just a small slit at eye level for the guards to pass food through. There was no bed, no heat, and no running water. He slept on the concrete floor. His toilet was a wooden pail. He wasn’t allowed to stand; he could only sit on the floor. He says he kept sane by repeating the 23rd Psalm each day.

He remained there until August 22, 1945 when the guards gave him a huge bowl of rice. “I thought I had died and gone to heaven,” Reamer says. Then they called him out of his cell, along with the seven other allied POWs. He was certain they were to be shot. Instead, they were told that the war was over and “we are now friends.”

click to order

Mr. Reamer who we interviewed in June 2011, was told by a Guinness Book editor in New York not to be surprised if the Japanese government finagled to have the item removed. Although the cause cannot be confirmed, it is true that the record was removed. Maybe, because the feat was “involuntary” it no longer qualified.

You can read Mr. Reamer's story in his memoir Unconquerable Faith: Surviving Corregidor, Bataan, and Japan or HERE or HERE. 

Mr. Reamer was able to give us copies of his Guinness Book entries, but we could not confirm Sgt Sam Moody’s claim that he too was included. Mr. Moody died in 1999. However, there are still POWs alive who were with him at Nippon Sharyo’s Narumi POW camp who remember the incident.

Samuel Moody, who his fellow prisoners said was always getting in trouble, was forced to stand at attention for stealing a bowl of rice (in some accounts it was a canteen of cooking oil). He stood in the prison camp yard for 53 hours.

Before he died, Moody fought to receive token compensation from the Japanese companies that enslaved him and other POWs. In 1992, Masashi Mazobuchi, a spokesman for the Japanese Embassy in Washington said that although the Japanese government ''deeply regrets'' all wartime incidents, all legal questions were settled in the Tokyo war crimes trials. ''Of course, morally, some individuals are not satisfied,'' he said.

Moody was one of six Lynn, Massachusetts men who survived the Bataan Death March. He was considered the city’s preeminent war hero and his portrait was included in the 1949 time capsule buried in the cornerstone of the Lynn Memorial City Hall and Auditorium.

As previously noted, Mr. Moody’s last congressman was John Mica (R-FL). You can obtain a free copy of Sam Moody’s memoir, Reprieve from Hell from Mr. Mica's office. The current congressman from Lynn, Massachusetts is John Tierney (D-MA). Everett Reamer’s congressman is Trent Franks (R-AZ). None of these representatives has yet to become co-sponsors of H. Res. 333.

If you wish to follow up with the Guinness Book of World Records, try HERE.

Congressman John Mica (R-FL)

Click to read the foreword by  Congressman John Mica

Congressman John Mica and his father before him, were friends with Samuel B. Moody one of the founders of the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor. Sam, a member of the Army Air Corps, survived the Battle of the Philippines, the infamous Bataan Death March, a Hell Ship, and slave labor for Nippon Sharyo, Japan's premiere rail car maker. At the Narumi prison camp for Nippon Sharyo's factory, he was punished by being forced to stand at attention. Sam stood there for over 53 hours. It is one of the world's records for standing "motionless."

Mr. Mica reprinted Sam Moody's memoir of his prison camp experience, Reprieve from Hell, and wrote a new introduction. He gives a copy to every veteran who visits his office. Congressman Cliff Stearns (R-Fl) also distributes Sam's book to visiting veterans. Mr. Moody, who died in 1999, lived for a time in his district as well.

Every Congress, Mr. Mica introduces the Samuel B. Moody Bataan Death March
Compensation Act. It directs the Secretary of the military department concerned to pay certain compensation to individuals (or their survivors) who, as members of the Armed Forces during World War II:
(1) were captured on the peninsula of Bataan or the island of Corregidor in the Philippines by Japanese forces; and
(2) participated in and survived the Bataan Death March. Allows a survivor payment to be made to the nearest surviving relative of such individual.

This bill, which he introduced again on January 18, 2011 as H. R. 309, is unfortunately historically inaccurate and unfair to many who fought the Battle of the Philippines. No one captured on Corregidor participated in the Bataan Death March. Some on the Death March were able to escape and become guerrillas. Further, the Filipino Scouts on the Death March were techncially members of the Armed Forces and they did receive special compensation 2009-2010 through the Filipino Veterans Equity Compensation Fund. In addition, many who survived the Death March died soon after at the Camp McDonnell prison camp of disease, mistreatment, and starvation.

Interestingly, Mica has never reached out to the current ADBC and its descendants group for support. Nor does he push the bill with other veterans organizations. He is simply puffing up his veterans credentials by doing very, very little. Sadly, Mr. Moody is not there to complain.

Despite this strong attachment to Mr. Moody's memory, as of July 21, 2011, neither Congressmen Mica nor Stearns are co-sponsors of H. Res. 333.