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.

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

"Unbroken" is an opportunity for truth telling and reconciliaiton

'Unbroken': Let Japanese audience see Jolie film, learn truth about POW treatment
By Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Kinue Tokudome

First Published by Fox News on December 29, 2014

On most Mondays, we are fed the mildly diverting and largely irrelevant data about weekend box office grosses. Not this Monday. This week we are left to ponder the gross excesses of censors — three to be exact.

First there was the assertion of a scary cyberbullying attack by North Korea seeking to abort the launch of a comedy about a fictional attempt to off Pyongyang’s awful leader. While there’s now skepticism about North Korea’s role, what’s not in dispute is that there is nothing funny about life in North Korea. Tragically, the long-suffering people there, including hidden Christians, did not wake up on Dec. 25 to find regime change gift-wrapped under illegal Christmas trees.

Next came the thought police in Casablanca and Cairo, who have rated the epic remake of the biblical “Exodus” “Z” for Zionist. Apparently, they are less disturbed that God was relegated to a minor supporting role in the narrative than they are that muscular “white guys” dominate the screen and that the movie has the audacity to suggest that Hebrew slave labor contributed to ancient Egypt’s unique skyline. All this from two of the most “moderate” Arab societies.

But these two incidents, both generated in tightly controlled societies, pale in comparison to the decision of a leading studio to stop the release of a true story in a sister democracy.

On Christmas Day, Universal Pictures released Angelina Jolie’s “Unbroken" — which depicts the remarkable life of Louis Zamperini, an Olympic runner who became a prisoner of war of the Japanese — all over the world … except in Japan.

The Los Angeles Times reported that “Unbroken,” with its unflinching depiction of the brutality of Japanese POW camps during World War II, would have encountered considerable resistance there.

Already millions of viewers — most of them born long after the Second World War — have been inspired by Zamperini’s sheer determination to survive unimaginable brutality at the hands of the Japanese; his struggle with post-war PTSD; and his finally being able to forgive his former tormentors. People in the very country where these events took place are now robbed of the opportunity to learn from their nation's past.

Why did Universal feel compelled to make this draconian move? Japan is no North Korea. She is one of the United States’ closest allies, with almost 70 years of friendship based on shared values of democracy and human rights. Shouldn’t the Japanese people be trusted to face their past, even their history’s darkest chapters like POW abuse?

One of us recently attended the signing at the State Department of a joint agreement between France and the U.S. that calls for France to provide $60 million in compensation to Holocaust survivors it deported to Nazi concentration camps. But it was not only about money. Speaking for France, Patrizianna Sparacino-Thiellay, the ambassador-at-large for human rights in charge of the Holocaust, declared, “This agreement is a further contribution to recognizing France’s commitment to face up to its historic responsibilities.”

The Japanese people deserve this kind of commitment from their leaders, not the overwhelming denial of history that led to the “Unbroken” blackout.

It took until 2009, when then Japanese Ambassador Ichiro Fujisaki, on behalf of his government, apologized to former American POWs at their last national reunion, for the real reconciliation to finally start. Because of the ambassador’s commitment to improving U.S.-Japan relations and his willingness to work closely with Dr. Lester Tenney, a survivor of the Bataan Death March and of forced labor in a Japanese coal mine, a POW invitation program to promote reconciliation funded by the Japanese government started in 2010.

Former POWs in their late 80s and 90s who went to Japan were finally able to feel peace and a sense of closure as they visited the places where they had endured hard labor and were warmly welcomed by today’s Japanese. U.S. Ambassador Caroline Kennedy praised this program. The positive publicity generated by the surviving ex-POWs’ yearly visit has been helping younger Japanese to learn about what happened to POWs in their country — in most cases, for the first time.

One group that must have welcomed the “Unbroken” cancellation was the very Japanese companies that enslaved American POWs. Of some 12,000 Americans who were sent to Japan after being captured on the battlefield, 1,115 died while being forced to work for these companies. Their refusal to honor the request of aging ex-POWs who insist “We survivors want our honor returned; we want you to apologize” is not worthy of Asia's leading democracy.

In contrast, France's state-owned railway company, SNCF, whose trains were used to deport Jews from France to Auschwitz, has expressed regret for those actions, opened its WWII archives to historians and increased its financial commitment to Holocaust education in France, Israel and the U.S.

In 2015, some Japanese companies that used and abused American POWs will try to sell their high-speed rail technology to the U.S., as will SNCF. These Japanese companies should emulate their French competitor by issuing an apology and committing themselves to educate the future generation on the history of American POWs of the Japanese. Showing “Unbroken” across Japan can be one way to show such a commitment, as well as reassuring her neighbors on both sides of the Pacific that the mindset that led Japan into World War II is a thing of the past, not an inspiration for the future.

Robert A. “Bob” Bonadio, Col. USMC

Requiescat in pace

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

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

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

  

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

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

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

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

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

POWs of Japan

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

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

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

Bob on the PAWs Sanctuary

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

Protect the elephants

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

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

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

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

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

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.