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TOKYO GROUP P.O.W.
CAMP
Branch Camp No. 5B - Niigata
LOCATION
Located about 160 miles Northwest of Tokyo, Camp No. 5B was one of the more
remote camps in the Tokyo Group of P.0.W. camps. It was situated on the
northern outskirts of Niigata (37° 58' N., 139° 02’ E.), a seaport on the
Sea of Japan along the cold and during the winter, very snowy west coast of
Honshu island. The city had a 1940 population of almost 151,000 people, but
the port and local industries, like many others in Japan at the time, were
still far behind most of the western industrialized nations.
PRISONER PERSONNEL
Camp No. 5B at Niigata was opened on September 3, 1943 with the arrival of
300 P.0.W.s from Hong Kong. This group was composed mostly of Canadian
soldiers with some men of the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Force, as well as
Dutch sailors , the surviving crewmen of a submarine sunk by the Japanese
off Java. This initial contingent had no officers or doctor. They, with
about 200 additional P.0.W.s, had sailed from Hong Kong in the latter part
of August on the small two hold Japanese collier, the "Manryu Maru,"
stopping briefly at Taihoku (Taipei) the capital of Formosa (Taiwan) en
route to Japan. Upon their safe arrival at Osaka, Japan the 500 P.O.W.s were
split up, with one group sent by train to Niigata and the remainder to other
camps in Japan.
On September 20, 1943 the small Japanese freighter "Taga Maru” left
the Philippines with a draft of about 800 American P.0.W.s and after a stop
at Takao, Formosa safely docked at Moji, Japan on October 5th. Almost 350
men of the group, enlisted men of all services, were sent to Camp No. 5B at
Niigata arriving on October 7, 1943.
On October 20th, five American officers and three army medical corpsmen
arrived, led by Major Francis Fellows of the Field Artillery, captured on
Corregidor, an authority on the Civil War, who then became the senior
officer in charge of the P.0.W.s at Camp No. 5B.
On October 30, 1943 Major William “Bill.” Stewart, R.A.M.C. was transferred
to Camp No. 5B from Camp Kawasaki 1B in the Tokyo area. Stewart, a doctor
from Northern Ireland, had served with the British army defending Singapore
but he managed to escape to Java in a sailboat. He eventually was captured
with 160 officers and the crew of a British ship when sunk by a German
raider as they attempted to sail to Australia. In October 1944 the Japanese
authorities reported that Branch Camp No. 5B held 215 Americans and 354
British, Canadian, Dutch and other Allied P.0.W.s.
By the end of May 1945 an additional 200 American, British and Australian
enlisted men and 26 officers including two doctors who had been bombed out
of P.0.W. camps in the Tokyo-Yokohama area arrived at the now overcrowded
camp No 5B. During the first week of July 1945 about 150 American civilian
construction workers captured at the fall of Wake Island were transferred
from the Kiangwan Camp in Shanghai via Fengtai, China to Niigata, which for
the last few months of the war was comprised of a conglomerate of P.0.W.s,
all from Allied forces in the Far East.
JAPANESE PERSONNEL
From its opening on September 3, 1943 until its closing almost two years
later on August 21, 1945, Camp 5B at Niigata had three camp
Commandants.
The first was the psychotic Lt. Masato Yoshida, a small, squat, smartly
dressed, but ugly man whose appearance was not enhanced by thick
horned-rimmed glasses and two or three steel-capped front teeth. He could,
when he wished, communicate with the P.O.W.s in English. It was later proven
that Lt. Yoshida had sold food, medicines and other Red Cross supplies
Intended for the prisoners, in the Niigata black market. After the war ended
he was apprehended, tried and hung for his complicity In a series of war
crimes. Yoshida remained Commandant at Niigata about 6 1/2 brutal months
until mid March of 1944 when he was succeeded by 2nd Lt. Nemoto who took
more interest in the camp and attempted to curb the often irresponsible and
sadistic behavior of many of the guards.
During Nemoto’s tenure the P.0.W.s were allowed to purchase at a music shop
in Niigata, with yen paid to the few officers, a trumpet, guitar and banjo
and form a combo led by American Marine Sgt. George Francis which presented
small informal outdoor concerts boosting the camp's otherwise very low
morale. In September of 1944 the last Commandant took charge.
He was Lt. Tetsutaro Kato, tall and big-boned for a Japanese, he too wore
heavy horn-rimmed glasses and soon acquired the nickname of’ "Four Eyes." A
strict disciplinarian with both P.0.W.s and guards, he improved conditions
in the camp. However, at times he would fly in to uncontrollable, wild
rages, followed by apparent periods of remorse. This madman, affectionately
raised six egg laying hens in an enclosure behind his quarters. In July 1945
Kato personally executed by bayoneting an American Mormon P.O.W. named Frank
Spears who was recaptured after wandering off in a mentally unbalanced state
on another of his unsuccessful escape attempts. Lt Kato was also a defendant
at the post war War Crimes Trials.
Serving as an Adjutant to each of the camp Commandants was the hated Sgt.
Ito who was later hanged. In charge of the medical facilities was the
incompetent Medical Corporal Takeo Takahashi. The camp interpreter was a
Japanese-American named Shiga who was a graduate of the University of
Washington. His parents had sent him to Japan just prior to the war for
additional schooling at a Japanese University. Met at the boat upon arrival
at Yokohama he was immediately “drafted" into the Japanese army. He was said
to have been good to the prisoners, at times giving them news of the war and
always insisting that the Japanese would lose the war. After a short period
of time, Camp No. 5B at Niigata, with the above cast of characters in
charge, soon acquired the reputation of being a "horror" camp.
HOUSING AND CAMP FACILITIES
When the camp was opened on September 3, 1943 conditions were abysmal.
Housing for the initial 300 P.0.W.s consisted of a single two-story wooden
building with a small yard. One outdoor pump provided the water supply with
no other washing facilities. The outdoor toilet or "benjo" at one end of the
barracks was totally inadequate for the number of men, most of whom suffered
from chronic dysentery. In addition, a small hut in the yard served as a
cook shack. The barracks consisted of about 10 large rooms separated from
each other by paper thin walls connected by a narrow hall running down one
side of the structure. About 30 or more P.0.W.s were crammed into each room
with a 3 1/2' x 6 1/2' space for each man’s cotton blanket and hard little
pillow. One room was designated as a "hospital ward". Originally intended
only as a temporary camp until construction of the permanent camp was
completed, it remained in use almost 4 months until December 24, 1943. On
that date the approximately 550 P.O.W.s were transferred to a new camp only
partially completed, which was in even worse condition than the abandoned
camp. The wood clapboard buildings still lacked windows and the openings had
been roughly boarded up, leaving large cracks for rain, snow and the cold
winter weather to enter the unheated barracks. No kitchen had been built and
food, what little there was, was cooked about two miles away, and after
local pilferage, the short rations were brought into the camp cold. No water
supply had been installed necessitating bringing water in in large wooden
barrels. Then at 2:00 A M on New Year’s Day 1944, only a week after arrival
at this horrendous, unfinished facility, one of the barracks collapsed with
50 sleeping P.O.W.s inside, killing eight and seriously injuring 12. Despite
all the turmoil in camp and the cold, snowy conditions outside, the daily
work parties continued as usual. By mid-January of 1944 the Japanese
acknowledged the obvious failure of this second camp and relocated the men
to their third place of residence in four months. With this move the
original camp was split into two sections. Shintetsu (the iron foundry
group) were now billeted in a building near the foundry and had no contact
with the P.0.W.s in the other two work parties until the war ended. The
remaining P.0.W.s in the Rinko Coal and the Marutsu Dock details were moved
to a greatly improved although still overcrowded building closer to their
work site on the Niigata docks. On April 1, 1944 this group was returned to
the now completed camp located on a rise of ground just outside of Niigata
and here they remained for their last 18 months of internment at Niigata
Camp No 5B. This permanent camp was surrounded by a high wooden fence with a
double gate in the center of one side with an unused watch/bell tower in one
of the corners opposite the gate. The camp contained 13 or 14 various sized
wooden structures including the following; several larger barracks for the
P.O.W.s, the camp Commandant and guards’ quarters and a guardhouse, a shack
utilized as a first-aid dispensary, a kitchen, a large and very welcome
bathhouse, latrines, a few storage and other miscellaneous sheds and a vital
necessity, running water.
WORK
The Camp 5B internees, who were deemed “healthy” by the Japanese Medical
Corpsman
Takahashi, were engaged in three work projects outside of the camp. Reveille
wars at 5 a.m. in with roll call at 6 a.m. The work parties left the camp
about 6 30 a.m. and began the march home at 5 p.m.
1) The Rinko Coal Yard detail located at the docks almost two miles from the
original camp site was reputed to be the toughest assignment. Coal was
shipped to Japan from mines in occupied Manchuria and the P.0.W.s unloaded
it into small cars each holding about a half ton. The cars were pushed along
rails mounted on an archaic, rickety trestle about 30 feet off of the ground
and dumped at different stockpiles around the dock or at times directly into
a railway coal carrier on the tracks below. Other coal cars were loaded by
P.0.W.s using "yo-ho" poles, i.e., a wooden pole with a wicker basket
hinging on each end with the load balanced on the bearer’s shoulders, under
the adverse conditions a difficult endeavor even for an experienced coolie.
The underfed P.0.W.s, many lacking solid shoes and warm clothing worked
outside in this grimy environment in all kinds of weather on this most
arduous detail with the only material reward being the coal that they
brought back to burn in the barracks stoves. This inefficient operation was
managed by a Japanese civilian named Kojima, an older man with a long black
beard. "Whiskers" as he was known to the P.0.W.s, spoke quite tolerable
English, but he proved to be a hard taskmaster and he was indirectly
responsible for many deaths although he managed to evade punishment later at
the War Crimes trials. His foremen referred to as “Honchos” supervised the
P.O.W.s and the Japanese men and women in the work detail The Honchos were
all discharged army veterans of the China campaign. A few were decent but
the majority varied from plain mean to outright psychotic, with Sato being
the worst of the group. In the latter period of internment with the war
going badly for Japan most of the tougher Honchos and guards at Niigata were
replaced.
)) The Shintetsu Iron Foundry detail did general labor within this primitive
and hazardous facility. The only advantage to working at the foundry was
that it was an inside job and warm during the winter months. In mid-January
1944 the men working in his group were moved to a new building near the
foundry and they remained separated from the other P.0.W.s at Camp No. 5B
until the war ended.
3) The Marutsu Dock Yard detail did the work of stevedores on the Niigata
piers. This job was considered the choicest of the three since it provided
the P.O.W.s with the opportunity to pilfer food and other valuable
commodities shipped home from the occupied lands of the Co-Prosperity
Sphere.
MEDICAL FACILITIES
When the camp opened only Cpl. Takeo Takahashi, a Japanese Medical Corpsman
was in charge of P.0.W. health care. A vain, pompous, compassionless little
man, Takahashi had been a dental assistant before the war and he made no
attempt to hide his contempt for the prisoners. In the two months prior to
the arrival, on October 30, 1943, of Major Bill Stewart, R.A.M.C. seven of
the original P.O.W.s had already died due to a lack of medicines, inadequate
food, overwork in unsafe conditions and the total incompetence of Cpl.
Takahashi. Major Stewart set up a 30-mat sick bay in a room in the barracks,
but despite his best efforts during the first winter many of the P.OW.s
quickly caught pneumonia due to a lack of warm clothing and shoes and their
lowered resistance brought on by food of very low nutritional value, as well
as the terrible housing conditions. In an attempt to exempt as many of the
sickest men from work, Dr Stewart set up an evening sick call in the
corridor outside of his "hospital". Although only about 10% of the P.0.W.s
were well enough to engage in any physical labor, the Japanese attitude was
that the P.0.W.s were there to work and they would work or die. Of the
original 300 Canadian P.0.W.s, 102 would perish of a multitude of diseases
and accidents during their two year stay at Camp 5B and many more returned
home after liberation infirm for the rest of their lives. The P.O.W. death
rate at Niigata was extremely high, reputed in ‘fact to be the highest of
any camp in Japan (a claim also made by survivors of several other camps),
although no statistical evidence is available to substantiate the sad fact.
FOOD
Within a short period of time, food, or the continual shortage of it, became
an all consuming fact of life. For men engaged In hard physical labor the
starvation level diet led to immediate malnutrition and quick weight loss
and the subsequent lowering of resistance causing a variety of diseases, due
to a lack of basic nutrients, especially protein.
The basic menu, similar to that of other mainland Japanese camps consisted
of rice, barley, sorghum, a purple cereal called Korian, an occasional
potato and the ever present daikon (a giant radish). On rare occasions a
small piece of poor quality fish, seaweed or grasshoppers soaked in soy
sauce would be served as luxuries. Breakfast and supper were eaten in camp,
but lunch was brought from the camp to the work sites in a hand pulled
2-wheel cart and was cold by arrival.
The kitchen, as well as other choice in-camp jobs, was run by the contingent
of Dutch sailors who during the two year stay at Camp 5B managed to remain
together as a well knit group.
Men on the sick list and unable to work, had their already insufficient and
almost nutritionless food ration cut in half causing less likelihood for
their change of recovery, a fact that the Japanese authorities chose to
ignore.
In January 1944 the P.0.W.s received their first Red Cross parcels which had
been turned over to the Japanese in late October 1943 by the American
chartered Swedish exchange ship Gripsholm. This distribution of food and
comfort items proved to be a great morale booster, if only for a brief
period. By early 1945 as the war situation worsened for the Japanese,
incoming shipments of food from the occupied areas became increasingly
scarce, causing even greater hardships for both the P.0.W.s and the now
starving civilian population.
When the camp was liberated, undistributed food, clothing, and medical
supplies that would have helped to save lives were found in storage sheds,
an occurrence common in many of the P.0.W camps in Japan.
CORRESPONDENCE
Mail originally addressed to Canadians in Hong Kong, was re-directed to Camp
5B and distributed initially in October 1943 and again in February 1944 and
possibly at later dates. Letter sheets in printed envelopes left Niigata
sometime in mid-1944 with “Niigata” listed as the camp in the return address
This outgoing as well as incoming mail from Canada and the States bear the
personal "chops" of Uyemori and 2nd Lt. Nemoto and 1st Lt. Kato, the last
two camp Commandants, as well as Onishi, a censor stationed in Tokyo. All of
the incoming mail bears the manuscript "5B" notation and sometimes, but not
always, the P.0.W.'s assigned number appears. Little mail has surfaced in
the U S from the several hundred American P.0.W.s interned at Camp 5B for
almost two years.
Sacks of mail, duly censored but undistributed to the P.O.W.s, were
"liberated" by occupying American forces and quite a few pieces have
appeared over the years in the market via stamp dealers directly or through
postal and military history auctions.
LIBERATION
The Camp No. 5B internees were declared free on or about August 21, 1945,
but they left by train for Tokyo on September 5, 1945. Some were flown to
Manila and others were transported on naval vessels to San Francisco with
stops at Guam and Honolulu, Hawaii.
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Emperor Hirohito of Japan |
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General MacArthur and Emperor
Hirohito Post-War |
REFERENCES
“Guest of Hirohito” - Kenneth Cambon, M.D., 1990
“Locations and Strengths of P.0.W. Camps and Civilian Assembly Centers in
Japan and Japanese Occupied Territories” - U.S.M.I.D. 7/1/45
Correspondence with Former Niigata Camp No. 5B P.0.W.s
RF/M Kenneth Cambon, 1st Batt. , Royal Rifles of Canada - Vancouver, B.C.,
Canada - May 1991
Pfc. Wm. H. Been, "H" Co , 2nd Batt., 4th Marine Reg’t. - Las Vegas, Nev. -
Feb. 1978
Pvt. Paul R. Fleming, 21st Pursuit Sqdn (Int.), U.S. Air Corps - Vale, Ore.
- August 1988 |
