This blog is based on nostalgia and facts, although it could not be verified who made the cards.
However, the photos in the blog are of a real deck of cards that were made by one or more prisoners in Japanese captivity, it is not known where exactly though, and who made them. They were stored in a box, which must have been used later to store the cards. The box originally contained American-made playing cards that were sent as gifts to American soldiers and prisoners of war by the American Red Cross. The shipments were dated on the boxes. This shipment was from the stated date in 1944. The cards must have been made in 1942 when the Japanese camps still had a regime in which this was allowed. Later it was banned.
Picture of the deck of cards below was stored in a white cardboard box with a blue diamond pattern. The cards s are drawn and colored by hand. Some have images related to Camp Vught, in the Netherlands: including the Ace of Spades, the main building and the prison of the camp; on the Ace of Clubs the Roman Catholic Church of the camp, and on the Jack of Spades the ‘Jack’ is a camp guard in a barbed wire frame.
The nostalgia bit I was referring to is about a song I heard a lot when I was still a kid, the song was called “Deck of Cards,” but the version I would be familiar with was the Dutch version “Een Spel Kaarten” it was one of my mother’s favorite songs. Some of you might know it. “The Deck of Cards” is a recitation song that was popularized in the fields of both country and popular music, first during the late 1940s. This song, which relates the tale of a young American soldier arrested and charged with playing cards during a church service, first became a hit in the U.S. in 1948 by country musician T. Texas Tyler, and many others like Tex Ritter and Jim Reeves.
These are the lyrics:
“During the North African campaign, a bunch of soldier boys had been on a long hike and they arrived in a little town called Cascina. The next morning being Sunday, several of the boys went to Church. A sergeant commanded the boys in Church and after the Chaplain had read the prayer, the text was taken up next.
Those of the boys who had a prayer book took them out, but this one boy had only a deck of cards, and so he spread them out. The Sergeant saw the cards and said, “Soldier put away those cards.” After the service was over, the soldier was taken prisoner and brought before the Provost Marshall.
The Marshall said, “Sergeant, why have you brought the man here?” “For playing cards in church, Sir.” “And what have you got to say for yourself, son?” “Much, Sir.” Replied the soldier. The Marshall said, “I hope so, for if not I shall punish you more than any man was ever punished.”
The soldier said, “Sir, I’ve been on the march for about six days, I had neither Bible nor prayer book, but I hope to satisfy you, Sir, with the purity of my intentions.”
With that, the boy started his story:
You see Sir, when I look at the “ACE”, it reminds me that there is but one God; And the “DEUCE” reminds me that the Bible is divided into two parts; The Old and the New Testaments;
And when I see the “TREY”, I think of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost;
And when I see the “FOUR,” I think of the four Evangelists who preached the Gospel. There were Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John;
And when I see the “FIVE”, it reminds me of the five wise virgins who trimmed their lamps. There were ten of them, five were wise and were saved. Five were foolish and were shut out;
And when I see the “SIX,” it reminds me that in six days, God made this great heaven and earth;
When I see the “SEVEN,” it reminds me that on the seventh day, God rested from His great work;
And when I see the “EIGHT”, I think of the eight righteous persons God saved when He destroyed this earth. There was Noah, his wife, their three sons and their wives; And when I see the “NINE”, I think of the lepers our Saviour cleansed. And nine out of the ten didn’t even thank Him.
When I see the “TEN,” I think of the Ten Commandments God handed down to Moses on a table of stone;
When I see the “KING”, it reminds me that there is but one King of Heaven, God Almighty;
And when I see the “QUEEN,” I think of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who is Queen of Heaven;
And the “JACK” or “KNAVE” is the Devil;
When I count the number of spots on a deck of cards, I find 365, the number of days in a year; There are 52 cards, the number of weeks in a year; There are 4 suits, the number of weeks in a month; There are 12 picture cards, the number of months in a year; There are 13 tricks, the number of weeks in a quarter; So you see, Sir, my pack of cards serves me as a Bible, Almanac and Prayer Book.
And friends, this is a true story, because I was that soldier.”
The song may possibly have been inspired by a sermon by a preacher in the late 1800’s.
This is the song:
This is the Dutch version, which is strangely enough one minute longer.
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I am not sure if this was a case of friendly fire. In my opinion, it should be considered a war crime by the Japanese Imperial Navy for not marking the ship accordingly as POW and civilian transport.
The attack on the Dorish Maru occurred on the night of February 6, 1944. The ship, commanded by the Imperial Japanese Army, was used as a passenger and cargo ship and was armed with anti-aircraft guns. On February 5, 1944, more than 100 missionaries and civilian prisoners came aboard as Dorish Maru anchored in Hansa Bay. On the night of February 6, the ship left for Kairiru, an island in Papua New Guinea. There were no markings or flags indicating that civilian prisoners were on board. An American aircraft attacked the boat off the coast of Turubu. Among the dead were Bishop Wolf, 27 sisters, seven priests, 14 brothers, 28 nuns and seven others. The damaged ship managed to reach the port of Wewak. That evening, the Dorish Maru left with the survivors and arrived in Humbolt Bay on February 8, 1944.
Bishop Franz Wolf
A survivor, Father John Tschauder, SVD, wrote in his diary what happened on that day when the “Dorish Maru” set out from Hansa Bay on the north coast of New Guinea. From his diary, the following eye-witness account tells a remarkable story:
IT WAS DARK when the “Dorish Maru” put to sea. The ship had scarcely moved out of Hansa Bay, however, when she slowed down and went in close to the shore. The Japanese did not tell us the reason, but we knew. The air was not clear.
It was an hour or more before the ship resumed its course. We noticed with great satisfaction and relief that she was going fast. Tomorrow, about 7 o’clock, we reckoned, we could be in the protection of Kairiru Island.
Down near the bridge it was quiet. I was there with Bishop Wolf and as couple of other confreres. We scarcely said a word.
I watched the moon. It was nearly half-moon and so dangerously clear. In vain I searched for a dark cloud which would mercifully obscure it. I would not have minded another six hours’ tropical downpour. But there was no such hope. Only veils of thin clouds floated peacefully in the sky, with the moon casting a hazy light through them, clearly outlining the bridge and superstructure of the “Dorish Maru”. There were no rain clouds in sight. Nothing but these flimsy wisps of clouds! I was very disappointed.
Man is like this. Disappointed in one hope, he casts around for another. So I figured out about what time the peaceful wanderer in the sky would go down yonder behind New Guinea’s mountains. There was no hope there, either.
Nothing could be seen of the promised escort, although they had talked of 30 planes. Once, however, I thought I saw a plane flying with the boat, and I felt greatly relieved. But what I had taken for navigating lights turned out to be two twinkling stars. No help could be expected from those who had promised us every help and to do their utmost to “protect” us. No mercy could be hoped for from a patrolling plane once it had spied its victim. I said the Rosary. Five times the beads glided through my fingers. My ever-recurring prayer was: “Good Lord, please, let there be no attack on the boat; no bombs on her that carries so precious a cargo.” I turned to the Little Flower, the patron saint of all missionaries. I remembered how she had once saved a group of China missionaries from certain death in a watery grave. I have never been a fervent devotee of hers, I regret to say, but this did not embarrass me just then when I found myself in so terrible a danger. I knew that Saint Therese would help even those who could not number themselves among her special devotees. Kindness always seems greatest when one least expects it. Moreover, the Little Flower did not make any conditions when she promised her help for the missionaries.
Midnight! The sea and sky were peaceful and quiet. For moments my thoughts were carried away from the present; my anxieties lulled by the rhythmic throbbing of the engine and the soft, soughing sea, as the boat ploughed its way along.
Deep in my heart there dwelled but one hope; that the “Dorish Maru” would make Kairiru before daybreak. From the depth of my heart there rose but one prayer: Lord, save us! Every beat of my heart throbbed out but one winged wish: to make our boat go ever faster.
Then it happened. All of a sudden the siren screamed. Gone were the peace and the calm which had prevailed until a moment ago! A great commotion ensued. “What is it? Is it an air-raid?” Quickly the instruction came: “Lie down!”
The soldiers were ready for action. With rifles pointed skywards, they stood densely packed on the foredeck. Their response to the call of the siren was that of a soldier. They stood by their guns. “Be ready for action!” it meant for them. “Be ready for death!” it mean for us. We lay down. I wished to know what the boat’s chances were. Still we heard and saw nothing of any intruder. A good while passed whilst we lay on the deck in odd and awkward positions, full of apprehensions. I thought I had discovered an ideal place, at least as far as concerned my head, which, with much consideration I had stuck between the buttresses of the bulwarks. If only my head, the most precious part of my body, were safe, I cared not for the other parts which, inwardly, I had already given up!
Then it came! Suddenly the plane was over the boat. I can still hear the order yelled thorough a megaphone from the bridge, harsh and cruel; “Fire!” The ship almost reared out of the water when a bomb crashed down right near the bow. The cannon bellowed, the machine-guns spattered a hail of bullets and the rifles cracked at the monster, which almost flattened us to the deck as it swooped overhead and away.
That was the first round of the duel. I cast a quick glance through the scupper at the plane as it pulled out from its run over the “Dorish Maru”. It was a twin-engined craft. For the time being my rosaries were forgotten. It was not all good wishes I sent after the plane. That bomb! Hadn’t it been near enough! Where would we have been had it struck home squarely on the bow?
But the fight wasn’t over yet. The Japanese knew the story. The enemy would come back for another run over the victim, which frantically zig-zagged at full speed through the sea. And the plane did come back!
About ten minutes had elapsed when the same order came again: “Fire!” Again the cannon bellowed, the machine-guns spattered, and the rifles rattled. Again the deafening detonation. This time the bomb exploded in the sea on the portside, amidships. That one was very close, I thought, as fragments of metal crashed against the hull, and a very big one struck the bulwarks precisely where I had stuck my head between the buttresses. The terrific blow against my head made myriads of stars dance before my eyes. The water surged and splashed on board. That was the second round. My thought was: “Wish it would never come back!”
Yet, it did come back. It took longer though. I saw the plane flying back towards the coast and then turning in for the third attack. Over 10 minutes elapsed: then the same command rasped out from the bridge. Again, cannon, machine-gun and rifle went into furious action. Again, a bomb (or was it two?) crashed down and missed the “Dorish Maru”. The plane stormed over at almost mast-top height – we sensed the pressure of its wings. But it was the last flight; the cannon fired one single shot after it, and that struck home. There was great excitement and triumphant shouts from the Japanese, “Senso banzai!” (Long live war!)
The American plane had been hit and down it went into the sea, blazing fiercely. I did not see it myself, but others saw it.
The American, of course, did not know, and could not know of our being aboard. But, nevertheless, one of his bombs squarely on the “Dorish Maru” would have sent us all into a watery grave.
The “Dorish Maru” with her extraordinary cargo proceeded on her journey. We all were safe and sound and very much alive; nay, more alive and excited after such an adventure. The atmosphere of tense expectation had vanished. “My word, this teaches one to pray!” someone said.
Our excitement did not prevail; it soon gave way to a mood of disappointment as daybreak came nearer. The “Dorish Maru” was too slow for us. The rising sun should find us in Wewak Harbour or in the shelter of Kairiru Island.
When the plane had attacked, the boat was perhaps off the mouth of the Sepik River. The attack had delayed her and put her off her course. At daybreak we saw Turubu, and then Wewak. Kairiru was a long way off.
Our spirits drooped. We knew what was in store for us. Time dragged, and slowly the boat plodded on. The Japanese soldiers were ready; they were very quiet. I was restless, and changed my place several time.
Towards 8 am Kairiru loomed up closer, and on our left Wirui Mission of the Holy Cross greeted us. The great residence of our Regional still stood there on the mountain’s crest. Holy Cross Mission! Was it to be our Calvary! For a while we wondered where our confreres from Wewak were now. We exchanged our opinions concerning their whereabouts. The last thing I noticed was another ship near Kairiru burning fiercely. Then I saw, with terror gripping me, 12 planes heading for our little “Dorish Maru”, their second victim for that day. The order came to lie down. Twelve planes against our little boat! This was the end of her and our end, too.
Again I changed my place. This time I found myself under the mast. On one side I was protected by a strong steel plate, it was as thick as my thumb, in front of me were the winches; a reasonably safe place, I thought. Four of us were huddling there under the mast and bridge.
I do not know how it happened. They say that the first plane flew over the boat without making an attack. But then the real grim thing began. Bombs rained down and shook the ship as plane after plane, in quick succession came over the unfortunate “Dorish Maru”, each one releasing a hall of machine-gun bullets and shells. Thousands splashed harmlessly into the say; but all too many struck the boat and passengers. But the ack ack gun worked furiously, and the machine guns and rifles of the soldiers rattled in reply to the fire of each on-coming plane. Several crews of the ack ack gun were wiped out, but there were always others to take over. The air was filled with smoke and dust, while bullets whistled and whined.
I was in terrified. I think all of us were. Right at the beginning I felt a trickle of warm blood running down my face. I had the same feeling on my back and my legs, and something very hot stung me in my right hand. It was only then that I realized that I was hurt. I saw the blood running from a cut in the back of my hand. I prayed. There was nothing I could do but expect death. I remember that I called my mother several time. I thought of her far away. I had not heard of her for five years. Was she with me? Did she know?
Whenever a plane had made its run over the stricken boat, there was a short spell, until the next was ready to follow in. I looked straight in the face of the first ones to come over, terrible and cruel things they were as they roared over the “Dorish Maru”, with their wings almost touching the masthead. Instinctively, my head went down. Then came a terrific bang right at my ear, and again I felt the same warm trickle of blood. Only afterwards, when all was over, did I realize how narrow an escape I had. A bullet had grazed the back of my head, torn away a piece of skin, and pierced a neat hole clean through the steel plate against which I had been leaning.
At my side a confrere lay. He prayed and moaned, then he asked for General Absolution. In the face of an almost certain death, I nevertheless could find the words which mean so much to a person in agony. I saw someone else with blood all over his face. “I am hurt!” he muttered from below the winch, under which he had taken shelter.
In the brief respites between the attacks, one could hear the prayers of the survivors, the fain moans of the wounded and dying, and the shrill cries of terrified children filling the air, until the next plane dived on the “Dorish Maru”, silencing the prayers of many, drowning the moans of the wounded and the shrill cries of the children. It was horrible. Then it stopped. After, perhaps, a quarter of an hour of hell, the attack was broken off. The last plane came over the boat, the doors of the bomb-bay swung open but it did not release its cargo. This was fortunate, because the ack-ack gun had become hammed and was silent. A cry of immense relief arose from the survivors. We stood up: that is, those of us who could. The American planes roared away, and shortly afterwards a small formation of Japanese fighters flew over.
I was still half deaf, and my sight was dimmed by the blood in my eye. But I was alive! Alive after such an ordeal! To be alive among so many dead. To be able to stand up, to move about, amidst so many who could not, or who never would be able to move again. It looked like a miracle. Apart from the bullet graze, I had only shrapnel wounds. My coat, however, showed well over a dozen holes.
But it appeared worse that it was in reality. I felt no pain, except in the left leg. A piece of shrapnel had struck me on the shin, and so walking was neither easy nor painless. My right hand also soon swelled enormously; but it was nothing compared with what others had suffered, and were still suffering.
A confrere lay in his corner unconscious, and moaning loudly. I gave him General Absolution. I talked to him, gripping his shoulders. But no sign of any response came from him. He was wounded in his chest. There was a steady trickle of blood coming from his lungs.
A doctor, who, almost miraculously or, at least providentially, had escaped serious injury, rushed from person to person. He took a glance at a priest, called him by name, shook him, and then, apparently giving him up already, said in a tearful voice: “May God have mercy on you!”Another priest emerged. He had suffered only light scratches from the shrapnel. We greeted each other and I said, “I fear that we have at least 50 killed.” These words proved to be only too true. There were 60 of the evacuees killed outright.
But we did not stand about numb and dazed. With amazing swiftness, the survivors awoke to the situation. Soon after the attack the boat was reported on fire, both in the hatch and aft. The fire, however, was quelled immediately.
Then another more terrible report came suddenly: “The ship is sinking!” I did not know whether she really was, but preparing for an emergency, I put on my Life-belt. A Japanese soldier, although wounded himself, with a bullet in his shin, limped towards the Sisters, using his rifle as a crutch. He showed real sympathy for the poor Sisters. Although in pain himself, he gave emergency instructions to the women.
But the stricken “Dorish Maru” was able to crawl into Wewak Harbour, though very slowly. She was still going under her own power, though only at half or quarter speed. The Japanese assured us that help would soon arrive from Wewak.
Then we saw a launch, carrying ambulance personnel, coming out, speeding to our ship’s rescue. There were helping hands everywhere. The Japanese threw bandages over to us. They were quite eager to cut off the bundle of bandages which they wore on their belts. Members of the ambulance went amongst the dying, administering injections of morphine or anti-tetanus serum – I wasn’t sure which it was, but we thought it was Morphine – to soothe the pains of those in agony, but to which some of us protested. The priests went around assisting the dying. There were not many of them, but all the wounded were given the Sacrament of Extreme Unction.
I went and looked around. Never in my life shall I forget that gruesome and ghastly picture of death. Blood was everywhere, rivulets of it running down the deck, the blood of missionaries, sisters, priests and brothers. One had pieces of another ’s brain on his head, which looked as if it had been frightfully smashed up.
But a most terrible sight met my eye on the hatch cover, where the sisters had been. Well, indeed, could one say “had been”, for most of the sisters were dead or mortally wounded; 27 out of a total of 48 had been killed outright! How I wish this ghastly picture to stand for all eternity before the eyes of all those who advocate indiscriminate bombing!
And there were many more maimed, torn and mutilated. Death has so far exacted its heaviest toll from the sisters. Both sisters superior were dead, one with her head literally severed from her body. She was identified only by the number on her stockings. Bullets had smashed her head to pieces. And yet, at the same time, it was cause for sheer wonder that in such carnage some sisters had escaped without receiving even a scratch.
One sister lived for a while, and she was heard saying, “I have had enough!” Yes, she had had enough; a chalice brimful of sufferings, both physical and spiritual.
War rolled over the Mission of New Guinea, destroying everything in its path. She was helplessly adrift, like a frail craft loosened from its moorings
Bishop Wolf also had suffered mortal wounds – a bullet had smashed his collar-bone, and torn into his lungs – but he bore his pain with heroic courage and patience. In the midst of the attack he had given General Absolution to all of us. When it was over, he handed his pectoral cross over, that it might be kissed by those in their last agony. Then, realizing his serious condition, he made arrangements for the future of the mission. Next to the Bishop lay a dead priest, a veteran of 30 years work in the mission. He lay on his face, two bullets, at least, had pierced his breast. Blood came running in rivulets from under his body.
Not far away I found a confrere who used to worry so much that in order to save the property of the mission he would pick up a rusty nail from the road and throw it into the sea, lest the Japanese make use of it. (“Zeal for Thy house hath consumed me!”) He was consumed himself by repeated malaria attacks; but still he would carry on, desperately clinging to his school and pupils, in spite of all adversities from the Japanese, among whom he passed as, “Man no good-oh true!” His worries over now, he had found peace at last.
John Tschauder SVD”
John Tschauder, a member of PNG Province, was well-known to conferes in Australia during the last years of his life. The naming of our Box Hill Formation House, “Dorish Maru College”, was of particular significance to him. It stands as a constant reminder to us of what happened to our confreres, the Holy Spirit Missionary Sisters and the other passengers on board the ship on that fateful day, sixty years ago.
Among the victims were three Dutch Missionaries:
Brother Theodorus Jacobus van der Meer.
After primary school, Theo went to work as a sailor with his father, who was a skipper. At the age of 18, Theo went to the SVD (The Society of the Divine Word)monastery in Uden as a postulant. From there he continued to the Mission House in Teteringen. In 1920 he took his first vows. On 7- November 1922, he was appointed to New Guinea as captain of a mission boat yet to be built. He therefore went to the Maritime School in Den Helder, the Netherlands. On December 19, 1925, he left for Papua New Guinea to Alexishafen. From there he sailed to remote mission posts with his boat the “Stella Maris”. With the arrival of the Japanese in December 1942, he was interned. At the end of 1943, he was transferred to the island of Manas. There were 130 missionaries there. When the Allies approached, the prisoners of war were evacuated with the Japanese ship the Yorishime Maru. The Europeans renamed it Dorish Maru. The ship was shot at by American aircraft on 6-2-1944. The prisoners lying on the deck became target practice and a huge massacre followed. Brother Jacobus was also fatally struck. A total of 59 dead were landed in Kairiru and there were also 40 injured.
Sister Maria Elisabeth Frericks
Maria Frericks (nickname Marietje) was born in 1899 in Stokkum, the Netherlands. She attended primary school in ‘s-Heerenberg. After primary school, she started working as a maid at the age of 13. In 1919 she joined the Blue Sisters in Uden, where she trained as a missionary sister. She was professed on July 2, 1921, and in October 1921 she started working in the sanatorium in Horn. On December 4, 1924, she left for Papua New Guinea. She goes to work on the island of Mana. She too was interned by the Japanese and then transported on the Dorish Maru, where she also was killed on that fateful night.
Sister Elisabeth M.M. van Velzen
Elisabeth, nickname Bep, was born in 1908 in Maasland, the Netherlands. Her father was a small farmer and milk vendor. They were not well off. An older sister Keetje joined the Augustinians and a younger sister joined the Sisters of Charity from Tilburg. And a younger brother Nicolaas joined the Trappists. Elisabeth joined the Servants of the Holy Spirit in Baexem in 1928 and started her novitiate in 1929 in Uden. She was given the monastic name Alquirina. She took her eternal vows on 10 June 1937 in Baexem. She left for Papua New Guinea on October 5, 1937, to Alexishafen. She worked in the kitchen and laundry. From there she was transferred to the more northern town of Mugil. With the arrival of the Japanese in December 1942, she became a prisoner of war. When the Allies approached, the prisoners of war were evacuated with the Japanese ship the Dorish Maru, where she too was killed.
SVD Box Hill Formation House was renamed Dorish Maru College in honour of this ship.
I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of $2, however if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thank you.
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Just 10 words, but with such significance. A hurried dispatch from the ranking United States naval officer in Pearl Harbor, Admiral Husband Edward Kimmel, Commander in Chief of the United States Pacific Fleet, to all major navy commands and fleet units provided the first official word of the attack at the ill-prepared Pearl Harbor base. It said simply: AIR RAID ON PEARL HARBOR X THIS IS NOT DRILL.
One aspect, often forgotten fact, was submarines were also involved in the attack, although not so much in combatant capacity.
Fleet submarines I-16, I-18, I-20, I-22, and I-24 each embarked a Type A midget submarine for transport to the waters off Oahu.
The five I-boats left Kure Naval District on November 25, 1941. On December 6, they came within 10 mi (19 km; 12 mi) of the mouth of Pearl Harbor and launched their midget subs at about 01:00 local time on December 7. At 03:42 Hawaiian time, the minesweeper Condor spotted a midget submarine periscope southwest of the Pearl Harbor entrance buoy and alerted the destroyer, Ward. The midget may have entered Pearl Harbor. However, Ward sank another midget submarine at 06:3 in the first American shots in the Pacific Theater. A midget submarine on the north side of Ford Island missed the seaplane tender Curtiss with her first torpedo and missed the attacking destroyer Monaghan with her other one before being sunk by Monaghan at 08:43.
USS Curtis
A third midget submarine, Ha-19, grounded twice, once outside the harbour entrance and again on the east side of Oahu, where it was captured on December 8. Ensign Kazuo Sakamaki swam ashore and was captured by Hawaii National Guard Corporal David Akui, becoming the first Japanese prisoner of war.
A fourth had been damaged by a depth charge attack and was abandoned by its crew before it could fire its torpedoes. It was found outside the harbour in 1960. Japanese forces received a radio message from a midget submarine at 00:41 on December 8, claiming damage to one or more large warships inside Pearl Harbor.
Also, on December 8, in an address to a joint session of Congress, President Franklin Roosevelt called December 7, 1941, “…a date which will live in infamy…” Congress then declared war on Japan, abandoning the nation’s isolationism policy and ushering the United States into World War II. Within days, Japan’s allies, Germany and Italy, declared war on the United States, and the country began a rapid transition to a wartime economy by building up armaments in support of military campaigns in the Pacific, North Africa, and Europe.
Isoroku Yamamoto was a Marshal Admiral of the Imperial Japanese Navy and the commander-in-chief of the Combined Fleet during World War II. He believed Japan could not win a protracted war with the United States. Moreover, later he seemed to believe that the Pearl Harbor attack had been a blunder strategically, morally, and politically, even though he was the person who originated the idea of a surprise attack on the military installation. He is often misquoted as having said, “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”
But a sleeping giant did they awake out of a slumber.
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While the world is remembering the 60th Anniversary of the Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. I want to focus on a different aspect of JFK, his time during World War II. Specifically, his time on PT 109.
“The President of the United States takes pleasure in presenting the NAVY and MARINE CORPS MEDAL to/ LIEUTENANT JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY UNITED STATES NAVAL RESERVE/ for service as set forth in the following/ CITATION:/ ‘For extremely heroic conduct as Commanding Officer of Motor Torpedo Boat 109 following the collision and sinking of that vessel in the Pacific War Area of August 1-2, 1943. Unmindful of personal danger, Lieutenant (then Lieutenant, Junior Grade) Kennedy unhesitatingly braved the difficulties and hazards of darkness to direct rescue operations, swimming many hours to secure aid and food after he had succeeded in getting his crew ashore. His outstanding courage, endurance and leadership contributed to the saving of several lives and were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.’/ For the President,/ James Forrestal/ Secretary of the Navy.”
The text above is the citation for the Navy and Marine Corps Medal awarded to John F. Kennedy.
On 29 May 1917, JFK was born of Irish descent in Brookline, Massachusetts. After graduating from Harvard in 1940, he entered the Navy. Despite having a bad back, JFK used his father’s (Joseph P. Kennedy) influence to get into the war. He started out in October 1941 as an ensign with a desk job for the Office of Naval Intelligence. Kennedy was reassigned to South Carolina in January 1942. On 27 July 1942, Kennedy entered the Naval Reserve Officers Training School in Chicago.
In 1943, when his PT boat was rammed and sunk by a Japanese destroyer, Kennedy, despite grave injuries, led the survivors through perilous waters to safety.
PT-109 was a PT boat (Patrol Torpedo boat) last commanded by Lieutenant, junior grade (LTJG) John F. Kennedy in the Pacific Theater during World War II. Kennedy’s actions to save his surviving crew after the sinking of PT-109 made him a war hero, which proved helpful in his political career.
PT-109 stood at her station, one of fifteen PT boats that had set out to engage, damage, and maybe even turn back the well-known “Tokyo Express.” US forces gave that name to the Japanese navy’s more or less regular supply convoy to soldiers fighting the advance of US forces in the islands farther south.
When the patrol actually came into contact with the Tokyo Express—three Japanese destroyers acting as transports with a fourth serving as escort—the encounter did not go well. Thirty torpedoes were fired without damaging the Japanese ships. No US vessels suffered hits or casualties. Boats that had used up their complement of torpedoes were ordered home. The few that still had torpedoes remained in the strait for another try.
Lieutenant John F. Kennedy’s encounter with a Japanese destroyer on the night of 1 August 1943 may be the most famous small-craft engagement in naval history, and it was an unmitigated disaster.
At a later date, when asked to explain how he had come to be a hero, Kennedy replied laconically, “It was involuntary. They sank my boat.”
To understand the events of August 1–2, 1943, which culminated in the sinking of PT-109, it is important to remember that it was dark—deeply, unrelievedly dark. The disorienting effect, even for experienced sailors, of a moonless, starless night on the ocean should not be underestimated. In this profound darkness, PT-109 stood at her station in Blackett Strait, south of Kolombangara in the Solomon Islands, one of the remnants of an operation born into futility, the heir to bad planning and worse communication.
The destroyer, later identified as the Amagiri, struck PT 109 just forward of the forward starboard torpedo tube, ripping away the starboard aft side of the boat.
The impact tossed Kennedy around the cockpit. Most of the crew were knocked into the water. The one man below decks, engineer Patrick McMahon, miraculously escaped, although he was badly burned by exploding fuel.
When PT-109 was cut in two around 2:27 a.m., a fireball of exploding aviation fuel 100-foot-high (30 m) caused the sea surrounding the ship to flame. Seamen Andrew Jackson Kirksey and Harold William Marney were killed instantly, and two other members of the crew were badly injured and burned when they were thrown into the flaming sea surrounding the boat. For such a catastrophic collision, explosion, and fire, there were few men lost compared to the losses on other PT boats hit by shell fire. PT-109 was gravely damaged, with watertight compartments keeping only the forward hull afloat in a sea of flames.
PT-169, closest to Kennedy’s craft, launched two torpedoes that missed the destroyer, and PT-162’s torpedoes failed to fire at all. Both boats turned away from the scene of action and returned to base without checking for survivors of PT-109. There had been no procedure outlined by Commander Warfield on searching for survivors or what the PT flotilla should do in case a ship was lost. In the words of Captain Robert Bulkley, a naval historian, “This was perhaps the most confused and least effectively executed action the PTs had been in. Eight PTs fired 30 torpedoes. The only confirmed results were the loss of PT-109 and damage to the Japanese destroyer Amagiri.”
Fear that PT 109 would go up in flames drove Kennedy to order the men who still remained on the wreck to abandon the ship. But the destroyer’s wake dispersed the burning fuel, and when the fire began to subside, Kennedy sent his men back to what was left of the boat. From the wreckage, Kennedy ordered the men with him, Edgar Mauer and John E. Maguire, to identify the locations of their crew mates still in the water. Leonard Thom, Gerard Zinser, George Ross, and Raymond Albert were able to swim back on their own.
Kennedy swam out to McMahon and Charles Harris. Kennedy towed the injured McMahon by a life-vest strap and alternately cajoled and berated the exhausted Harris to get him through the challenging swim. Meanwhile, Thom pulled in William Johnston, who was debilitated by the gasoline he had accidentally swallowed and the heavy fumes that lay atop the water. Finally, Raymond Starkey swam in from where he had been flung by the shock. Floating on and around the hulk, the crew took stock.
Kennedy had been on the swim team at Harvard; even towing McMahon by a belt clamped in his teeth, he was undaunted by the distance. Some were good swimmers, but several men were not. And two, Johnston and Mauer, could not swim at all. These last two were lashed to a plank, and the other seven men pulled and pushed as they could.
Kennedy arrived first at the island. It was named Plum Pudding, but the men called it “Bird” Island because of the guano that coated the bushes. Exhausted, Kennedy had to be helped up the beach by the man he had towed. He collapsed and waited for the rest of the crew. But Kennedy’s swimming was not over.
Plum Pudding Island was only 100 yards (91 m) in diameter, with no food or water. The exhausted crew dragged themselves behind the tree line to hide from passing Japanese barges. The night of 2 August, Kennedy swam 2 miles (3.2 km) to Ferguson Passage to attempt to hail a passing American PT boat. On 4 August, he and Lenny Thom assisted his injured and hungry crew on a demanding swim 3.75 miles (6.04 km) south to Olasana Island which was visible to all from Plum Pudding Island. They swam against a strong current, and once again, Kennedy towed McMahon by his life vest. They were pleased to discover Olasana had ripe coconuts, though there was still no fresh water.[46] On the following day, 5 August, Kennedy and George Ross swam for one hour to Naru Island, visible at an additional distance of about .5 miles (0.80 km) southeast, in search of help and food and because it was closer to Ferguson Passage where Kennedy might see or swim to a passing PT boat on patrol. Kennedy and Ross found a small canoe, packages of crackers and candy, and a fifty-gallon drum of drinkable water left by the Japanese, which Kennedy paddled back to Olasana in the acquired canoe to provide his crew. It was then that Kennedy first spoke to native Melanesian coast watchers Biuku Gasa and Eroni Kumana on Olasana Island. Months earlier, Kennedy had learned a smattering of the pidgin English used by the coast watchers by speaking with a native boy. The two coast watchers had finally been convinced by Ensign Thom that the crew were from the lost PT-109, when Thom asked Gasa if he knew John Kari, and Gasa replied that he worked with him. Realizing they were with Americans, the coast watchers brought a few yams, vegetables, and cigarettes from their dugout canoe and vowed to help the starving crew. But it would take two more days for a full rescue.
The next morning was 6 August. Kennedy returned with Gasa and Kumana to Naru. As he was swimming back, he intercepted Ross along the way. The islanders showed the two Americans where a boat had been hidden on Naru. Kennedy was at a loss for a way to send a message, but Gasa demonstrated how to scratch a few words into the husk of a green coconut.
Gasa and Kumana left with the message—
NAURO ISL COMMANDER . . . NATIVE KNOWS POS’IT . . . HE CAN PILOT . . . 11 ALIVE NEED SMALL BOAT . . . KENNEDY
As they waited for a rescue, Kennedy insisted on taking the 2-man canoe with Ross into Ferguson Passage. Heavy seas swamped the canoe and battered the men. They barely made it back to Naru. Eight islanders appeared the next morning, 7 August, shortly after Kennedy and Ross awoke. They brought food and instructions from the local Allied coastwatcher, Lt. A. Reginald Evans, who instructed Kennedy to come to Evans’s post.
Stopping long enough at Olasana to feed the crew, the islanders hid Kennedy under a pile of palm fronds, paddling him to Gomu Island in Blackett Strait. Early in the evening of 7 August, a little more than six days after the sinking of PT-109, Kennedy stepped onto Gomu. There was still a rescue to be planned with Evans, no small thing in enemy-held waters, but the worst of the ordeal of PT 109 was over.
Evans already notified his commander of the discovery of survivors from PT-109, and the base commander proposed sending a rescue mission directly to Olasana. Kennedy insisted on being picked up first so he could guide the rescue boats, PT 157 and PT 171, among the reefs and shallows of the island chain.
Late on the night of August 7, the boats met Kennedy at the rendezvous point, exchanging a prearranged signal of four shots. Kennedy’s revolver was down to only three rounds, so he borrowed a rifle from Evans for the fourth. Standing up in the canoe to give the signal, Kennedy did not anticipate the rifle’s recoil, which threw him off balance and dumped him in the water. A soaking wet and thoroughly exasperated Navy lieutenant climbed aboard PT 157.
The PT boats crossed Blackett Strait under Kennedy’s direction. They eased up to Olasana Island early in the morning of August 8. The exhausted men of PT 109 were all asleep. Kennedy began yelling for them, much to the chagrin of his rescuers, who were nervous about the proximity of the Japanese. But the rescue went forward without incident, and the men of PT 109 reached the US base at Rendova at 5:30 a.m. on August 8.
For his courage and leadership, Kennedy was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal, and injuries suffered during the incident also qualified him for a Purple Heart. Ensign Leonard Thom also received the Navy and Marine Corps Medal. But for John F. Kennedy, the event’s consequences were more far-reaching than simple decorations.
The story was picked up by the writer John Hersey, who told it to the readers of The New Yorker and Reader’s Digest. It followed Kennedy into politics and provided a strong foundation for his appeal as a leader.
The coconut shell came into the possession of Ernest W. Gibson, Jr., serving in the South Pacific with the 43rd Infantry Division. Gibson later returned it to Kennedy. Kennedy preserved it in a glass paperweight on his Oval Office desk during his presidency. Presently, it is on display at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, Massachusetts.
As the Nazis did in Europe, the Japanese Imperial Army had concentration camps in the Pacific. The Asian camps were nearly as horrific as the European ones, and the conditions were inhumane, nonetheless.
This is just a side note, but I did notice, while researching, none of the Pacific camps were referred to as camps in occupied countries. For example, the Tjideng camp was stated as being in the Dutch East Indies, not the occupied Dutch East Indies.
For this piece, I am focusing on those camps in the Dutch East Indies (presently named Indonesia).
Throughout East Asia, the Japanese set up concentration camps, also called Jap Camps. The Japanese in the Dutch East Indies detained approximately 42,000 soldiers and 100,000 civilians. Families were separated; the men were placed in different camps from the women and children. Malnutrition, disease, and abuse caused tens of thousands of casualties. More than ten per cent of the Allied citizens (mainly British, American, and Dutch) in Japanese captivity—died.
During the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies from March 1942 to August 1945, Dutch soldiers were interned as prisoners of war in camps at Batavia, Bandoeng, and Tjimahi. The military prisoners of war can be divided into two categories: those who remained in captivity in Java, Sumatra, and Madura, and those who were deported as forced labourers to Thailand, Burma (Myanmar), and Japan. Internment can be further divided into two other categories: civilians and military.
For the Japanese, your status in society did not matter. Among the victims were a great number of Dutch nobility.
The internment by the Japanese of European citizens in the Dutch East Indies was not the same everywhere. In the Outer Regions, quite soon after the occupation began, the entire European civilian population was interned in camps, the men separated from their wives and children.
In Java, the internment issue was more complicated because of the large number of Europeans living there. There, the confinement in camps proceeded in stages. First, in March and April 1942, Dutch civil servants and people from the business community – insofar as they were not necessary for the maintenance of public life – were interned.
In April 1942, all Dutch citizens on Java who were older than 17 years had to register. During registration, a distinction was made between full-blooded Dutch people, the so-called totoks, and Dutch people of mixed descent, the Indo-Europeans or Indos. Almost all of the totoks were eventually interned. The majority of the Indo-Europeans on Java remained free, although many Indonesians also ended up in a camp sooner or later.
Initially, there were large and many small camps scattered all over the archipelago; later the civilian internees were increasingly concentrated in a few very large camps. Urban districts, prisons, barracks, schools, monasteries, and even hospitals were set up as internment camps. Here began a period of internment that would last for many for almost three years or more, during which living conditions deteriorated. Nearly 13,000 people died during the internment.
Tjideng was a camp for women and children during the Second World War, in Batavia (today known as Jakarta, Indonesia).
Batavia came under Japanese control in 1942, and part of the city, called Camp Tjideng, was used for the internment of European (often Dutch) women and children.
Initially, Tjideng was under civilian authority, and the conditions were bearable.
But when the military took over, privileges (such as being allowed to cook for themselves and the opportunity for religious services) were quickly withdrawn. Food preparation was centralised and the quality and quantity of food rapidly declined. Hunger and disease struck, and because no medicines were available, the number of fatalities increased.
The area of Camp Tjideng was over time made smaller and smaller, while it was obliged to accommodate more and more prisoners. Initially, there were about 2,000 prisoners and at the end of the war, there were approximately 10,500, while the territory had been reduced to a quarter of its original size. Every bit of space was used for sleeping, including the unused kitchens and waterless bathrooms.
Former UK Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg’s mother, Hermance, was in Camp Tjideng in Batavia, with her mother and sisters. She remembers having to bow deeply towards Japan at Tenko, “with our little fingers on the side seams of our skirt. If we did not do it properly we were beaten.”
Another punishment, head shaving, was so common that the women would simply wrap a scarf around their bloodied scalp and carry on.
From April 1944, the camp was under the command of Captain Kenichi Sone, who was responsible for many atrocities. After the war, Sone was arrested and sentenced to death on 2 September 1946. The sentence was carried out by a Dutch firing squad in December of that year, after a request for pardon to the Dutch lieutenant governor-general, Hubertus van Mook, was rejected.
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When we hear about the evil during World War 2, it is mostly about the evil committed by the Nazis, and it is important to be reminded of that. However, some acts of the Imperial Japanese Army were just as evil, if not more evil than that of the Nazis.
In 1945, as a first-year student at Kyushu Imperial University’s medical school in southern Japan, Tono became an unwilling witness to atrocities. For a while after the end of the second world war, Toshio Tono could not bear to be in the company of doctors. And the thought of putting on a white coat filled him with dread. Those atrocities, the AWFUL medical experimentation on live American prisoners of war, decades later, continue to provoke revulsion and disbelief in his country and abroad. Tono wanted to shed light on one of the darkest chapters in his country’s modern history, he saw this as a final job.
Below are a few descriptions of what he witnessed.
In early May 1945, a US B-29 Superfortress crashed in northern Kyushu after being rammed by a Japanese fighter plane. The US plane, part of the 29th Bomb Group, 6th Bomb Squadron, had been returning to its base in Guam from a bombing mission against a Japanese airfield. Justin McCurry wrote in The Guardian, “One of the estimated 12 crew died when the cords of his parachute were sliced by another Japanese plane. On landing, another opened fire on villagers before turning his pistol on himself. Local people, incensed by the destruction the B-29s were visiting in Japanese cities, reportedly killed another two airmen on the ground. “The B-29s crews were hated in those days.
“I was in a state of panic, but I couldn’t say anything to the other doctors. We kept being reminded of the misery US bombing raids had caused in Japan. But looking back it was a terrible thing to have happened.”
“The remaining airmen were rounded up by police and placed in military custody in the nearby city of Fukuoka. The squadron’s commander, Marvin Watkins, was sent to Tokyo for questioning. There, Watkins endured beatings at the hands of his interrogators. The prisoners were led to believe they were going to receive treatment for their injuries. But over the following three weeks, they were to be subjected to a depraved form of pathology at the medical school”
“One day two blindfolded prisoners were brought to the school in a truck and taken to the pathology lab. Two soldiers stood guard outside the room. I did wonder if something unpleasant was going to happen to them, but I had no idea it was going to be that awful. Inside, university doctors, at the urging of local military authorities, began the first of a series of experiments that none of the eight victims would survive. They injected one anaesthetised prisoner with seawater to see if it worked as a substitute for sterile saline solution”
“In another experiment, doctors drilled through the skull of a live prisoner. Apparently, to determine if removing some part of the brain could treat epilepsy.”
“Medical staff preserved the POWs’ corpses in formaldehyde for future use by students, but at the end of the war, the remains were quickly cremated, as doctors attempted to hide evidence of their crimes. When later questioned by US authorities, they claimed the airmen had been transferred to camps in Hiroshima and had died in the atomic bombing on 6 August. On the afternoon of 15 August, hours after the emperor had announced Japan’s surrender, more than a dozen other American POWs held in Fukuoka camps were taken to a mountainside execution site and beheaded.”
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Sunday, December 7, 1941, 6:50 a.m. Just before 7 a.m., hundreds of Japanese fighter planes descended on the US Naval base in Pearl Harbor, where they managed to destroy or damage nearly 20 American naval vessels, including eight battleships, and over 300 aeroplanes. More than 2,400 Americans died in the attack, including civilians, and another 1,000 people were wounded. The day after the assault, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan.
A few days later people like John Avery Lomax an American teacher, pioneering musicologist, and folklorist went out to conduct so-called “Man on the Street” interviews, today they would be called vox-pops. Among the interviewees was, Lena Jameson. a California woman then visiting her family in Dallas, Texas. He also spoke to Mr Dan Ruggles in Dallas, Texas.
“Man-on-the-Street,” Dallas, Texas, 9 December 1941 AFS 6373A
John Lomax: Mrs Jameson, I’ve just got a telegram from the Library of Congress in Washington and they want the ideas of a few average men and women recorded on their reactions when they heard of the Japanese aggression. These records will be used in the historical record being accumulated in the Library of Congress and possibly for radio broadcasts. Now, will you tell me what you thought when you heard of what the Japanese government had done to the American government?
Mrs Lena Jameson: My first thought was what a great pity that…another nation should be added to those aggressors who strove to limit our freedom. I find myself at the age of eighty, an old woman, hanging on to the tail of the world, trying to keep up. I do not want the driver’s seat. But the eternal verities — there are certain things that I wish to express. One thing that I am very sure of is that hatred is death, but love is life. I want to contribute to the civilization of the world, but I remember that the measure, the burdens of our sympathies is the measure of our civilization. And when I look at the holocaust that is going on in the world today, I’m almost ready to let go of the tail ??? the world. ???
John Lomax: Where is your home, Jameson?
Mrs Lena Jameson: In Redondo Beach, California.
John Lomax: And how long have you lived there?
Mrs Lena Jameson: About twenty years.
John Lomax: And what are you doing out in Texas?
Mrs Lena Jameson: I’m visiting my children whom I’ve often visited before.
John Lomax: Mrs Stilwell, would you like to add something to what your mother has said?
Mrs Jerry Stilwell: Mother, you’ve been living in the neighbourhood where there are a good many Japanese people. Do you think that affects your attitude towards them at all? What is your general impression of the Japanese as a race?
Mrs Lena Jameson: The general impression of the Japanese that I have seen and come in contact with is very different from what my impression would be if I had been in touch with the military division of the Japanese in their native…My impression is modified by what I read and hear of those. My impression of the Japanese as I have seen is that they are a law-abiding and desirable citizen, with exceptions.
John Lomax: Mrs Stilwell, have you anything to add to what your mother has said?
Mrs Jerry Stilwell: Well, of course, my point of view is very different, but my first reaction was that either the Japanese were a very, very conceited race or that they were very, very desperate. Somehow I just can’t believe that a little island like Japan can attack the United States and hope to be successful in the long run.
John Lomax: What are your initials, Mrs Stilwell?
Mrs Jerry Stilwell: Mrs Jerry Stilwell.
John Lomax: This is John Lomax speaking, the last lady on the microphone was Mrs Jerry Stilwell, the daughter of Mrs Lena Jameson who spoke first on this record. This record is made in Dallas, Texas, December the ninth, nineteen hundred and forty-one for the Library of Congress in Washington
“Man-on-the-Street”, Dallas, Texas, December 9, 1941 AFS 6373B Cut B1
John Lomax: I have in my hand here a telegram from the Library of Congress requesting the reactions of some Dallas people on the Japanese aggression. I’d like to know Mr Ruggles how that announcement of what the Japanese were doing to us reacted on you as a World War veteran?
Dan Ruggles: Well, I don’t think this was totally unexpected. Anybody that kept up with news events should have anticipated an attack by Japan. It’s totally in keeping with the methods employed by the totalitarian powers, the unexpectedness of it. And as far as the war with Japan is concerned I think that is something that the informed American public has been expecting to be something that would develop ultimately for a period, say for the past thirty years. More especially during the past ten years. Is that enough?
John Lomax: No. How did you come to that opinion?
Dan Ruggles: Well, that dates . . . there have been friction between the Japanese and the talk of the yellow peril ever since for the past three or four decades. With the invasion of Manchuria in 1931 was the first aggressive step that really led the way as I understand it, have concluded to show Hitler and Mr Mussolini the way.
John Lomax: Well, you think then the Japanese are acting in concert with masters Hitler and Mussolini then as I take it?
Dan Ruggles: Due to their pacts, they are in a way, but the Japanese have always acted primarily for themselves. Their plans as to Asia and the fact that they believe that their domain should extend over the east of the Asiatic [long pause] scope.
John Lomax: Well, what did you first think? What were your first thoughts when you heard of this attack on Americans, Dan? What first came to you?
Dan Ruggles: Well, the first thing that came to me is it was just something that could not be avoided it’s to be expected. We’ve made every effort in the world to avoid it, but it was something that was bound to come owing to the world situation.
John Lomax: Tell us a little about yourself. Who are you?
[Unintelligible woman’s voice in background.]
Dan Ruggles: Well, [laughs] I’m a man that’s really been a newspaper editor most of my life and ???. And I’ve had a keen interest in international affairs and have kept track I guess, I’ve kept with the best of the times. One good fact is that I say that I’ve mainly been employed and editing newspapers and interested in international affairs primarily.
[Unintelligible woman’s voice in the background.]
John Lomax: This is Dan Ruggles that’s just been speaking. Mr Ruggles lives in Forest Hills, Dallas, Texas and has been for many years a newspaper reporter. This interview with Mr Ruggles occurred on December the ninth, 1941 and this recording was made for the Library of Congress in Washington.
Cut B2 John Lomax: Mr Ruggles wishes to add this for the word.
Dan Ruggles: Well, I think that the American people, must not come to a just conclusion either through the early reverse in this war or otherwise that it’s going to be an easy war. The Japanese, naturally, have handicaps due to the Allied forces in the Far East now facing them, but the efficiency of the Japanese military machine has been repeatedly [proven (?)] and they usually have had a very excellent armed force. That was ??? [disc skips] through the testimony of officers, friends of mine, who served with them in the Allied march on Peking.
The Nazis weren’t the only ones using concentration camps, the Japanese Imperial army had them too, although not to the extent as the Nazi camps, and they were not meant for mass extermination. However, the treatment of the prisoners was still brutal and evil.
One of the camps was the Lampersari Prison camp. Lampersari was a civilian camp, located near Lampersariweg and Sompok in the southeast of Semarang. It was in use between October 1942 and August 23, 1945.
The internment of the Dutch women and children in Semarang Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) started in November 1942. They were housed in the Lampersari-Sompok district. In early March 1943, the internment operation in Semarang was almost completed.
Below is an excerpt from the book, All Ships Follow Me by Mieke Eerkens, it illustrates just some of the horrors of the Lampersari prison camp.
Internment Camp Lampersari, Semarang, Dutch East Indies, December 28, 1942
Authority in Lampersari is established immediately. As they enter the camp, some women are pulled from the line, and their suitcases are opened to be searched for contraband: money, Dutch or English printed material, radios, and more. Sjeffie, now eleven years old, watches wide-eyed as the Japanese officers hit mothers with their batons to make them move when they get off the trucks. They shout orders in a language none of the prisoners understand, and when these orders aren’t followed, the flat ends of their sabers come down hard on whomever they happen to reach, sometimes splitting flesh and drawing blood. It’s new violence for most of these children, and a cacophony of cries adds to the chaos. Luckily, Sjeffie’s mother is toward the back of the group of arriving prisoners and escapes injury, though later in the year she will not be so lucky, and her children will have to watch her being beaten to the ground because she doesn’t notice an officer approaching and therefore fails to bow to him in time.
Sjeffie and his mother and little sisters and brother are assigned to a small house on the Hoofd Manggaweg, the Main Mango Road. There are already three families living in the two-bedroom house when they arrive, and they shrink themselves into the corners, hanging a sheet up for privacy. Soon more women and children arrive, truckload after truckload, and Sjeffie and his family contract their spaces repeatedly, compressing more tightly with each new family until 30 people living in the house are crammed into every square inch. Children sleep in drawers, on and under tables, piled in sweaty heaps in the tropical heat. Snoring bodies lie shoulder to shoulder on mats on the floor. One toilet without running water serves all thirty of them in the house, and it soon overflows with human waste. They try to fend off malaria by hanging up klamboes over their sleeping bodies, a necessity in the Indonesian tropics so that the house at night fills with ethereal clouds of hazy mosquito netting from wall to wall. My grandmother keeps a secret diary in the camp, penciled onto onionskin paper hidden in the pages of her Bible.
She addresses her entries to my grandfather throughout her internment:
I am sleeping with the boys in what was once a kitchen…On February 2 the first group arrived [of the 2,000 new internees]…860 people. Until this point, they had been housed in nice, large homes where they had taken care of themselves. There was a lot of hustling and the empty places streamed full…Tomorrow we’ll get another 250 from Soerabaya.
Almost immediately after they arrive in Lampersari, Aunt Ko begins covertly teaching Sjeffie, his siblings, and other boys and girls in the camp from contraband Dutch language textbooks she has smuggled in. Every day, she sets up a little schoolroom in the tiny kampong house while the others clear out and stand watch in case an officer passes and hears them. Sjeffie gets to practice his numbers again. He gets to read, sucking up the words, reading the same books again and again. In one of the houses across the road, he and some other boys have set up a little hidden library under the thatched roof, where they collect their books— Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Hector Malot’s Nobody’s Boy, Cervantes’s Don Quixote, and other books with wide appeal to young boys. Most of the children or their parents have brought pencils and notepads, but very quickly they realize how scarce these things are. “Sjeffie, make sure you write small. Save room on your paper,” Aunt Ko says sternly during class. Aunt Ko is very strict. She’s a religious woman who does not approve of waste or idleness. Sometimes she draws on the dirt floor with a stick so she doesn’t have to waste paper or pencil.
Meals during the first month in the camp are meager but sufficient. The prisoners get small portions, mostly of rice but also of some vegetables and meat in the beginning. The meat lasts only a short time. The vegetables last longer, but they too dwindle after several months. After that, all meals consist of a cup of rice or tapioca porridge twice a day, sometimes once a day. Sjeffie lines up with his mother and siblings with all the other prisoners, holding their tin cups. When they get to the front of the line, their cups are filled from giant pots that the kitchen workers have cooked the rice or porridge. One measured portion per person. Being assigned to work in the kitchen is a coveted job because there are chances to tuck food under one’s shirt, swipe a finger inside the rim of the pot when the officers look away or sneak a second helping.
Lampersari is one of the first camps in Indonesia to be targeted for the infamous “comfort women,” the women specifically selected to be raped by Japanese officers. A recruiter is sent to Lampersari for this task. However, the women hear the rumor about what is about to happen and gather en masse to fight back. They block access and fight fiercely to protect the young mothers and teenage daughters whom the Japanese officers prey upon, forcing the Japanese to abandon Lampersari as a suitable source of comfort women, not worth the trouble after repeated violent beatings only seem to strengthen the prisoners’ resolve to fight back. The Japanese set up two hundred internment camps throughout the Dutch East Indies, and prisoners at the smaller camps were easier to overpower.
The officers who guard them inside the camp quickly get Dutch nicknames. The officers include John the Whacker; Little Ko; Hockey Stick; Pretty Karl; the Bloodhound; the Easter Egg; Bucket Man; Chubby Baby; and Dick and Jane, who patrol together. Seikon Kimura, the man known as John the Whacker, is arguably the most sadistic. He earns his nickname for the way he seems to enjoy striking internees indiscriminately, without warning. When he discovers that a woman in the camp has been hiding money, he confiscates it and punches her in the face. He kicks her in the back until she is unable to stand while her children scream. He has her carried to the center of the camp, where he makes her lay injured in the equatorial sun from morning until evening without water. After the war, the Allied war crimes tribunal sentenced him to death for his human rights violations during the war. He is convicted of “carrying out a systematic reign of terror,” with witnesses at his trial describing his beating of a woman with a piece of wood until her arms broke in several places for sitting down during her work, causing a woman to go permanently deaf after being beaten for thirty minutes for smuggling cigarettes, forcing prisoners to stand in stress positions, withholding water and food, and whipping children until their flesh was in tatters, among other atrocities. Hockey Stick earns his name from the wooden hockey stick he carries with him throughout the camp and uses to take the legs out from under a prisoner. Then he makes them stand up so he can do it again, over and over, laughing every time. The Bloodhound is more selective, but he is capable of beating people into a coma when he does lose his temper.
In September 1944, the Japanese officers announced that the boys on the hill would be transferred out of Lampersari and tell the mothers to say goodbye to their sons, that scab-kneed, lizard-catching children now considered mature enough to do hard labor in a separate camp. The phrase the Japanese use is “men over ten.” As in, “All of the men over ten are hereby reassigned to new camps.” And so with a change of one word, with a relabeling, they justify the transfer.
The women clutch at their sons and weep. They whisper words into their ears as they hug them goodbye, hasty insufficient summaries of all the things that they would have taught them in the remaining years of childhood that now have to be condensed into a few minutes. Sjeffie’s mother tries to remember things to tell him. Wash whenever you can, check for lice and ticks, find a buddy and work as a team, don’t fight, keep practicing your equations, whatever you do just don’t do anything to anger the officers, that’s very important, OK, you have to promise me, can you promise me that? Aunt Ko says, “Say your prayers every day.” Sjeffie’s little sister Doortje hugs him and gives him some coffee. Fien, his youngest sister, hugs his legs, and my father kisses the top of his baby brother Kees’s head. Through the agitated buzz of the Dutch mothers, camp officers shout angry words in Japanese, words like iikagennishiro, teiryuu, shuutai, and hikihanasu, words that tumble into one another and mean nothing to the women until the guards start whacking them with their batons and whips, pulling son from mother and mother from son like starfish from wet rock. Then the boys are marched out of Camp Lampersari as their mothers wail and their younger siblings watch wide-eyed. The cries of Mammie, Mammie rise repeatedly from their midst as they pass through the camp gates, heads swiveling for their last looks back. The newly branded “men” march with their little suitcases banging against their knobby knees for what Sjeffie believes is many hours, along the banana trees and the warungs and the kopi carts. A rumor spreads in low tones through the group as they walk. “I heard they’re taking us to Bangkok.” “Yep, they said they’re taking us to Bangkok. I heard the Jap say it.” “Psst, hey, the word is we’re going to Bangkok.”
“Bangkok! That’s not even in the Indies! I won’t ever see my family again!”
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We have all heard about the experiments conducted by the Nazis during World War II, but relatively little is known about the experiments by the Japanese Imperial Army. More specifically Unit 731.
The unit, also is known as, “Detachment 731” and the “Kamo Detachment.” was a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that engaged in lethal human experimentation and biological weapons manufacturing during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) and World War II.
The unit began as a research unit, investigating the effects of disease and injury on the fighting ability of an armed force. One element of the unit, called “Maruta,” took this research a little further than the usual bounds of medical ethics by observing injuries and the course of disease in living patients.
I will only go into a few of their experiments.
Frostbite Testing: The picture above is of the frostbitten hands of a Chinese person who was taken outside in winter by Unit 731 personnel for an experiment on how best to treat frostbite.
Vivisection: Thousands of men, women, children, and infants interned at prisoner-of-war camps were subjected to vivisection, often performed without anesthesia and usually lethal. In an interview, former Unit 731 member Okawa Fukumatsu admitted to having vivisected a pregnant woman. Vivisections were performed on prisoners after infecting them with various diseases. Researchers performed invasive surgery on prisoners, removing organs to study the effects of disease on the human body.
Venereal Disease: To learn what they needed to know, doctors assigned to Unit 731 infected prisoners with the disease and withheld treatment to observe the uninterrupted course of the illness. A contemporary treatment, a primitive chemotherapy agent called Salvarsan, was sometimes administered over a period of months to observe the side effects.
To ensure effective transmission of the disease, syphilitic male prisoners were ordered to rape both female and male fellow prisoners, who would then be monitored to observe the onset of the disease. If the first exposure failed to establish infection, more rapes would be arranged until it did.
In other tests, subjects were deprived of food and water to determine the length of time until death; placed into low-pressure chambers until their eyes popped from the sockets; experimented upon to determine the relationship between temperature, burns, and human survival; hung upside down until death; crushed with heavy objects; electrocuted; dehydrated with hot fans; placed into centrifuges and spun until death; injected with animal blood, notably with horse blood; exposed to lethal doses of X-rays; subjected to various chemical weapons inside gas chambers; injected with seawater; and burned or buried alive. In addition to chemical agents, the properties of many different toxins were also investigated by the Unit. To name a few, prisoners were exposed to tetrodotoxin (pufferfish or fugu venom), heroin, Korean bindweed, bacterial, and castor oil seeds (ricin). Massive amounts of blood were drained from some prisoners for the study of the effects of blood loss according to former Unit 731 vivisectionist Okawa Fukumatsu. In one case, at least half a liter of blood was drawn at two-to-three-day intervals.
As stated above, dehydration experiments were performed on the victims. The purpose of these tests was to determine the amount of water in an individual’s body and to see how long one could survive with a very low to no water intake. It is known that victims were also starved before these tests began. The deteriorating physical states of these victims were documented by staff at periodic intervals.
One member of Unit 731 later recalled that very sick and unresisting prisoners would be laid out on the slab so a line could be inserted into their carotid artery. When most of the blood had been siphoned off and the heart was too weak to pump anymore, an officer in leather boots climbed onto the table and jumped on the victim’s chest with enough force to crush the ribcage, whereupon another dollop of blood would spurt into the container.
Unit 731 researchers conduct bacteriological experiments with captive child subjects in Nongan County of northeast China’s Jilin Province. November 1940.
Members of Unit 731 were not immune from being subjects of experiments. Yoshio Tamura, an assistant in the Special Team, recalled that Yoshio Sudō, an employee of the first division at Unit 731, became infected with bubonic plague as a result of the production of plague bacteria. The Special Team was then ordered to vivisect Sudō. Tamura recalled:
“Sudō had, a few days previously, been interested in talking about women, but now he was thin as a rake, with many purple spots over his body. A large area of scratches on his chest was bleeding. He painfully cried and breathed with difficulty. I sanitized his whole body with disinfectant. Whenever he moved, a rope around his neck tightened. After Sudō’s body was carefully checked [by the surgeon], I handed a scalpel to [the surgeon] who, reversely gripping the scalpel, touched Sudō’s stomach skin and sliced downward. Sudō shouted “brute!” and died with this last word.”
— Criminal History of Unit 731 of the Japanese Military, pp. 118–119 (1991)
In April 2018, the National Archives of Japan disclosed a nearly complete list of 3,607 members of Unit 731 to Katsuo Nishiyama, a professor at Shiga University of Medical Science. Nishiyama reportedly intended to publish the list online to encourage further study into the unit.
Only 12 of them were ever brought to justice, and the longest jail term served was seven years.
Charles Lindbergh is a classic case from Hero to Zero. However I am not sure if he would have remained a ‘zero’ if it hadn’t been for the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor.
On September 11,1941, HE gave a significant address, titled “Speech on Neutrality”, outlining his views and arguments against greater American involvement in the war. But the speech wasn’t a speech for neutrality, it was steeped in anti-Semitism. I don’t know what path the US would have chosen if it hadn’t been for the Pearl Harbor attacke,
Charles Lindbergh had become politically quite powerful with his America First movement.
Des Moines, September 11,1941.
“It is now two years since this latest European war began. From that day in September, 1939, until the present moment, there has been an over-increasing effort to force the United States into the conflict.
That effort has been carried on by foreign interests, and by a small minority of our own people; but it has been so successful that, today, our country stands on the verge of war.
At this time, as the war is about to enter its third winter, it seems appropriate to review the circumstances that have led us to our present position. Why are we on the verge of war? Was it necessary for us to become so deeply involved? Who is responsible for changing our national policy from one of neutrality and independence to one of entanglement in European affairs?
Personally, I believe there is no better argument against our intervention than a study of the causes and developments of the present war. I have often said that if the true facts and issues were placed before the American people, there would be no danger of our involvement.
Here, I would like to point out to you a fundamental difference between the groups who advocate foreign war, and those who believe in an independent destiny for America.
If you will look back over the record, you will find that those of us who oppose intervention have constantly tried to clarify facts and issues; while the interventionists have tried to hide facts and confuse issues.
We ask you to read what we said last month, last year, and even before the war began. Our record is open and clear, and we are proud of it.
We have not led you on by subterfuge and propaganda. We have not resorted to steps short of anything, in order to take the American people where they did not want to go.
What we said before the elections, we say [illegible] and again, and again today. And we will not tell you tomorrow that it was just campaign oratory. Have you ever heard an interventionist, or a British agent, or a member of the administration in Washington ask you to go back and study a record of what they have said since the war started? Are their self-styled defenders of democracy willing to put the issue of war to a vote of our people? Do you find these crusaders for foreign freedom of speech, or the removal of censorship here in our own country?
The subterfuge and propaganda that exists in our country is obvious on every side. Tonight, I shall try to pierce through a portion of it, to the naked facts which lie beneath.
When this war started in Europe, it was clear that the American people were solidly opposed to entering it. Why shouldn’t we be? We had the best defensive position in the world; we had a tradition of independence from Europe; and the one time we did take part in a European war left European problems unsolved, and debts to America unpaid.
National polls showed that when England and France declared war on Germany, in 1939, less than 10 percent of our population favored a similar course for America. But there were various groups of people, here and abroad, whose interests and beliefs necessitated the involvement of the United States in the war. I shall point out some of these groups tonight, and outline their methods of procedure. In doing this, I must speak with the utmost frankness, for in order to counteract their efforts, we must know exactly who they are.
The three most important groups who have been pressing this country toward war are the British, the Jewish and the Roosevelt administration.
Behind these groups, but of lesser importance, are a number of capitalists, Anglophiles, and intellectuals who believe that the future of mankind depends upon the domination of the British empire. Add to these the Communistic groups who were opposed to intervention until a few weeks ago, and I believe I have named the major war agitators in this country.
I am speaking here only of war agitators, not of those sincere but misguided men and women who, confused by misinformation and frightened by propaganda, follow the lead of the war agitators.
As I have said, these war agitators comprise only a small minority of our people; but they control a tremendous influence. Against the determination of the American people to stay out of war, they have marshaled the power of their propaganda, their money, their patronage.
Let us consider these groups, one at a time.
First, the British: It is obvious and perfectly understandable that Great Britain wants the United States in the war on her side. England is now in a desperate position. Her population is not large enough and her armies are not strong enough to invade the continent of Europe and win the war she declared against Germany.
Her geographical position is such that she cannot win the war by the use of aviation alone, regardless of how many planes we send her. Even if America entered the war, it is improbable that the Allied armies could invade Europe and overwhelm the Axis powers. But one thing is certain. If England can draw this country into the war, she can shift to our shoulders a large portion of the responsibility for waging it and for paying its cost.
As you all know, we were left with the debts of the last European war; and unless we are more cautious in the future than we have been in the past, we will be left with the debts of the present case. If it were not for her hope that she can make us responsible for the war financially, as well as militarily, I believe England would have negotiated a peace in Europe many months ago, and be better off for doing so.
England has devoted, and will continue to devote every effort to get us into the war. We know that she spent huge sums of money in this country during the last war in order to involve us. Englishmen have written books about the cleverness of its use.
We know that England is spending great sums of money for propaganda in America during the present war. If we were Englishmen, we would do the same. But our interest is first in America; and as Americans, it is essential for us to realize the effort that British interests are making to draw us into their war.
The second major group I mentioned is the Jewish.
It is not difficult to understand why Jewish people desire the overthrow of Nazi Germany. The persecution they suffered in Germany would be sufficient to make bitter enemies of any race.
No person with a sense of the dignity of mankind can condone the persecution of the Jewish race in Germany. But no person of honesty and vision can look on their pro-war policy here today without seeing the dangers involved in such a policy both for us and for them. Instead of agitating for war, the Jewish groups in this country should be opposing it in every possible way for they will be among the first to feel its consequences.
Tolerance is a virtue that depends upon peace and strength. History shows that it cannot survive war and devastations. A few far-sighted Jewish people realize this and stand opposed to intervention. But the majority still do not.
Their greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio and our government.
I am not attacking either the Jewish or the British people. Both races, I admire. But I am saying that the leaders of both the British and the Jewish races, for reasons which are as understandable from their viewpoint as they are inadvisable from ours, for reasons which are not American, wish to involve us in the war.
We cannot blame them for looking out for what they believe to be their own interests, but we also must look out for ours. We cannot allow the natural passions and prejudices of other peoples to lead our country to destruction.
The Roosevelt administration is the third powerful group which has been carrying this country toward war. Its members have used the war emergency to obtain a third presidential term for the first time in American history. They have used the war to add unlimited billions to a debt which was already the highest we have ever known. And they have just used the war to justify the restriction of congressional power, and the assumption of dictatorial procedures on the part of the president and his appointees.
The power of the Roosevelt administration depends upon the maintenance of a wartime emergency. The prestige of the Roosevelt administration depends upon the success of Great Britain to whom the president attached his political future at a time when most people thought that England and France would easily win the war. The danger of the Roosevelt administration lies in its subterfuge. While its members have promised us peace, they have led us to war heedless of the platform upon which they were elected.
In selecting these three groups as the major agitators for war, I have included only those whose support is essential to the war party. If any one of these groups–the British, the Jewish, or the administration–stops agitating for war, I believe there will be little danger of our involvement.
I do not believe that any two of them are powerful enough to carry this country to war without the support of the third. And to these three, as I have said, all other war groups are of secondary importance.
When hostilities commenced in Europe, in 1939, it was realized by these groups that the American people had no intention of entering the war. They knew it would be worse than useless to ask us for a declaration of war at that time. But they believed that this country could be entered into the war in very much the same way we were entered into the last one.
They planned: first, to prepare the United States for foreign war under the guise of American defense; second, to involve us in the war, step by step, without our realization; third, to create a series of incidents which would force us into the actual conflict. These plans were of course, to be covered and assisted by the full power of their propaganda.
Our theaters soon became filled with plays portraying the glory of war. Newsreels lost all semblance of objectivity. Newspapers and magazines began to lose advertising if they carried anti-war articles. A smear campaign was instituted against individuals who opposed intervention. The terms “fifth columnist,” “traitor,” “Nazi,” “anti-Semitic” were thrown ceaselessly at any one who dared to suggest that it was not to the best interests of the United States to enter the war. Men lost their jobs if they were frankly anti-war. Many others dared no longer speak.
Before long, lecture halls that were open to the advocates of war were closed to speakers who opposed it. A fear campaign was inaugurated. We were told that aviation, which has held the British fleet off the continent of Europe, made America more vulnerable than ever before to invasion. Propaganda was in full swing.
There was no difficulty in obtaining billions of dollars for arms under the guise of defending America. Our people stood united on a program of defense. Congress passed appropriation after appropriation for guns and planes and battleships, with the approval of the overwhelming majority of our citizens. That a large portion of these appropriations was to be used to build arms for Europe, we did not learn until later. That was another step.
To use a specific example; in 1939, we were told that we should increase our air corps to a total of 5,000 planes. Congress passed the necessary legislation. A few months later, the administration told us that the United States should have at least 50,000 planes for our national safety. But almost as fast as fighting planes were turned out from our factories, they were sent abroad, although our own air corps was in the utmost need of new equipment; so that today, two years after the start of war, the American army has a few hundred thoroughly modern bombers and fighters–less in fact, than Germany is able to produce in a single month.
Ever since its inception, our arms program has been laid out for the purpose of carrying on the war in Europe, far more than for the purpose of building an adequate defense for America.
Now at the same time we were being prepared for a foreign war, it was necessary, as I have said, to involve us in the war. This was accomplished under that now famous phrase “steps short of war.”
England and France would win if the United States would only repeal its arms embargo and sell munitions for cash, we were told. And then [illegible] began, a refrain that marked every step we took toward war for many months–“the best way to defend America and keep out of war.” we were told, was “by aiding the Allies.”
First, we agreed to sell arms to Europe; next, we agreed to loan arms to Europe; then we agreed to patrol the ocean for Europe; then we occupied a European island in the war zone. Now, we have reached the verge of war.
The war groups have succeeded in the first two of their three major steps into war. The greatest armament program in our history is under way.
We have become involved in the war from practically every standpoint except actual shooting. Only the creation of sufficient “incidents” yet remains; and you see the first of these already taking place, according to plan [ill.]– a plan that was never laid before the American people for their approval.
Men and women of Iowa; only one thing holds this country from war today. That is the rising opposition of the American people. Our system of democracy and representative government is on test today as it has never been before. We are on the verge of a war in which the only victor would be chaos and prostration.
We are on the verge of a war for which we are still unprepared, and for which no one has offered a feasible plan for victory–a war which cannot be won without sending our soldiers across the ocean to force a landing on a hostile coast against armies stronger than our own.
We are on the verge of war, but it is not yet too late to stay out. It is not too late to show that no amount of money, or propaganda, or patronage can force a free and independent people into war against its will. It is not yet too late to retrieve and to maintain the independent American destiny that our forefathers established in this new world.
The entire future rests upon our shoulders. It depends upon our action, our courage, and our intelligence. If you oppose our intervention in the war, now is the time to make your voice heard.
Help us to organize these meetings; and write to your representatives in Washington. I tell you that the last stronghold of democracy and representative government in this country is in our house of representatives and our senate.
There, we can still make our will known. And if we, the American people, do that, independence and freedom will continue to live among us, and there will be no foreign war.”
Coincidentally on the same day the construction of the Pentagon had started.
fter the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Lindbergh sought to be recommissioned in the United States Army Air Forces. The Secretary of War, Henry L. Stimson, declined the request on instructions from the White House.[198]
Unable to take on an active military service, Lindbergh approached a number of aviation companies and offered his services as a consultant. As a technical adviser with Ford in 1942, he was heavily involved in troubleshooting early problems at the Willow Run Consolidated B-24 Liberator bomber production line. As B-24 production smoothed out, he joined United Aircraft in 1943 as an engineering consultant, devoting most of his time to its Chance-Vought Division.
By 1944 Lindbergh had became a consultant with the United Aircraft Company helping them with field testing of their F4U Corsair fighter. The spring of 1944 found Lindbergh in the South Pacific teaching Corsair pilots how to dramatically decrease their plane’s fuel consumption and increase the range of their missions. His task required that he join the Corsair pilots on their missions in order to better understand and change their flying techniques. This is how Lindbergh, a private citizen, managed to make his way into the cockpit of a combat fighter, take part in over 50 missions and shoot down one Japanese plane.
“My tracers and my 20’s spatter on his plane.”
Lindbergh kept a diary describing the day he shot down his only enemy fighter. We join his story as he flies with a squadron of four P-38 “Lightning” fighters to attack a Japanese airfield on an island near New Guinea. Below them they see two enemy aircraft and prepare to attack:
“July 28
We jettison our drop tanks, switch on our guns, and nose down to the attack. One Jap plane banks sharply toward the airstrip and the protection of the antiaircraft guns. The second heads off into the haze and clouds. Colonel MacDonald gets a full deflection shot on the first, starts him smoking, and forces him to reverse his bank.
We are spaced 1,000 feet apart. Captain [Danforth] Miller gets in a short deflection burst with no noticeable effect. I start firing as the plane is completing its turn in my direction. I see the tracers and the 20’s [20mm. cannon] find their mark, a hail of shells directly on the target. But he straightens out and flies directly toward me.
I hold the trigger down and my sight on his engine as we approach head on. My tracers and my 20’s spatter on his plane. We are close – too close – hurtling at each other at more than 500 miles an hour. I pull back on the controls. His plane zooms suddenly upward with extraordinary sharpness.
I pull back with all the strength I have. Will we hit? His plane, before a slender toy in my sight, looms huge in size. A second passes – two three – I can see the finning on his engine cylinders. There is a rough jolt of air as he shoots past behind me.
By how much did we miss? Ten feet? Probably less than that. There is no time to consider or feel afraid. I am climbing steeply. I bank to the left. No, that will take me into the ack-ack fire above Amahai strip. I reverse to the right. It all has taken seconds.
My eyes sweep the sky for aircraft. Those are only P-38’s and the plane I have just shot down. He is starting down in a wing over – out of control. The nose goes down. The plane turns slightly as it picks up speed-down-down-down toward the sea. A fountain of spray-white foam on the water-waves circling outward as from a stone tossed in a pool-the waves merge into those of the sea-the foam disappears – the surface is as it was before.
My wingman is with me, but I have broken from my flight. There are six P-38’s circling the area where the enemy plane went down. But all six planes turn out to be from another squadron. I call ‘Possum 1,’ and get a reply which I think says they are above the cloud layer. It is thin, and I climb up through on instruments. But there are no planes in sight, and I have lost my wingman. I dive back down but all planes below have disappeared, too. Radio reception is so poor that I can get no further contact. I climb back into the clouds and take up course for home, cutting through the tops and keeping a sharp lookout for enemy planes above. Finally make radio contact with ‘Possum’ flight and tell them I will join them over our original rendezvous point (the Pisang Islands).
The heavies are bombing as I sight the Boela strips; I turn in that direction to get a better view. They have started a large fire in the oil-well area of Boela – a great column of black smoke rising higher and higher in the air. The bombers are out of range, so the ack-ack concentrates on me-black puffs of smoke all around, but none nearby. I weave out of range and take up course for the Pisang Islands again. I arrive about five minutes ahead of my flight. We join and take up course for Biak Island. Landed at Mokmer strip at 1555.
(Lieutenant Miller, my wingman, reported seeing the tracers of the Jap plane shooting at me. I was so concentrated on my own firing that I did not see the flashes of his guns. Miller said the plane rolled over out of control right after he passed me. Apparently my bullets had either severed the controls or killed the pilot.)”
Lindbergh is extensively covered in the book “Our Man in New York: The British Plot to Bring America into the Second World War” which is a good read and highly recommended.
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History of Sorts 
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