Japan visit part of POW reconciliation program for dad and daughter

“When I first heard about returning to Japan, I wanted to say two prayers. The first – to forgive the Japanese for the way the POWs were treated; the second – to pray for my friends who suffered and died there. The starvation, long hours of working in the mines, the beatings and other sufferings were just plain unimaginable. All of these memories were brought back to life as I stood in front of the Hosokura mine for the first time in seventy years. As I prayed my entire body shook and I cried over the horrible memories that overcame me. I cried for my best friend dying in my arms from starvation.”

Henry Chamberlain, 96, silently gazed into his memories of surviving over three years in WW II Japanese POW camps. His daughter, Rebecca (Becky) Chamberlain, quietly prepared tea during this interview.

Becky accompanied him on a ten-day trip as part of a Japan-POW WWII reconciliation program last October.

The Americans surrendered to the Japanese after the Battle of Bataan in the Philippines on April 9, 1942. Chamberlain, 18 at the time, served as a surgical technician at General Hospital #2, the largest hospital, with over 14,000 sick, wounded and dying patients.

He heard the planes first – Japanese fighter-bombers. He became a prisoner of war that day, when Maj. General Edward King surrendered his forces due to severe debilitation and starvation.

Two months later the Bataan death march began. Chamberlain walked several miles, suffering from malaria, starvation and dysentery, before being pulled and sent in an open cattle car to the famed Bilibid Prison in Manila. He spent two years there before being sent to Japan in a “hell ship.”

He lived in fear of the guards as well as airstrikes by American pilots who were unaware of what was below them.

“The Japanese national soldiers treated us as soldiers. The Taiwanese guards despised Americans and beat us. One hit me in the lower lumbar area with a shovel and knocked me down. I was unable to get up and they kicked me and kicked and kicked me.”

Before being shipped to Japan, his best friend died in his arms. “He refused to eat that dirty rice.” He paused. “So I ate it. ‘Tell my father I love him,’ and with that he died in my arms from starvation. There is no worse torture than starvation.”

The “hell ship,” a coal transport ship, the Haro Maru – nicknamed the Benjo Maru, – Benjo means toilet in Chinese – hauled him to Japan. He eventually was assigned to the Hosokura mine, now known as Mitsubishi Materials Corporation.

Chamberlain wondered why thousands of POWs were rounded up at Bilabid prison for transport to Japan, as they “had almost used us up as slave labor. Even for that we were almost useless.”

Ten days before the Benjo Maru left the dock they were bombed by high-flying aircraft – Americans! “’They’re back!’ we shouted.” Jubilation was short-lived as 1,100 men were beaten and marched to the pier and shoved into two holds.

The holds were 40 by 45 feet, filled with sharp, jagged coal. Temperatures reached over 110 degrees. One of the holds had been used to transport horses and was covered with manure. Fleas, lice and horse flies added to the prisoners’ misery.

A slight tropical breeze gave some relief until the Japanese crew placed large planks over the hold and then canvas tarps, securing them with a steel cable.

“We sat inside the hold for thirty days.” Said Chamberlain. “There were no facilities.”

“There was no medicine, very little food.” He was fed one cup of brown rice a day, enhanced with sand from floor sweepings.

Condensation from the overheated bodies covered the bulkheads. “We took a small rag and wiped down the sides of the ship and wrung out the moisture into our mess kits … providing additional drinking water.”

Wooden buckets were used to haul food down into the hold and haul up excrement. Waves swung the buckets into a pendulum that hit the ladder splashing the contents on the men below. “This most likely assisted with the rise in diarrhea and dysentery among the men.”

Diarrhea, being uncontrollable, found men unable to contain themselves while waiting for the bucket. Forced to sit in their own and each other’s excrement, tempers flared and fights broke out.

Men died.