Children of the Camps: Japan's Last Forgotten Victims - Hardcover

Felton, Mark

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1848842619 ISBN 13: 9781848842618

Publisher: Pen & Sword Military, 2011

Synopsis

Children of the Camps: Japan's Last Forgotten Victims tells the truly heart-rending stories of Caucasian and Eurasian children who ended up imprisoned inside Japanese internment camps throughout Asia. It is written from the perspective of the survivors, who are all elderly today, and the effects that it had on their lives and families.Survivors' testimonies run right through the book, as we follow their traumatic change of circumstance and experiences from pre-war privilege into the horrors of the internment camps and finally the uncertainties of the immediate post-war period when liberation often meant discovery of the loss of parents.The Japanese treatment of Allied children was as harsh and murderous as that of their parents and military POWs, but this whole episode has been overlooked. Children were plucked from comfortable colonial lives and forced to mature hastily in terrible circumstances, where survival became a daily game, and where their lives were constantly threatened by disease, starvation and physical abuse. Many were separated from their parents, or they saw their families destroyed by the Japanese. Most witnessed almost daily episodes of bestial violence that no child ever should see, and the entire cumulative experience has had a deep and lasting effect on their subsequent adult lives. They are among the last victims of Japanese aggression, and even over 60 years later many carry the mental and physical scars of that atrocious episode.

About this title

About the Author

Born in Colchester in 1974, Dr Mark Felton is the author of Yanagi: The Secret Underwater Trade Between Germany and Japan, 1942-1945, The Fujita Plan; Japanese Attacks on the United States and Australia during the Second World War, Slaughter At Sea, Japan s Gestapo, The Coolie Generals and The Real Tenko (all published by Pen and Sword Books Ltd). He currently lives in China where he teaches at Shanghai University.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Children of the Camps

Japan's Last Forgotten Victims

By Mark Felton

Pen and Sword Books Ltd

Copyright © 2011 Mark Felton
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-84884-261-8

CHAPTER 1

School's Out

At school we practised getting into slit trenches for air-raids and had to kneel on the rough coco-nut matting, very painful. At home my father kept a rifle in the dining room and wore a pistol at his waist. I remember the frequent earnest discussions, and the packing of bags including tins of food.

Roger Eagle, British child Singapore, 1942

A long line of Westerners stood huddled in warm winter clothing outside a nondescript office block in downtown Shanghai. A chill wind blew between the tall buildings behind the Bund, coming straight down from frozen Manchuria in the north. Japanese soldiers stood impassively around the queueing Westerners, their dun-coloured uniforms, puttees and forage caps incongruous in the city. Their rifles were topped with razor-sharp bayonets. Many smoked and laughed among themselves to see the whites, who thought themselves so superior to the Japanese, lining up like coolies in the street, waiting to have their details recorded by the Kempeitai military police. Their faces wore a hunted, uncertain look – gone was the once-proud jut of the chin, or the ramrod-straight back that shouldered the white man's burden. The Westerners were shell-shocked – their world had collapsed in a few short days. The Japanese had big plans for them all: they were to be reduced from masters to white coolies; men, women and children. If any of the Westerners had glanced aloft at the tall buildings that bracketed the street they would have seen the Rising Sun flag snapping out in the breeze, where the Union Jack had held dominion for a century.

The outbreak of war in the Pacific on 8 December 1941 had come as a surprise to many Allied civilians, but the warning signs had been in place for weeks and Britain, Holland and the United States had largely ignored them until it was too late. In Shanghai, the Japanese already had the two foreign enclaves in the city, the International Settlement and the French Concession, surrounded since capturing the Chinese areas of the city in 1937. Life had continued relatively unchanged for the Allied civilians living in the 'Settlement' and the 'Concession', though there were restrictions on travelling outside the enclaves into occupied China. The fall of France in June 1940 had meant some Japanese interference in the French Concession, which adopted a Vichy government that collaborated closely with the Germans and the Japanese. Many British and American civilians lived in the French Concession but worked in the International Settlement, which was subdivided into several national concessions, including British and Japanese areas.

The British and the Americans had realized that Shanghai was indefensible should the Japanese move to occupy the enclaves, and the British had pulled out their small garrison of two infantry battalions to Hong Kong in 1940, urging Britons to leave for Australia, the Netherlands East Indies, Singapore or Britain. The United States still had some forces in Beijing and Shanghai, a regiment from the United States Marine Corps whose job was to protect US-owned buildings and diplomatic properties. Many Allied civilians left Shanghai, but many more stayed put – they were used to the comfortable life 'out East', where even whites in relatively minor positions could enjoy servants and private schooling for their children and a vigorous social life in a metropolis variously nicknamed 'Sin City' and 'The Whore of the Orient'.

One family who did not leave after 1940 was the Boseburys, typical British lower-middle-class workers of the Empire. Daughter Rachel Bosebury Beck, who now lives in the United States, recalled that her parents met in Shanghai. Her mother worked for the Shanghai Telephone Company, and her father had been discharged from the British Army after he had met his wife, while he was stationed in Shanghai. He then took a job locally, working as an overseer of Chinese labour. 'We lived in Avenue Hall ... and my daddy worked at the Water Works, and it was just great.' Rachel Bosebury was seven years old when the Japanese took over the foreign sections of the city in 1941. 'I had an amah [Chinese female servant] and ... I remember playing a lot and then we took home leave. That means every four years my Dad had his way paid to go back home to England.'With somewhat questionable common sense, the Boseburys returned from a long leave in Britain and continued with their comfortable, but not wealthy, existence until the Japanese assault – even though the warning signs of Japanese aggression were plainly evident. But Mr Bosebury was not unusual in having complete faith in the strength of the British Empire to defend its citizens; after all, many reasoned, only a very foolish country indeed would attack the world's greatest super power – little realizing that the much-vaunted imperial strength of Britain was slowly dwindling in the Far East, as forces were transferred to Europe and not replaced. Britain was fighting a war for survival right on her doorstep and that was where the main military effort was concentrated.

The colonial lifestyles of the children of empire did not prepare them for the coming storm of war, or for the long period of internment that most of them had to look forward to. Neil Begley, a young boy in Shanghai in 1941, recalled his Chinese nanny, or 'amah', who cared for him. In common with many of the children who were later interned, Begley had a closer relationship with local Chinese people than with his parents:

My amah smelled like a Chinese, they all smelled the same, not like we 'Foreigners' and, colour apart, I thought that smell was what made them different from us. Taking a nipple in my lips I would suck her warm milk while she ran her fingers through my hair crooning haunting Chinese lullabies. She spoke only Chinese so I was more comfortable with Mandarin that I was with English and quite at home in the servants quarters ... My mother would have been horrified if she'd seen me.

Many Western children developed such bonds with native servants, often because their own parents were too busy withcareers or the social whirl of colonial life, to pay much attention to them. 'We children loved to spend time with our cook in the kitchen, squatting next to her on the floor, watching her crush and grind the "bumbu" of chillies, coriander, cumin and other spices,' recalled Jan Ruff, a young Dutch girl in Java in 1941. 'She let us take turns at turning the handle of the mincer and fanning the open charcoal stove. In Imah's domain we licked saucepans and scooped our fingers into her delicious dishes ...' Ernest Hillen, a young Dutch boy in the Netherlands East Indies, recalled Manang, the family gardener, who 'smelled of different kinds of smoke. He never hurried and I liked being near him: it was restful ... His large flat feet had spaces between the toes because he didn't have to wear shoes. I felt the bottom of those feet and they were hard and covered with deep, dry, criss-crossed cuts, which he said didn't hurt. I wanted feet like that, his shiny brown skin, and I tried to walk bowlegged like him.'

Soon after arriving back in Shanghai from leave in England, Rachel Bosebury's parents realized that the situation was turning bad for foreigners in the city. This was during the last few weeks before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. 'I remember them saying that the Japanese were bloodthirsty people,' recalled Rachel Bosebury. 'I know I heard stories of babies being thrown up in the air and caught on Japanese bayonets.' Such talk terrified young children, and Rachel and her siblings had little understanding of what was about to change in their stable home life. 'When they were talking I had an imagination. You know, when little children hear the word "bloodthirsty", you think they drink blood. So I used to be terribly afraid that they would see me and at night we'd cover ourselves up with our blankets and wouldn't even let a bit of hair show out because we didn't want them to be drinking our blood.' The term 'Japanese' conjured up a ubiquitous bogeyman that haunted the dreams of adults and children alike in Shanghai. 'Kids hear things, but when you're little, you think of it a lot differently, and you get pretty scared,' said Bosebury. The fears Western children harboured after overhearing their parents' conversations were not to prove entirely unfounded, for the war about to be unleashed across Asia was to be marked from the very beginning by acts of almost diabolical barbarity and sadism, changing the world's opinion of Japan forever.

British teenager Heather Burch had returned to Shanghai in 1939, after attending private school in England since the age of eleven. Her father was the chairman of the Shanghai Water Works, where Rachel Bosebury's father also worked as a supervisor. However, there the similarity ended, the Burch family formed part of the British expatriate community's governing class. By 1941 rumours were abounding of Japanese intentions towards the International Settlement. 'It was obvious the situation was getting worse,' recalled Burch. 'People began leaving for Australia and Canada, but few for England.' Going 'back home' was not a very attractive proposition, involving a long sea voyage through waters infested by aggressive German U-boats, and entering a country under constant aerial attack from the Luftwaffe and suffering from severe food shortages and rationing. Most people who left Shanghai for England were young single men intent on enlisting and doing their duty. 'In late 1941 my father was told off-the-record by the British Consul that he should leave as quickly as possible. He booked passage for us, but the earliest available was in mid-December.' The Burches had left their escape until it was too late. When the Japanese occupied the Settlement 'we found ourselves trapped.'

Ella Clark was sixteen when the Japanese took over the Settlement, and studying at a local business college. Her father worked for the Chinese Customs Service, and her family lived close to the famous Bund. Early on the morning of 8 December 1941, foreign residents who lived close enough to the Huangpu River were rudely awakened by the sound of gunfire. Japanese troops, supported by light tanks, had begun marching into the International Settlement, and there was nothing effective to stop them. The British-led Shanghai Volunteer Corps (SVC), a part-time militia composed of expatriate men from a dozen different nationalities organized into several infantry companies and cavalry troops, was told to stand down and surrender its weapons. They were a surrounded force and if they had tried to resist would have been quickly overwhelmed by the superior enemy numbers and firepower. The SVC commanders realized that fighting in the densely populated city would have led to thousands of civilian casualties to no avail. Although it opted not to resist, its members were nonetheless imprisoned as military prisoners-of-war by the Japanese, depriving hundreds of families of husbands and fathers.

The only regular military forces in the city were a pair of slightly antiquated Yangtze River gunboats tied up on the Huangpu. The USS Wake was taken over by the Japanese without the Americans firing a shot, but the din that awakened the city's foreign residents to danger was the desperate resistance being put up by one lone British gunboat, HMS Peterel. Aboard the Peterel, the morning watch had stared across the misty river at the bustling city, nursing cups of tea in tin mugs, discerning the first stirrings of a new threat to this quiet and satisfactory morning rhythm. A Chinese laundry boy went about his work unobtrusively as the rest of the small crew of twenty slumbered below. A Japanese gunboat moved in the distance, and a curl of smoke rose from the funnel of the huge Imperial Navy cruiser Idzumo, whose guns had been ominously pointing towards the Settlement since early that morning. Japanese soldiers could be seen milling about by the river north of the Bund. Lieutenant Stephen Polkinghorn, the ship's New Zealand skipper, was below when the telephone that had been set up as a direct link with the British Consulate suddenly rang. Since the fall of the Chinese capital of Nanking in 1937, the Consulate had become the temporary British Embassy in China. The voice at the other end was terse and to the point: 'The Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, and Britain is consequently at war with Japan!' Polkinghorn was not surprised. 'You can expect a visit from the Japanese at any time,' continued the measured tones of the diplomat. 'Obviously there is nothing you can do with the forces at your disposal. I would suggest that you strike your colours.' Replacing the handset on its cradle after further discussions, Polkinghorn rubbed his chin reflectively for a moment, carefully considering his options. His vessel represented the last regular British armed forces in Shanghai, and naval honour dictated that he could not surrender his ship without some gesture of defiance. Elsewhere in the city, locally recruited agents of Churchill's Special Operations Executive (SOE) had already been activated for nearly a year, and should have formed another arm of British resistance in the city. These brave but amateur spies would be swept into Kempeitai prisons within a few weeks.

Lieutenant Polkinghorn did not have long to wait before one of his men called his attention to a small launch coming towards the Peterel from the Japanese side. Polkinghorn issued the fateful command 'All hands to battle stations!', and his men manned their two remaining Lewis machine guns, the ship's main armament having unwisely been mothballed some time before. A small group of Japanese army officers, samurai swords at their sides, climbed the gangplank and stiffly saluted. Polkinghorn listened impatiently to their interpreter as the Japanese ordered the New Zealander to immediately surrender his ship to them or face dire and, it was hinted, terminal consequences. Polkinghorn drew himself up to his full height, stuck out his chin and hissed 'Get off my bloody ship!' The astonished Japanese officers blinked several times behind their wire-framed spectacles and then turned on their heels and silently filed back into their launch, dumbfounded at the young officer's suicidal boldness.

Grim-faced, Polkinghorn's two dozen ratings took cover behind sandbags piled in the ship's gangways, the men manning the machine guns staring intently at the grey bulk of the Idzumo as a klaxon sounded out from across the water and the booming report of the cruiser's massive guns echoed across a city that was just coming to life, rattling windows throughout the Settlement. Children and their parents sat up in bed with a start all over the Settlement, confused by the sudden noise. The little ones called for their amahs or their mothers, while fathers hastily dressed and tried to take stock of what was happening. In the apartments fronting onto the Bund, parents shouted at inquisitive children to stay away from the windows as the loudest pyrotechnic display they had ever heard seemed to shake the buildings to their foundations. Those fathers who were veterans of the trenches of France and Flanders felt a familiar curl of fear wind through their guts at the sound of artillery fire.

Lieutenant Polkinghorn cupped his hands to his mouth and yelled 'Open fire!' through the din of falling shells. The chattering of the machine guns, as they threw long lines of bullets at the monolithic structure of the Japanese cruiser and the gunboat was drowned out by the boom and whoosh of giant naval shells that threw up massive geysers of dirty river water all around the tiny British ship. Amid the flying steel, Polkinghorn bravely directed their fire, his face and uniform streaked with cordite smoke stains and damp with spray, reflexively ducking every time another shell screamed in. The inevitable happened. With a blinding flash and a deafening concussion the Peterel was struck, the ship heaving over hard against her cables, flames shooting into the air. Within minutes the whole superstructure was on fire. Bodies littered the blood-soaked deck, and the cacophony of battle intermingled with the high-pitched screaming of the wounded and the copper-stench of blood.

The Peterel lurched again as another shell found its mark, and the ship began to take on a startling list. 'Abandon ship, abandon ship!' yelled Polkinghorn as the vessel threatened to capsize at any moment. Men plunged into the brown river, casting away their tin helmets as they dove in. Polkinghorn wrenched off a pair of binoculars and dived in after his men.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Children of the Camps by Mark Felton. Copyright © 2011 Mark Felton. Excerpted by permission of Pen and Sword Books Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: Pen & Sword Military
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1848842619
• ISBN 13: 9781848842618
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224