Retribution_ The Battle for Japan, 1944-45 - Max Hastings [131]
Bill McLaughlin, a reconnaissance scout, was once exploring his unit’s frontage with another man when, to their horror, they found that they had blundered into Japanese positions. “As we crouched there368 hardly daring to breathe, listening to their jabbering, it came to both of us at once that we were listening to some pretty scared Japanese boys looking for reassurance that they were not alone. It was so absurd, a couple of frightened Yanks playing Indians and crawling around on one side of the grass screen and a bunch of frightened Japs crouching on the other.” The two Americans crawled thoughtfully away.
Krueger’s men took few prisoners on Leyte: 389 before 25 December and a further 439 thereafter. If this was partly because not many Japanese wished to surrender, it was also because few Americans were willing to accommodate them. A U.S. divisional commander, Maj.-Gen. William Arnold of the Americal, was asked after the war if he encouraged surrenders. His response was ruthlessly pragmatic: “No…for the simple reason that an average Japanese prisoner knew nothing whatever about anything…and I doubt whether an officer would know anything.” Arnold rejected “emotional talk of war crimes” committed by either Japanese or Americans: “You’ve got soldiers with no brains369 at all, some of them, and they’d kill you just as soon as look at you. You have them everywhere. The Americans are just as bad as anybody else as far as that’s concerned. In the heat of combat, you shoot people who would have probably surrendered.”
One of the small number of Japanese370 who survived in American hands was a twenty-two-year-old private named Sumito Ideguchi, who successfully deserted from his unit. A former truck driver, he had endured a familiar sequence of miseries. His transport was sunk en route to Leyte. Rescued by a minesweeper, he was eventually sent into the line. Ideguchi found himself serving alongside strangers from unfamiliar regions of Japan, whom he could not relate to. Perceiving himself banished from home, he told his captors that he would like to settle in the United States.
An unusual perspective on the American soldier’s experience can be gained from letters home which were intercepted in transit by U.S. military censors, and still repose in their old files. All references to atrocities, looting or other forms of unsoldierly behaviour were deemed inappropriate, and caused men’s letters to be confiscated. For instance, Private George Hendrikson of the 21st Infantry wrote to his wife in Dallas, Oregon: “One of my buddies and I went out on a souvenir hunt one day up there and we capture 1 Jap and two Philippines that were helping the Japans I got a good fountain pen off of them and my buddy got a good Cig lighter which he sold for $20 and he got a watch also so we were luckily [sic].”
Staff Sergeant G. Gionnarli of the 34th Infantry described a Japanese attempt to surrender: “One came out with his hands up. One of my men shot him through the arm.” Lt. William Spradlin wrote: “If one [ Japanese prisoner] gets to our rear area alive it’s only because we…can’t afford to shoot.” Private Rex Marsh’s letter, recalling how he cut off the head of a dead Japanese with a bolo knife, went undelivered, likewise that of a soldier who described his withering contempt for Filipinos. Sgt. Leonard Joe Davis of the 34th Infantry was rash enough to confide his misery in writing to a former comrade now living in Waterloo, New York: “The Japs have been giving us hell, Monty, even worse than any yet. I’m sure glad to get out of the fight for a while, we have replacements twice