Ship of Ghosts - James D. Hornfischer [117]
A few days later his opportunity for payback came when his task put him about six levels above where the rivet dropper happened to be working. Calmly Fujita found a big shipfitter’s bolt, slipped a couple of heavy industrial washers over it, and twisted on two or three large nuts. It was about fifteen pounds of metal. Hefting his handmade iron bomb, Fujita aimed by eye, made a minute adjustment for the brisk wind, and let go. The blow to the top of the Japanese worker’s head was direct and, according to Fujita, instantly fatal. “He never even kicked,” recalled the artilleryman, who within sixty seconds had shuffled and quickstepped around the platforms and scaffolding to the other side of the yard. He was on his own, feeling his way in a brutal new world.
Japan had scores of POW camps, most located in major urban centers near shipyards, or in the mountains adjacent to mines. The senior Houston officers under Cdr. Arthur L. Maher, who had arrived at Shimonoseki on May 4 and moved to the camp at Ohuna, had long since acclimated themselves to the frigid climate. The hard work in the mines, the rough treatment by the guards, and the sparse rations “took us all down,” Maher wrote. When dysentery and beriberi struck in the summer, the guards eased up on exercise, though no more food came. Meanwhile, every day brought more Japanese officers from Tokyo to pick out prisoners to interrogate. The Houston’s senior surviving officer faced questioning from as many as a dozen Japanese at a time.
“They were anxious to find out almost anything they could regarding our Navy,” Maher wrote, “the operations of the ships, the officers in command, the number of men on board, the modern installations, radar and so forth.” Because the barracks at the small Ohuna camp were within earshot of the guardhouse, prisoners spoke loudly so as to let the others overhear the questions and plan their answers. It was wise to keep one’s evasions consistent. Inadequate answers brought a summons to the courtyard, where the offender was hauled before the POW company and beaten with clubs at the direction of a Japanese warrant officer.
On January 7, 1943, the Houston’s remaining officers at Singapore were loaded into trucks and driven to a train station, where they said farewell to the Allies’ bastion of disgrace. This group included Colonel Tharp, Lieutenant Hamlin, and Ensigns John Nelson and Charles Smith, as well as 1st Sgt. Harley Dupler, Lanson Harris, Red Huffman, and Charley Pryor. Marching out of camp, they were led by a unit of Gordon Highlanders who groaned a haunting melody on their bagpipes as their lone drummer beat the cadence. “It was an honor, we understand, to be piped out, an old Scottish custom the Japs didn’t like,” pharmacist’s mate Raymond Day wrote. “For the sound of the pipes, they say, were devils and was against civilization for such savage music. So we had the Pipers play all the more.” Along the way, natives lined the city’s thoroughfares shouting encouragement and tossing them food and cigarettes. The officers boarded filthy boxcars, found patches of personal space, and began a squealing crawl north.
Two days later, they arrived at the Malayan coastal city of Georgetown, also known as Penang, and two days after that were herded to the docks to board another merchant vessel. The Japanese, inveterate busybodies when it came to moving prisoners around, were economical with information. Their native language seemed to be hyperbole, allegory, and propaganda. “You’re going to a health camp,” the guards told them. “You’re going to go to a nice place where the food is plentiful and