| On Camp #18, Sasebo: "At Camp 18, we were beaten at least twice a week and on one occasion I received 3 beatings in one day... disease ran rampant, particularly beri beri, malaria and pneumonia. Out of the 245 prisoners who went to Camp 18, only 132 stayed alive, the rest mostly died from malnutrition which led to pneumonia and from injuries received from beatings. I did not weigh more than 100 pounds when I was finally liberated." --- From affidavit of Leonard Roy Ward "The first camp that I was in was Fukuoka No. 18. As far as the accommodations at these prison camps were concerned, I was never at a decent camp. Camp No. 18 was about one of the worst camps. They moved us in an old cement shed away up in the mountains where they were building a dam. There were 250 of us in this small building. The building didn't have a floor and was terribly dirty. We arrived at Camp No. 18 the 14th of October 1942 and stayed there for eighteen months. Most of our fellows died there. We lost, thirty-five men in March 1943. We were divided in groups of twenty men. In March 1943 we lost six of our group. They all died of pneumonia. The Japanese worked us terrifically long hours. One time they worked us thirty-six hours without sleep. We worked in a rock quarry. On the job we worked under the Japanese Navy as it was a Japanese Navy dam which we were building. After we finished our day's work we were turned over to the Army who fed us and took care of us in camp. The Japs were always trying to trade us out of something. One of the Japs wanted a piece of an American Army blanket to make something. One of the fellows cut up a piece of a Japanese Navy blanket and gave it to a Jap. He happened to get a piece that had the Japanese Naval anchor on it. He was thrown into prison and was left there for ten days without hardly any food and no clothes or blankets. He died there. In this prison you had to crawl into the cell on your hands and knees as you couldn't stand up. They would throw you in there and take all your clothes except a pair of pants and one shirt. Then they would cut you down to one rice ball a day." --- From affidavit of Edgar Franklin Burns (USAffA-C.htm#Burns) "We called Camp 18 the "Death Camp". That was the worst of the bunch. We were under the Navy when we first came in for about six months and then the Army took us over. A this camp Egowa Haso would pose as a friend of the prisoners and he would find out what they had been doing and then he would send the guards in to beat them up. Every night when we would come in from work we had what we called the "floor show". They would pick out a group of men and beat them until they were unconscious and then they would throw a bucket of water on them. They had two buckets of water, one to throw on the victim when he passed out, and the other to soak their clubs in. This was a continual occurrence every night for about six months. During the time we were in the camp we lost 52 men out of 250. Most of these died indirectly from beatings, starvation and malnutrition. When the Army took over they put in their commander -- Eka Gombi. The camp did not improve any under him." --- From affidavit of Harry J. Forsberg (USAffD-H.htm#Forsberg) |