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Affidavit regarding Akenobe Gunner Hugh Amos Day, QX17534 |
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Source: NARA RG 331 Box 921 “Osaka” box [Mansell NARA 5 RG 331 mixed] A CERTIFIED TRUE COPY /S/ Peter G. GUDURUS AUSTRALIAN WAR CRIMES BOARD OF INQUIRY HUGH AMOS DAY, sworn and examined: I am QX17534 x Gnr Hugh Amos Day, 2/10 Fd Regt. I was taken prisoner with other Australians at Singapore in February 1942. I was sent to Changi camp on 17 February 1942. I did not notice and breaches of the rules of warfare by the Japanese before our capitulation. | At Changi the treatment was very good. We were under our own administration and the Japanese did not interfere with us. I was at Changi until Anzac Day 1943 [April 25th]. I then went to Japan on the “Kyokku Maru”. [Kyokko Maru] Conditions on that boat were very crowded. There were 1500 on board and the ship was one of about 7,000 tons. The sanitary arrangements on the boat consisted of boxes over the side. We had three meals a day, mostly rice, of which there was plenty, but there was no variety in the food. The trip lasted 28 days and we landed at Moji. We then went to Osaka. I was there two years and left in April 1945. While there I was working in a steel works as a labourer. The hours were fairly long, being from 8 o’clock to about half past 5 in the evening. We were paid 10 sen a day. With that money we were able to buy stuff from the canteen in the camp. The food there was poor. It was rice mostly, but we did have fish and vegetables. We had fish once a fortnight and meat once a month. We had vegetable every day, but not a great deal. At times we had more than we could eat, but toward the end it was pretty scarce. Sick men were made to work. They would be men suffering mostly from beri beri and dysentery. There were a few beatings on the job, including beatings of sick men, but not severe beatings. They were more or less face slappings. Accommodations was pretty good. I did not receive any mail. I sent mail from Osaka. We were allowed to send a card about once every three months. They were printed cards. Medical supplies were not too good. They were mostly Japanese and were pretty scarce, but later on we got American Red Cross supplies. I then went to Akenobe Camp, where I was working in a copper mine. Accommodation was not good and we were crowded. There were only 34 Australians there, the rest being Americans and British. There were 380 in the camp altogether. The hours of work were from about half past 8 to about 3 o’clock. Pay was 10 sen per day. We could not use that money. Food was not good. We were still on rice, but there was not much of it. There were very little fish and practically no vegetables. The Japanese did not interfere with us and on the whole gave us a pretty good time. That continued until the end of the war. We had three American doctors in that camp. The sick were not working. They kept them back in camp. - - - - - - - - - - - This is the only sheet of the evidence of Hugh Amos Day taken and sworn before me at Brisbane in the State of Queensland this 21st day of November, 1945. ../s/ H.A. Day Deponent /s/ illegible
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