| Ray Makepiece- email to Center For Research
I am pretty sure that Kamioka was a penal camp as there were some hard characters sent down from Mukden and they were in the camp when we arrived there in Aug. 44. You will be amazed at some of the stories that came out of those hell holes. Kamioka was 12 hours a day at hard labor, over ten thousand feet up, 33 feet of snow. No heat and a tyrant as a CO. We were lucky to survive first winter and would not have survived any more so the surrender saved many of us from death. I remember the camp commandant, who we called "Onion Head"[Lt. Chotaro Furushima], was hanged [not correct] for proven mistreatment of PW's. |