Source: RG 331 Box 946; misc OS-0, File 30

12 February 1946

MEMORANDUM:

SUBJECT: Re Investigation of the Osaka Main POW Camp.

By direction of the Chief, Investigation Division, Lt. J B Ammon and Lt. S. Walters, accompanied by T/4 Toda as interpreter, proceeded to Osaka and made an investigation of the Main POW Camp there. (The report to supply information for the prosecution of War Criminals)

History of the Osaka Main Camp - 21 September 1942 the Osaka Main Camp was established at Chikko. The POWs remained at Chikko until 1 June 1945, when the camp was bombed out. They moved to Tsumori Camp (the description and report on this camp was given in a previous report). Tsumori was considered to be in an unsafe location, so the POWs were transferred to Kita-Fukuzaki. On the 10th of July 1945, the main office was separated from the camp. The camp was then called Osaka 1st branch. The main office was moved to Shimo Shinden, Shinden-mura, Mishima-gun which is about five miles north-east of Osaka. Chikko, Tsumori and Kita-Fukuzaki are all in the city of Osaka.

1. Location: See enclosed exhibits for exact location of these camps. (missing)
Military Objectives - all three locations of this camp were situated along the Osaka waterfront and in the midst of vital military objectives. Both Tsumori and Chikko were bombed and burned completely and Kita-Fukuzaki was damaged.

2. Description: The camp at Chikko was bombed and burned flat, and only the foundations of the buildings remaim. The camp consisted of several wooden buildings coverfed with mud stucco. Overall dimensions of the camp were 230' x 130'.

POW quarter consisted of two one story barracks, each 72' x 33' in size. These two barracks had triple decker bunks. A third building 72' x 30' was of two story construction. A space on the first floor 30' x 24' was used solely as a sick ward. The second floor contained POW quarters. A fourth building 64' x 30' quartered POWs on the second floor only.
The kitchen was 30' x 30' and had eight brick stoves. There was a cement bath 10' x 10' and ten showers. The dispensary was a room 21' square and next to it was the guard house and one cell. The remaining space were the Japanese quarters, kitchen, idining room and latrine.
For air raid protection, there was one shelter in the middle of the camp 45 ft long and 12 ft. wide and five small shelters around the outside of the camp. Each of these was 15 ft. long and four ft. wide. This was not adequate for the number of POWs held.
On 2 June 1945 the POWs transferred to Tsomori Camp (this camp had already been covered in a previous report). On 10 July 1945 they were again transferred to 7 Nishino-sho, Kita-Fukuzaki, Minato-ku in Osaka. Here they were quartered in three rooms on the second floor of a large warehouse. Each room was 55' long and 40' wide with cement floor and cement walls, with a low-ceiling only about 5 feet high in some places. On the first floor of the warehouse was the guard house, 15' x 15'. the dispensary 15' x 15' and the sick ward, 30' x 15'.
Outside the warehouse was the kitchen, a wooden building built by the POWs. It contained 4 brick stoves and 1 brick oven. Next to the kitchen was a large cement water tank for fire fighting. The latrine was a wooden structure built by the Prisoners and consisted of 2 urinals and 16 toilets. The location of the camp was not nearly adequate for the number of prisoners. Sleeping quarters were very cramped ad no shelves or tables were provided, the POWs slept on mats thrown on the cement floor. The latrine and kithcen facilities were very poor and no sanitary conveniences were provided. The POWs remained here until the end of the war.

3. Utilization: The Osaka Camp was established to provide workers for the docks and stevedoring companies of Osaka Port.
Clothing: The prisoners had their own clothing plus Jap uniforms. Their shoes were either their own or Jap army shoes, some PWs were issued the rubber soled sneakers. The Prisoners operated a shoe repair shop in the camp.

4. Prisoner of War Personnel: The prisoners arrived 11 October 1942- they were British from Hong Kong and were 500 in number. They came from Hong Kong on the Lisbon Maru.

5. Guards: For a complete roster of the Japanese Army Personnel at this camp see the attached Exhibit. [no roster attached]

6. Work: All the prisoners from the camp worked for various transportation and stevedoring companies of Osaka Port. They loaded and unloaded ship, transported materials, worked in warehouses and loaded and unloaded railroad cars at the docks, They worked on all kinds of goods, usually foodstuff and clothing. Some military equipment consigned to Jap armies in the South Pacific.

Working hours:
0800 started work
1200 - 1300 lunch
1600 - quit
During the day they got breaks depending on the job they were doing.
Some of the working places were close to the camp others far away. At Tsumori the POWs were ferried to the docks to work. At Kita-Fukuzaki, they were transported by street car or bus to the dock area.

Pay: 1 Yen per day of which the PW received 20 sen. [100 sen = 1 Yen] [So the Japanese claim- no pay was given to any extent]

Red Cross: During the entire time the camp was open the Prisoners only received one-third of a Red Cross package. (No facts were obtained on what became of the rest of them).

7. Food: A sample day's ration as follows:

Breakfast - Rice and soup
Lunch (carried by the PWs to work) Rice, sometimes bread, seaweed.
Dinner - Rice and soup, fish every 10 days, meat once or twice a month; vegetable (one kind each night) onions, potatoes, radish, cabbage or eggplant. [Again, so claimed by the Japanese]

8. Medical: The medical staff consisted of: 2 Jap doctors, 2 PW doctors, 1 PW dentist, 10 Jap medics, 5 PW medics. The medical supplies were furnished by the army.
An average of 70 men per day could not go to work because of sickness: 15 beri beri, 10 skin diseases, 15 dysentery and 30 from colds and pneumonia. (These average figures given us by a Jap army doctor of the camp.)
25 men died at this camp. 10 from pneumonia and 14 from beri beri. Some of the worst cases were removed to Ichioka Hospital just before they died. [Not counted in camp total] Some of these deaths were due to the weakened condition the prisoners were in when they arrived in Japan.

9. Sanitation: See 2 above (Not able to see much on this because of the bombed condition of the camps)

10. Air Raid Protection: See 2 above (the roofs of the buildings were not painted until the war was over)

11. Punishment: No evidence of any beatings taking place at this camp [Note- this information obtained from former Jap staff of the camp after the war and after the POWs were sent home]

12. Conclusions: a total of nine former Jap guards at this camp were interrogated but no evidence of atrocities was uncovered.

We, S Walters Lt., O-1332112 and J B Ammon Lt., O-1185962 certify that the above mentioned facts are as we saw or as were told to us during our investigation of the Osaka Main Prisoner of War Camp. This investigation took place 11-12 February 1946.

/S/ Samuel E. Walters
SAMUEL E. WALTERS 2d Lt O-1332112
Investigating Officer
Legal Section GHQ SCAP

/S/ James B. Ammon
JAMES B. AMMON, 2d Lt., O-1185962
Investigating Officer
Legal Section GHQ SCAP

Osaka, Japan
12 February 1946