Sendai 5B Kamaishi Formerly Tokyo #7B and Tokyo 3B

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Location: Sendai 5-B IWATE-ken, KAMAISHI-shi, YANOURA Employer of slave labor: NIPPON SEITETSU (Nippon Steel or, as known today, NIPPON NITTETSU) Map of area     Satellite View (Google) Timeline: 10 Nov 1943: Established as Tokyo 3-B IWATE-ken, KAMAISHI-shi, OAZA KAMAISHI No. 4, CHIWARI 68-1 Initial group of Dutch POWS departed Java on September 1943. Transported to Singapore on Makassar Maru. Later sent on the Amatsu Maru to Japan (layover in Formosa- never left ship). Arrived approximately 16 November 1943. 20 Apr 1944: Jurisdictional Control transferred to TOKYO POW CAMP 7-B 13 Apr 1945: Large group of Americans, British, and the crew of the MV Hauraki arrive from Yokohama Dispatch Camp at the Mitsubishi Shipyards (Tok 13D ex Tok3B) 14 Apr 1945: Jurisdictional control [and POWS] transferred from TOKYO POW CAMP 7-B to SENDAI POW CAMP. Established as Sendai 5-B IWATE-ken, KAMAISHI-shi, YANOURA. Camp never changed location. 15 Sep 1945: Rescue Effected Photographs Source: NARA RG 407 - click to enlarge Ruins: View in 2009 Dutch POWS - Winter of 1944-45 Source: Mieke Capeder-Hollering (Dutch POW Martinus Hollering is father) Click to enlarge

Slave Labor: Iron mill work for Nippon Steel - this was a Mitsubishi Company at the time. 14 July 1945: U.S. fleet bombards camp- at least 42 POWS killed. See details and photographs. Aerial attack on 11 August killed 12 more POWs. Read NZ History of this attack. A video of the bombardment is on the web site for the USS Abbot, a destroyer that was part of the Navy Task Force. (48 MB file) Rosters: Rescue rosters and rosters of the deceased are complete: There was a total of 351 men: (Download XLS file with much more information - 145Kb) 78 Americans 86 British 168 Dutch ; Dutch Deceased (43) Others: Includes 1 Canada; 13 Aussies; 5 New Zealand Separately listed are the 24 crewmen from the MV Hauraki, captured in the India Ocean by Japanese raiders on 12 July 1942. Glenn McKasson- Memoir of Kamaishi [External site] Matinus Hollering, Able Seaman [Dutch] Rescue: "The following morning, 13 September, the USS Waterman entered Shiogama harbor and joined other units of TG 30.6 who were already in the process of evacuating the Allied POW's there. On 14 September, the destroyer escort sailed for Kamaishi, arriving there the following morning for further evacuation of POW's." Source- log of the USS Waterman Photograph: Crew of the MV Hauraki at Australian War Museum; includes identification of crew members at this camp

The death of William H Brodie, crewman on the MV Hauraki Speech by Yoshiko Tamura in Japan: ANZAC DAY 25/4/2004 Thank you very much for the invitation to speak today. It's indeed an honour as a member of POW Research Network Japan which was founded in March 2002 to get a chance to talk to you again about one soldier buried here in this New Zealand Section of the British Commonwealth War Cemetery, Yokohama. In this section, there are 13 New Zealand graves. All of them, except for one, died on duty in BCOF, the British Commonwealth Occupation Force. Only one of them lost his life as a prisoner of war in Japan. If you look at his plaque, just like all the others', you can only learn his name, his rank and organization, age and his death date. Some of them have inscriptions provided by the family. So you can see that his name was William Henry Brodie (CD 10), the Fifth Engineer Officer, Merchant Navy, serving on the m.v. Hauraki. He died on 10th August 1945 at the age of 30. According to the cemetery register, his home town was Canterbury, New Zealand; just five days before the end of the war. What happened to him? And where was he at that time? You can't get any more information from his grave marker. We have worked very hard to get more information, although we were told originally that there were no record left as all the documents were destroyed just after the war. But little by little we could manage to find and now we have covered almost all the personal details of each casualty. According to our research, we found Brodie was in the Kamaishi Camp (this camp) in Iwate Prefecture and his death was caused by critical burns through shelling. At the last stage of the war, many POW camps in Japan suffered heavy damage from air raids in which many POWs lost their lives. Kamaishi, an industrial area near the sea, was badly damaged twice when allied warships bombarded shore instalations in North Central Honshu. First on 14th July in 1945, the city and the ironworks were shelled. 1460 houses were burned and about 240 citizens died. 5 POWs were killed at the ironworks. A second time, on 9th August, the city of Kamaishi was again bombarded by British warships. This time they were rained with 2700 shells. 1470 houses were set on fire and over 100 citizens lost their lives. In the camp, 5 POWs died. Within the ironworks, workers and POWs ran into the sheiters. 17 POWs died through gas inhalation and 20 others were injured. As a result of these two shellings, 32 POWs died, mostly Dutch and including 4 Americans, 2 British and 1 New Zealander. Last month, Mrs. Taeko Sasamoto, one of the co-representatives of our group, and I visited the U.K. to make further enquiries of some former POWs. One of them happened to talk about the shelling in Kamaishi. He was in the Ohashi Camp, which is in the mountains, about 15 km from Kamaishi. On the day Kamaishi was attacked, a camp doctor in Ohashi told the men that many POWs in the Kamaishi Camp were hurt and desperately needed help. He asked for volunteers to assist. This British POW decided to go with him. As he entered the camp hospital, he told us that he was astonished at the awful smell in the room and how badly the victims were burned. He took care of one man. He tried to give him some spoonfuls of soup. But his face was so badly gashed that he was terrible to see. He remembered this man couldn't drink well because of his damaged jaw. He tried to talk with him, but his voice was too weak and very hard to hear because of his poor condition. The only thing he could understand was that this man was British. After returning to Japan, I received an e-mail from New Zealand that this William Henry Brodie lived in New Zealand but his nationality was British. Only two British and 1 New Zealand casualties were in Kamaishi. Who can say that there's no chance that the British former POW we met last month in the UK took care of the dying Brodie? Our group has investigated many POW camps in Japan. We have accumulated a vast amount of information about the individualities buried here, but we still have work to do. Recently we are greatly encouraged, because quite often we exchange information not only with Japanese but also with people overseas and sometimes we get interesting information by internet. Our group members helped me a lot in preparing this talk and I have included as much information as possible. Just before closing, I would like to tell you something. We have believed there's only one New Zealander's POW casualty in this cemetery. But there's also another New Zealander whose grave is in the British Section. This was pointed out by a young New Zealander who visited Japan recently. The sailor's name is Robert McNeill of Auckland (GD 13). He was working in a dockyard in Nagasaki and died there from acute pneumonia on 15th April 1944 at the age of 23 according to the record. Let's go and visit his grave, too, after the ceremony. There's one more I would like to tell you. The commandant of the Kamaishi Camp passed away some years ago, but his daughter is here today to attend the ceremony. Thank you very much for this honorable chance to talk to you.