Omori, Tokyo Camp

William A. Dixon - B-25 navigator/bombardier, Attu

Herewith are the facts as I know them of my father’s imprisonment by the Japanese from September 9, 1944 to August 29, 1945:

As of approximately June 1944, my father, William A. Dixon, was a navigator/bombardier aboard a B-25 stationed on Attu in the Aleutians with the 77th Bomber Squadron, 28th Bomb Group of the 11th Air Force (Corps). Most missions targeted Japanese shipping and garrisons in and around Paramushiru in the northern Kuriles. Members of the flight crew were Pilot: 2nd. Lt. Albert D. Scott of Weleetka, OK, Co-Pilot: F/O William (Vic) Gallo of Apollo, PA, Navigator/Bombardier: 2nd. Lt. William A. Dixon of Mountain View, NJ (AKA: Lincoln Park, NJ), Gunner: Sgt. Reynald P. Isrussi of Cleveland, OH, Gunner: SSgt. Carmen DiOrio of Chicago, IL, Flight Engineer: SSgt. Arthur O. Knipe of Haverhill, MA.

They were shot down on their 10th mission on September 9, 1944. They attacked a five ship convoy off Paramushiru (2 gunboats, 2 freighters, 1 tanker) They took two runs on a freighter. The first was a strafing run and the second was to be a bombing run. Ack ack fire from gunboats hit their right engine on approach which resulted in failure to gain sufficient altitude to clear freighter mast which sheared off tail fins and they tumbled into the sea. All but DiOrio and Knipe survived crash. Gallo, Isrussi, Scott, and Dixon picked up by fishing boats and brought to Paramushiru and kept in caves, interrogated by Japanese officers daily for 10 days. They were then put aboard two Japanese freighters (ironically the same ships they attempted to bomb.) in solitary confinement. My father was held in a cargo hold, naked except for a smelly fur jacket, a sanitary bucket, container of water, and dog bones. The journey lasted four days and they docked at Hokkaido where they took a train to an airport where they boarded a captured American C-47 to Yokohama and the Ofuna interrogation camp. It was there that he first met “Pappy” Boyington, the Marine ace, who also subsequently was imprisoned at Omori along with Commander O’Kane of the USS Tang. After the first of the year they were shipped by truck and train to Omori, a registered camp outside Tokyo.

While in captivity my father was interrogated, beaten, starved, and abused until liberated by the US Navy on August 29, 1945. He was too weak to join in the celebration as he was down to 90 pounds and suffered from many afflictions such as carbuncles, boils, hepatitis, yellow jaundice, dengue fever, dysentery, malaria, beriberi, and anxiety neurosis. He was hospitalized for several weeks aboard the “USS Benevolence” for a few weeks, flown out of Tokyo to Guam, then to Hawaii, and then San Francisco.

-- Bill Dixon (Jr.)

See also this excerpt from William Dixon's memoirs, courtesy of Bill Dixon Jr.