Evening star., 1945-11-12
Gen. Woinwright's Own Story:
Wainwright and Officers, in Tropical Clothing,
Shake With Cold at Munchuriun Prison Comp
fThirty-seuenth OF a Series J
BY GEN. JONATHAN M,
WAINWRIGHT

Su1 ocP VI dlAoEr0it P1dAlCS tOOh O1l
at 8 am. from that monstrous
place named Heito, on Formosa, on
October Z, 1914, headed north and
flew through murky weather until
shortly after 2 o'clock, when. the
pilot let us down on field near the
southern end of Kyushu, southern
most of the four main. Japanese
islands. A truck took us to what
must have been summer hotel and
after parking our shoes outside, we
walked in and, to our great surprise,
were given a good lunch. ! ate it
to the plate-scraping point.
But the fresh memory of the men
left behind at Heito-including some
of my officers who were scheduled
to follow by boat-cut into my en-
joyment of the first good meal I
had had since the war started.
Only five planes arrived at
Kyushu in time for lunch. The
sixth, containing Maj. Gen. George
F. Moore, was long overdue. We
waited for it all afternoon, and my
worry over him and the officers
with him mounted. Our scheduled
train time of 4:30 pm. arrived and
passed. But just at dusk the plane
bearing Moore appeared over the
field and made its landing. 1t had
been en- route about IL hours.
Speaks American Slang.
We were given supper at the
same hotel and when 1t was done
we were taken to train. 1t was
another all-night ride, and on the
morning of October 8, 1914, we
stopped at large Kyushu city
named Beppu. We were met there
by a talkative Jap soldier-interpre-
ter we had seen at Tamazato. He
was born in San Francisco and
spoke more American slang per sem
tence than / had ever heard before
or since.
He took charge Of us, put US in
buses and took us to a hotel where
we were delighted to find all the
American general officers we had
last seen at Tamazato on June S,
1943. They showed the stark effects
Of their remarkable stand against
the Jap cruelties at Shirakawa, and
1t was then that I heard their STIR
ring story from Brig. Gen. Lewis
Beebe.
We stayed at the flimsy hotel
through October and 8, during
which time I was permitted to use
the hot bath in the cellar for my
ailing back. On the morning of
the 9th we moved on by train and
rode all day to a seaport city whose
name I never learned. We were
hurried through the streets to a
ship and packed in like fish. The
ship lay there that night while we
tried to find room to sleep, and
left the next morning.
I was almost certain by now that
we would be taken to one of the
other main Jap islands, perhaps
Honslu, but I soon saw from the
position of the sun that we were
sailing in a northwesterly direc-
ton. We knew then we were going
to Korea and perhaps farther north,
and the matter of our tropical
clothing began to concern us. We
had suffered enough from the cold
the previous two winters in rela-
lively mild Formosa.
Fear Plane Attack.
About noon of that days voyage
we were startled to hear a ship
machine gun burst into action and
thought, Immediately that we had
been attacked by an American
plane (as, I later learned, did the
Americans who followed us from
Heito by boat. But when we
rushed. to the portfolios we saw
that the gun was firing only at
floating mine.
We were fed cold rice, a few
vegetables and strips of some
strange fish shortly after noon, and
at $50 we approached a harbor
which Gen. Defermery, a Dutch
officer who had travelled in this
region, identified as Fusan, Korea.
They herded us off the ship and
to a hotel, where we were rather
decently fed, and then moved us
on to an office building from whose
rooms all furniture and floor COW
erings had been removed. Each
room held a bundle of blankets in
corner. We rolled up in them
and slept.
The Japs awakened us early in
the morning and took us back to
the hotel for some fish and warm
ing tea, then marched us to a
railroad. They would not tell us
where we were being taken
After riding all day that day and
through the next two days and
nights on back-breaking wooden
seats, we arrived at bleak Man.
churian village named Sheng Tai
Tun, Just over a low mountain
range from the Cobb Desert. 1t
was freezing. Our malnutrition and
the long stay in the tropics had
thinned our blood to the consist
ency of water. None of us had
overcoats or even moderately warm
clothing. To a man, we began to
shake and our teeth clattered like
castanets.
Once Used by Russians.
The barren new camp, half mile
from the railroad, had once been
occupied by Russian troops guard
ing the Manchurian railway un-
der the terms of an old treaty. We
lined up outside the barracks, still
shaking with the cold, and the
camp commander made a long and
characteristically senseless speech
Then we had to form a queue and
sign statements that we would obey
the rules of the camp and would
not attempt to escape. After what
seemed like an age we were rer-
mitted to go inside the barracks
and were assigned to our rooms.
There were 80 of us, mostly senior
officers.
Maj. Gen. Edward p. King and
were put in room together and,
like the others, our immediate aim
in life was to get some warmth into
our bones. We found an old Rus
sian stove, gigantic affair with a
small, low opening for coal, and
built a fire, which had to be stocked
constantly while we were there,