"They That Take the Sword..."

This is my grandfather's story of his perspective on the beginning and the end of WW2

‘You had better go down and feed the cow, John, in case the alarm goes, and you have to line up for roll call.’

My wife was speaking, and we were in a little room in the school building of a Polish Roman Catholic Monastery, high above the city of Nagasaki, and the day was 11th September 1945: the day when the second atomic bomb was exploded over that city.

‘It’s a bit early to feed her ‘, I replied, ‘It’s not 12 o’clock yet.’

‘Yes, I know’, she continued, ‘but something’s up. I don’t like that wretched plane that has been buzzing around above us all morning. There’s never been anything like that before; if you don’t feed the cow she’ll give us less milk, and the guards won’t leave any for us. It’s little they leave for us at the best of times.’

Josie was quite right, so I went down and started to prepare the cow’s feed. Before it was quite ready for her, the bomb fell….

But how did a Scot’s couple, who had spent thirty years as missionaries in the Church of Scotland Mission in Manchuria, come to be in a Polish Roman Catholic Monastery in Nagasaki?

To answer that question we must go back many years to 1928, when Japan decided to ‘take the sword’ in order to wrest the rich land of Manchuria from China to whom it belonged. But, seeing we are speaking metaphorically, it might be better to say ‘took the dagger’, for in that year Japan’s weapon was assassination, not war.

Manchuria’s warlord, Chang Tsoa-lin, had been defeated in North China by Nationalist troops, and was returning home ‘with his tail between his legs’. But when he was met at the border by the Japanese making outrageous demands, his tail went up, and he refused. That refusal was his death warrant.

Near Moukden there was a bridge by which the Japanese railway line passed over the Chinese line on which Chan was travelling. On that bridge the Japanese had so fixed a bomb that it would explode downwards onto a train passing below. When Chan’s compartment was directly under it, that bomb was exploded. Chang, though mortally wounded, was still alive when carried into his palace. The Japanese had counted on disturbances following his death, which would give them a pretext for intervention. But the Chinese outwitted them by pretending Chang was alive until his son had been flown in, and had taken over control. There were no disturbances and no excuse to interfere.

By September 1931 they were ready with another plan. Shortly after midnight on the 18th the roar of heavy artillery and the whine of shells passing over the city wakened us and our children, and indeed all the inhabitants of Moukden. We could not imagine what was happening, but in the morning we learned that the Japanese had shelled and then occupied the Chinese military barracks.

That morning an older colleague said to me: ‘Japan has today started something so big that the full consequences will not be realised in my lifetime.’ I thought of these words when Japan’s defiance of the League of Nations was copied by Mussolini and then by Hitler and the Second World War ensued. It was surely a strange coincidence that my wife and I and perhaps one or two others, who were in Moukden when Japan ‘took the sword’ were destined to see her compelled to lay it down in Nagasaki fourteen years later.

The Japanese claimed that the Chinese were the aggressors having torn up a section of the Japanese railway track north of Moukden the previous night. That was a lie. Josie and I had seen the train arrive from the north that very night.

We were meeting that train to welcome a Mr Humphrey whom the church was sending out to film the work of their mission in Manchuria. The new situation meant that all our plans for the filming were upset. We were allowed to take photographs only if accompanied by two Japanese — a soldier and an interpreter.

The interpreter proved useful to me later when difficulties arose because of the Japanese occupation. He had an important post at Japanese Military Headquarters, and was very friendly. At the close of the filming he gave me his card and this gave me access to the Japanese High Command. There were cases of rape by Japanese soldiers in Moukden North Suburb and one of these was in a Christian home. I reported this to my friend, and after consulting his chief, he told me that the matter would be investigated. In about a week I received the result. They had found my report to be accurate and deeply regretted the affair; the guilty men had been severely disciplined, and there were guarantees that there would be no more such incidents. In this case at least, they were as good as their word.

The years of the Japanese domination of Manchuria were years of undiluted misery for the Chinese. The weapon the Japanese now adopted was the diabolic one of torture. Manchukue, as they called it, was a police state, which used fiendish tortures to force men to confess crimes that they had never committed. It was misery to us too, seeing our friends suffering such abominations without being able to help. One fine young doctor when released was quite out of his mind. Another was nursed back to a measure of health and allowed out for a walk. He saw a Japanese soldier some distance away and fell to the ground in a dead faint. No prisoner was ever acquitted. If someone was let out it was always under a threat.

After the Pearl Harbour attack, all British men in Moukden were interned. Then, after five months, they, together with all the British women were taken to Kobe as a first step to repatriation. The great majority were repatriated, but at the last moment when our luggage was actually on the ship and we were waiting for transport to take us on board, a few, including Jose and I were held back and interned in Kobe.

Our internment in Kobe lasted until July 1944, when we were transferred to Nagasaki, along with a large number of Roman Catholic nuns.

In Nagasaki our guards were irreconcilably hostile. They more than half starved us. And if they did not beat us, it seemed sometimes that they were trying to goad us into words or actions that would excuse them doing so. For example a guard wad unloading a cart of turnips, throwing the turnips to us men when suddenly he deliberately threw one at the head of one of the ladies. Fortunately a man was quick enough to thrust out his hand and intercept it.

We were glad that our children were in Scotland and were spared this bitter experience.

The guards told us they were protecting us from the hatred of the people. That was not our impression. One day Josie was collecting little wild onions to augment our starvation diet, and she ventured down the hill out of bounds. She heard children’s voices, but continued her search until she realised that they were coming after her. She tried to hurry up the hill to get back within bounds before they overtook her, but, being very weak, she found she could not make it and turned to face them, not knowing what to expect. One by one they approached her and each handed her a bunch of wild onions. These children surely did not come from homes where hungry prisoners were hated.

Although life in the Nagasaki camp was hard, Josie and I agreed we had much to be thankful for. There was a Chinese cook. He was a Christian and a friend and we could speak to him in his own language. He sometimes managed to smuggle us all a little extra food, and in other ways helped us as much as he dared. But he had to slave for the guards night and day and could cook for us only what the guards allowed him — which had little nourishment.

There was the cow. We all got a little milk each day- about one third of a cupful.

There were the Red Cross boxes. We believe that, unlike other camps, our guards gave us all the boxes that came for us. And what a blessing they were!

Without these aids to our diet I don’t think Josie would have survived.

We also had the loyal companionship of our colleagues interned with us.

But above all we were grateful not to be separated as so many husbands and wives were — each not knowing if the other was alive or dead. Ours was really a woman’s camp in which husbands were included to be the camp coolies. Women could not have managed the heavy loads that had to be daily carried up the steep rough track from the road to the camp. We husbands saved the Japanese coolie hire!

Each prisoner had some special responsibility. Mine, which I shared with another man, was the cow that had nowhere to graze. Two men were needed because, not only did the coarse grass of the hillside have to be cut, gathered and chopped before she could be fed; but also, because the cow-shed was so badly constructed, it could not be properly cleaned. In addition to this the guards grudged getting sufficient straw for her bedding. In consequence, she got appallingly dirty and had to be frequently washed. Thus each day one “cowman” was on the hill and one was in the shed.

It was my turn to be in the shed on the day the bomb fell. Of course we knew nothing of atomic bombs, but we had a feeling that crisis was approaching. We believed that the Japanese were going to fight to the bitter end and we had seen piles of long stout bamboo poles, cut on the slant to a point bayonet-sharp, with which the civilian population were to defend the beaches if there was an invasion from the sea. All that morning we had been particularly uneasy. The plane that my wife spoke of — or another like it- was flying round above as I prepared the cow’s food. Suddenly there was the scream of a plane power-diving, as I thought, to bomb us. I threw myself on the floor of the shed behind the food-box. The scream of the plane was followed by a glare of light, terrifying in its intensity and seeming to me to last for a long, long time. This terrifying light so filled my mind that I have no recollection of the noise of the explosion. Having instinctively closed my eyes, I remember asking myself: ”Have I been blinded by that light? When I open my eyes will I see?”

When I did open them and rise up, the first thing I saw was the mushroom cloud. But, apart from that cloud, the scene was peaceful. Fortunately for me there was a line of low hills between me and the valley where the bomb exploded and I was seeing only the sheltered side of those hills. The cow was alright too, standing where I had tied her. So I took her into the shed, left her feeding, and went up to the camp quite unprepared for the shambles I found inside the building. All the doors and windows were blown in, and, because the windows were large and high, and all the doors had glass panels, the floors lay deep in shattered glass. Triangular pieces of glass were sticking into the plaster of the walls. The blast had played some freakish tricks. Some ladies’ dresses were found outside, high up on the telegraph wires. One lady, who wore spectacles, feared her sight was affected. She could not see properly though she had her spectacles on. Then it was discovered that the lenses had disappeared form the frames!

But later on we were deeply distressed. Our friend the Chinese cook had been in the town and did not return. He was never seen again, nor was his body ever discovered. Our morning prayers the next day took the form of a memorial service at which we read together that Gospel passage where Jesus, speaking of kindness to the hungry and prisoners, said ”In as much as ye did it unto these,… Ye did it unto me.”

Japan surrendered on the 15th August, but it was the 17th before we were told, and then it was at the unearthly hour of 1.30am. The alarm bell rang and we were ordered to get up and go immediately to the dining room without waiting to dress. It sounded ominous and Josie and I felt we could face whatever was coming with clothes on us, so we dressed hastily.

In the dining room were the guards, several police officials and the Chief of Police. It was he who addressed us. He spoke through an interpreter, and his speech was in short, jerky sentences something like this: “The war is over. Your country has won, our country has lost. You have weapons of war we cannot equal. When our Emperor said, “Fight”, we fought; now our Emperor says “Stop fighting”, we stop. If you have complaints to make of your treatment here, you must accuse me, not your guards, for you were my responsibility. There is one thing in which we can all join — in rejoicing that peace has come again. So we invite you now to drink wine with us to celebrate the return of peace.”

Was it not a surprisingly good speech in the circumstances?

I won’t attempt to describe our feelings of joy and relief, but when morning came, we met as usual for prayers. We sang the metrical version of the 124th Psalm and found our feelings well expressed there, especially in the last verse:
“Ev’n as a bird out of the fowler’s snare
Escapes away, so is our soul set free;
Broke are their nets, and thus escaped we.
Therefore our help is in the Lord’s great name,
Who heav’n and earth by his great power did frame.”

A month later, a detachment of American and Australian troops came and escorted us to the US Navy Hospital ship “The Haven”. Josie and another lady were too weak to walk and were taken on stretchers.

During the ten days that ”The Haven” remained in harbour, I was invited to join a sight seeing party from the ship, and show them round the camp. At my suggestion we also went to see the valley where the bomb fell. On the way there we saw the blackened ruins of districts destroyed by the fire that followed the bomb. The valley of the bomb was quite different, it was a desert of rust red-dust.

Perhaps that rust-red dust was a not unfitting symbol of the death and devastation that followed on Japan’s adventure, begun fourteen years earlier, when, in defiance of the League of Nations, she “took the sword”.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.