大象传媒

This is Michael Charnaud鈥檚 story: it has been added by Pauline Colcutt (on behalf of the Fernhurst Centre), with permission from the author who understands the terms and conditions of adding his story to the website.

An unusual and true story of a young boy who with his mother became a prisoner of both the Germans and the Japanese May 1942 - August 1945

CHAPTER 8 - END OF THE WAR AND JOURNEY TO SYDNEY (PART TWO)

Again to start with cargo parachutes were used attached to oil drums filled with every conceivable form of tinned food. The nylon parachutes again were coloured, but for the larger loads of two drums at a time heavy woven white cargo chutes would be used. We would take a heavy cart out onto the racecourse , and many journeys would be needed to bring the supplies back safely to the camp. It was very frightening to be in the dropping zone and suddenly see ahead the great bomber in the distance, with its bomb bays open heading, directly for you. We would run and run away as fast as possible to get out of the line of flight, but the plane seemed to be ever chasing after you however fast one ran and as if in some nightmare dream it would seem to endlessly follow you. After a few drops once again, parachutes were dispensed with, and supplies were just dropped on pallets straight from the bomb bays at about 300 ft above, to land in a crash that would shatter the tins on impact, or sometimes a whole carton would be so interlocked in such a twisted mass of metal, that it was impossible to retrieve anything from it. The waste of food was stupendous and quite incomprehensible to us who had been starving and ekeing out our meagre supplies so thriftily, only now be overwhelmed by the sheer weight of 鈥渕aterial鈥� from the vast productive power of the US economy. Nothing was too much trouble for them. When we asked if it was possible to have some newspapers a plane was sent from Saipan with tons of oil drums packed with every conceivable paper from all the small cities spread across that vast country. In vain did we scour the papers to see any mention whatsoever of Britain鈥檚 role in the war. The war was a total US effort , but we did read for the first time about the Atom Bomb that had brought the war to its sudden end and had ultimately saved our lives. Those first few days of Peace had naturally brought us a complete and sudden change in our conditions. First of all there was now no more coercion so that life in the camp was a last relaxed. Most important though was the lack of hunger. When one is perpetually hungry there is a constant gnawing of ones stomach and mind, that is impossible to adequately describe to someone who has not actually starved for years on end. Suddenly, to have enough to eat, took a whole nagging burden off ones mind and released ones thoughts to think of other things. This was especially so in my case, as with the other children who were growing, we all felt suddenly that it was quite the most extraordinary and strange feeling, not to be perpetually hungry, but to just feel satisfied, and have ample food available. It was such a real unimaginable bliss which people nowadays in the West just take for granted. Within a few days of the cessation of hostilities we were each given some cash to buy some basic necessities. I took a little money and would wander by myself into the hills walking all alone crossing mountain streams and climbing paths and tracks for miles and miles and for hours on end just relishing the freedom to roam, like a bird that has flown away and has been suddenly released from a cage. On my travels I would meet simple Japanese farmers and peasants and would buy garlic and fruit from them. They were all without exception very kind and polite, and extremely courteous and would welcome me all alone in their very simple homes where I would communicate with them in the few words of Japanese that I had learnt. I never ever felt any tinge of fear but instead marvelled at their quiet dignified politeness and courtesy. Yet it was their sons in the army that had been trained to fight so brutally and cruelly. It all seemed quite incongruous! The sheer joy of walking through those woods into small fields that huddled in hollows and crossing small bridges over rushing torrents and then up the steep hills that for so many years I had looked at, but never been allowed to venture over. These long treks of exploration gave me at last a real exhilarating sense of freedom the like of which it is impossible to fully describe. The garlic that I bought satisfied some deep seated craving, and I would consume vast quantities as I wandered through the maple woods chewing constantly away at the cloves, and when I returned, I would have some trite words from Mother who could not bear the smell. It must have been due to some inner metabolic need after the long years of deprivation, as never again in later life have I had such a strong desire to munch raw cloves of garlic, and nowadays at the most I enjoy only a hint of it in some dishes.

Finally on the 11th September at about 11 am we received a telephone call giving us 1陆 hours notice to be ready to leave for the railway station and the start of our long journey home. Some buses arrived at the gates and we clambered aboard giving a final last look at those high brick walls that had penned us in all those years At this point in my story I will quote once again directly from my Mother鈥檚 notes of her feelings at that time to give a flavour of our endurance on our release:

鈥淭he story of my experiences is not exceptional. I suffered mental torment, bodily indignity, but not more than many others. They were hard years, and there is not much that is good to be said about them. I do not believe that they improved my character. I know that they did not improve my constitution, and the mirror assures me that they did not improve my face! But they have taught me how individuals react in time of misfortune. I learnt never to think of the future, and never dare anticipate tomorrow. I lived for the present, the future was dark, not only because there was no hint of approaching victory, but it was dark as a primitive chaos, due to the volcanically uncertain temper of our captors. Whilst I was still in captivity I believed that my character had changed, that I felt cold, unable to be hurt, unable to hurt myself, but now that I am back to normal again, I feel just as vulnerable. I hope that the hard manual tasks that we learned to perform under Jap surveillance from now on will have no place in my life. People say there is a great joy working with your hands which may be true, but a forced pointless labour on a starvation diet is very different. I also hope that there will be no occasion in my future life to steal or barter food. Those 38 months equipped me for just one thing 鈥減rison鈥�. But before I go to prison again I will die, for captivity has taught me the value of freedom. In my life before, I had existed as a free woman and had come to expect freedom as a matter of course, and it was not until I had lost it that I really understood its value. Freedom means this to me: The right to be with, to love and to touch my husband and children; the right to look about me without fear of seeing people struck or beaten or punished; the right to hear a man鈥檚 footsteps and know that it is not a guard. The right to work for oneself and one鈥檚 people. The possession of a door and a key with which to lock it. Moments of silence, and a place to weep and be private with no one else to see you. The freedom of my eyes to admire the face of this earth, the mountains, trees, the fields, the sea, without barbed wire and a high wall stretched across my vision. The strength to walk with the wind in my face and no sentry to stop me. The ability to look at the new moon without seeing it as a symbol of passing time, and saying to myself 鈥榟ow many more times must it rise on my captivity?鈥� These are things that make the freedom which I hope never to give up again. Knowing the utter desolation that was to face one, day after day, week after week, month after month as our captivity continued and one felt one鈥檚 moral courage weakening or ebbing away. Then one鈥檚 optimism would be faltering knowing the virtual dissolution of body and soul, which with certain conditions of living even more than dying bring about, and the constant ordeal to keep alive and not to give in because your own child鈥檚 life depended on it.

Now that one is back amongst free people again, you feel a wide gap between yourself and them. It is an emotional gap due to the life that one has lived, and the things that one has seen, and the thoughts that one has thought. The remedy is not pills though, because it is only people who have been through a similar experience who fully understand you, as they are on the same side of the gap with you. They alone may help you cross it one day to help you join the rest of the world as it moves on. Each individual in the camp had a floor space of 6ft x 4ftin which to sleep, eat, live, or die without privacy and quietness. The Mothers with children were the hardest hit of all with the constant strain of lack of food and hunger, and the worry of how long the meagre rations would continue to be doled out to us. There were fourteen mothers in all, and we washed, shouted, hated, fought, laughed and wept together, and without exception all helped each other. Life was grim and we lived not far above the level of animals who feed, fight for, nurture, and love and protect their young. I use the terms Prisoner and Prison Camp instead of Internment because that is how the Japs conducted their war rules. At irregular intervals, usually if someone had been 鈥渘aughty鈥� by breaking one of the 150 odd rules, we would be summoned together and lectured and told that we had insulted 鈥淗is Majesty the Emperor鈥�, who was practically regarded as a living presence with us. We would be reminded again of our status and told the rules for conduct of Prisoners of War. A guard was always right, and a prisoner always wrong, and so we were always victims of his inferiority complex which took the form of imaginary slights, and so in consequence we were often deliberately accused and punished for things that we never did. It was humiliating to be ruled, bullied, by ignorant uncouth, uneducated peasant boys all under 25 who would make obscene remarks and gestures or shout and brandish their swords on the least provocation. In our women鈥檚 camp all we had to complain of was starvation, weakness, occasional blows, constant regimentation, and work with no strength at all carried out on a ration of 15ozs of daily bread and the loneliness of one鈥檚 soul away from one鈥檚 family. However no women could have been kinder if one was sick, if one was being punished, or if your ration was cut. Not even your nearest and dearest could have given you the sympathy or done more than they did for you in those dark days of adversity. Because what one gives spiritually or materially in captivity, is worth ten times more than in the normal everyday world. But the human body is tough and with friendship can survive sickness and starvation. My boy鈥檚 life depended on me and his only chance of health and growth and his whole future attitude to life and his character revolved on me. It was a great responsibility for me all alone.

On the evening of our first day of Peace I sat down and tried to write. I wanted inspired spectacular words. Words to express to the world just what freedom meant but I could not find them. I wanted some way of expressing to others what had happened to us that day. I wanted to shout and tell them all what it was like to be a captive in Japan, and now what it was like to be once again free. Just what it meant to go through an ordeal like that for over three years, and to walk in the nightmare company of death with sadistic gaolers in the melancholy of imprisonment in a far away land. I finally left the story to be told by more able pens than mine.

On the 11th September at 1 陆 hours notice we were told to get ready to leave. I packed our bags, put on that frock that I had saved for 3 陆 years and amidst tears gave a silent prayer and thanks to that Unseen Force, or Power for Goodness, or God call it what you will, Who had watched over us miraculously all these years. We departed still thinking it was yet another dream. To have remained undefeated in spirit amid all the circumstances of defeat is a man鈥檚 most signal triumph, and my son and I had done it together, and we had both finally got through!

A great many of us now in the aftermath may be a little surly, a little indolent, sometimes strangely irritable. But we are beings who fought for our pride, and saved it whole; a little bit of Britain in our minds, in a long unchronicled private war. A war in which no decorations can ever be given, but to have come out of it with the whole spirit intact is the highest honour one could ever wish to achieve, far more so even than mere survival. It was our spirit that in the end , even procured for us the deepest respect of the Japanese themselves. I came away from that camp with nothing more than a greater tolerance and understanding of human nature, a greater sense of values, and a greater love for ordinary everyday people in their triumph over adversity.鈥�
The train slowly rumbled through hilly green country northwards through Miyagi and Iwanuma towards Sendai. We passed through picturesque valleys, across paddy fields now starting to turn gold with the ripening heads of rice, and through lush orchards and the green wooded hills all around, until at about 4.30 in the afternoon we arrived at the Northern port of Shiogama just north of Sendai. This was a complete and utter ruin with hardly a building left standing following the shelling offshore from the American Task Force two months before. We disembarked at the ruins of the station and were led by the first Americans that we had seen towards the seashore. Here there was a hive of activity with Seabees laying down steel road cladding and jeeps all rushing to and fro The beach was full of small landing craft with door ramps open unloading supplies. We strode across the beach in a daze, I carrying our few possessions in Mother鈥檚 kitbag on my shoulder, then walked up the ramp of the LCT (landing craft tank) and shortly afterwards we were under way and moved to a large USS Hospital Ship anchored in mid harbour. This we now boarded and were led down companion ways into its labyrinthine interior to be suddenly forced to strip and all the clothes that we were wearing, were taken off us to be incinerated. We were sprayed naked, deloused, given a good hot shower, after which we followed naked in line to receive a whole quota of standard GI new army uniform. Now smartly dressed in GI pale khaki we were led on to the mess, and had the most sumptuous dinner, our first cooked meal away from the camp, served by sailors with the whole range American accents and humour from Bronx to Southern Drawl. Not long after exhausted, we turned in for an early night in our bunks where we quietly celebrated to ourselves our first night away from Fukushima camp for over three years. Next morning at 5 am we were hurriedly awakened, given a good breakfast and by 6 am we were aboard the Australian destroyer HMAS Warrumunga heading for Yokohama. The destroyer sailed at full speed of about 30 knots, a spectacular sight with the whole vessel vibrating from stem to stern, with a colossal bow wave as she sliced through the deep blue ocean. The sea was calm with only the normal heavy Pacific swell, but the engine vibration and the deep swell made everyone intensely seasick, and one could do little except stay on deck in the warm breeze amid the vibration to try and alleviate the nausea. At about 4 o鈥檆lock in the afternoon we arrived at last and sailed into Tokyo bay having travelled the 300 miles from Shiogama in 10 hours.

Cont/鈥ee A Child鈥檚 War Part Seventeen

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