Guy_Harrison_Front Cover.indd 1 4/17/2010 4:23:28 PM Guy_Harrison_Front Cover.indd 2 4/17/2010 4:23:29 PM THE BRAVE JAPANESE Guy_FM.indd 1 4/9/2010 12:16:08 PM THE BRAVE JAPANESE KENNETH HARRISON Guy_FM.indd 2 4/9/2010 12:16:09 PM THE BRAVE JAPANESE KENNETH HARRISON RIGBY LIMITED Guy_FM.indd 3 4/9/2010 12:16:09 PM Rigby Limited, James Place, Adelaide Sydney - Melbourne - Brisbane - Perth Copyright 1966 by Kenneth Harrison First published 1966 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 66-17473 All rights reserved Printed in Australia at The Griffin Press for Rigby Limited, Adelaide, and registered in Australia for transmission by post as a book. Guy_FM.indd 4 4/9/2010 12:16:09 PM For the men of the Eighth Australian Division and my late cousin, Walter James Hegarty, who also would have been a soldier but for the eyes his Master gave him. Guy_FM.indd 5 4/9/2010 12:16:09 PM Guy_FM.indd 6 4/9/2010 12:16:09 PM FOREWORD The Brave Japanese was first published in 1966. It chronicles my father’s experiences during the Second World War as an anti-tank gunner in Malaysia, a Prisoner of the Japanese and as one of the first allied soldiers to enter Hiroshima immediately after the atomic bombing of 1945. I was only six years old when this book was originally published. My only clear recollection from that period was reading a two page spread in the Melbourne Sun cover- ing the controversy surrounding the book’s title. For many returned servicemen—especially those who had also been prisoners of war—to describe the Japanese as “brave” was seen as almost treasonous. Dad died in 1982, shortly before the book was repub- lished as The Road to Hiroshima. At that time, nuclear dis- armament was a highly passionate topic and the publishers felt that the Hiroshima angle would capture more interest than the then fading interest in Japanese prisoners of war. I suspect that they also sought to avoid the controversy engendered by the books original title. In deciding on the title for this digital re-print, my sister and I both agreed that the original title was most appropri- ate. Dad’s Hiroshima recollections have definite historical significance and to this day I can barely believe that my own father walked through a nuclear devastated city. But for us, his enduring legacy was his tolerance, optimism and humour that had somehow survived—or perhaps even was forged—in the horrific experiences he experienced as 7 Guy_FM.indd 7 4/9/2010 12:16:09 PM a young man. His controversial decision to describe his former enemies as brave exemplifies that attitude. Our father witnessed and experienced some of the most extreme suffering visited upon human beings by other human beings—both in the Japanese Camps and in the aftermath of the first atomic holocaust. That he retained his faith in humanity after these experiences is inspiring. My sister Gabrielle and I are honoured to have had the oppor- tunity to preserve this autobiography. Guy Harrison Melbourne, December 2009 8 Guy_FM.indd 8 4/9/2010 12:16:09 PM CONTENTS Action In Malaya 13 Pudu Prison, Kuala Lumpur 100 Singapore, Changi, and Thailand 143 The Cruise of the “Byoki Maru” 226 Japan 238 Guy_FM.indd 9 4/9/2010 12:16:09 PM ILLUSTRATIONS Manoeuvring a Breda gun into position. (Australian War Memorial) facing page 16 Three of the men with camouflaged gun. Australian( War Memorial) 16 Cutting, with road block in position (Australian War Memorial) 17 Anti-tank gun and Japanese tanks, Bakri 17 After the battle. (Australian War Memorial) 34 The tanks, from Thornton’s gun. (Australian War Memorial) 34 Grieving Chinese women, Singapore. (Australian War Memorial) 35 Copy of document dropped on British forces in 1942. (Bombardier Bob Beaumont) 35 Propaganda leaflet dropped on Malaya by Japanese. (Bombardier Bob Beaumont) 70 Japanese leaflet aimed at the Indian troops. (Bombardier Bob Beaumont) 70 Propaganda inciting the Malays. (Bombardier Bob Beaumont) 70 £1 note printed by the Japanese 71 Japanese occupation money used in Malaya 71 Guy_FM.indd 10 4/9/2010 12:16:09 PM facing page Parit Sulong Bridge. (Australian War Memorial) 86 Mount Bukit Belah. (Warrant Officer John Balsillie) 86 Selarang Barracks Square. (Private Ray Wheeler) 87 Selarang Barracks Square. (Warrant Officer John Balsillie) 87 Cholera Block, Konyu. (Private Ray Wheeler) 120 Ghost railway station, Malacca. (Warrant Officer John Balsillie) 120 Shimonoseki 121 Photo taken by Wally Johnson from Japanese tent. (Bombardier Bob Beaumont) 121 Khaw Kok Teen 121 Puteh Merican 121 Scene of 2/30th Battalion’s ambush at Gemas. (Warrant Officer John Balsillie) 138 “Pack of Cards” bridge. (Australian War Memorial) 138 P.O.W. postcards 139 Ruins of Hiroshima. (Mr and Mrs R. Gerard) 174 Ruins of Hiroshima. (Mr and Mrs R. Gerard) 175 Leaflet dropped after the war. (Flight Sergeant R. H. Sanford) 192 Japanese Army Commander and white surrender plane. (Flight Sergeant R. H. Sanford) 192 Aircraft carrier H.M.S. Speaker Manila. (Australian War Memorial) 193 Guy_FM.indd 11 4/9/2010 12:16:09 PM Guy_FM.indd 12 4/9/2010 12:16:09 PM Action in Malaya CHAPTER ONE We were in a gay mood that very early day of September, 1945, as we approached Hiroshima. As usual, the Japanese civilians in the train were remarkably friendly once their early awe of our “military police” armbands disappeared, and we had gladly shared their simple breakfast of cold rice and pickled daikon. Before long everybody in the carriage was smiling at the nonsense of Puteh and Khaw Kok Teen, who were trying out their charm and knowledge of the Japanese language on two girls who had dissolved into helpless giggles behind their fans. I exchanged a smile with Alan Foo and then glanced idly out of the window. … At first I could not believe my eyes. Was it imagination, or were the houses here really built with a slight slant almost like the tower of Pisa? But then we saw more leaning houses, and more, and the closer we came to Hiroshima, the greater became the angle, until the bamboo walls were bent back as though they had been carelessly pushed by some giant hand. The next lot of houses lay flat, and then there were no houses—only ashes. Thus we came to the quiet city of Hiroshima. The train pulled in to a completely bare platform—all that was left of the outermost of three railway stations serving Hiroshima—and we climbed down, and stared about us incredulously. Hiroshima was a silent wasteland of desola- tion and ashes. 13 Guy_Chap_01.indd 13 4/9/2010 12:16:52 PM From our platform we could see that the uprooted railway line made a wide sweep around the city, and so complete was the devastation, that the low, bare platforms of the other two railway stations were clearly visible in the distance. The outlines of the streets stood out in geometric squares as precisely as though they had been drawn on paper. Here and there a tower, or the shell of a concrete building still stood, but the rest of Hiroshima was a flat, grey desert. We left the platform and walked down what had been a street to make a closer inspection. A heavy cordon of armed police ringed the city, and although they stopped and ques- tioned all civilians we were allowed to pass in silence. The corpse of Hiroshima lay cradled between distant hills and the waters of the Inland Sea, and as we walked down the ash-covered bitumen strip, the fierce sun of the Japanese summer lanced the blue water and made it dance and sparkle. Bright sunshine and a deep blue sky—that’s how the papers said it had been on that other day just one month ago. … The brooding silence was almost like a presence, and we spoke in low tones. For the first time since I had known them, Puteh and Kok Teen looked serious and troubled. We are told that even at Passchendaele the birds still twit- tered and sang above the shellfire, and that when the artil- lery barrage in Flanders ceased, men were amazed to hear nightingales. But here at Hiroshima there was only silence. There was no traffic; no trees rustled, no insect chirped, no bird sang. Footsteps were muffled by the ashes, and even the wind found nothing to sigh against. The policemen ringing the city stood motionless under the hot sun, and had it not been for the small groups of people digging and searching aimlessly in the debris it might have been simply 14 Guy_Chap_01.indd 14 4/9/2010 12:16:52 PM a painted scene. There was a smell of death, and the silence was the silence of death. A group of sweating men digging in the ruins stared at us dully as we passed. They wore gauze masks and we looked with pity and guilt at the two pathetic piles beside them … corpses on one side, bones on the other. People walked past slowly, devoid of strength and spirit. Many had burns that were still raw; others were bandaged. A little girl trudged behind with her parents, and my eyes went from her shockingly disfigured face to the doll that she dragged listlessly in the ashes. I noted, irrelevantly, that her doll had slant eyes. Everyone was in the grip of a strange apathy. The only person in all Hiroshima showing any emotion was a Japanese, his arms caked to the elbows in ashes, who was kneeling, clasping a battered clock.