Speaker 1: Beat. If it doesn't work, you're just not using enough.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Software Radio Special Operations, military news and
Speaker 1: straight talk with the guys in the community. Hello again, everyone,
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Software Radio, Software Radio on Time on Target.
Speaker 1: I am your host this morning. Steve Al's jury joining
Speaker 1: us very shortly. We're going to have a very special guest,
Speaker 1: Mindy Cottler Smith. Mindy is a a very important member
Speaker 1: of the I want to say this correctly, the American
Speaker 1: Defenders of Batan and Corregador Memorial Society. And we're gonna
Speaker 1: be talking about that. We're gonna be talking about a
Speaker 1: couple of things actually that had to do with po
Speaker 1: w's during that time frame. We're gonna look at you know,
Speaker 1: everyone's very familiar with the Batan Death March, and we
Speaker 1: all know all about that, but there was others that
Speaker 1: took place there weren't as possibly well known, I guess
Speaker 1: you could say. So we're going to get into all that, um,
Speaker 1: but before we do, I just need to read you
Speaker 1: a really quick message from soft Rep. Soft Rep will
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Speaker 1: better time to join soft rep than right now. So
Speaker 1: with that being said, let's bring on our guests. Mindy,
Speaker 1: thank you for taking the time this morning. We really
Speaker 1: appreciate your uh, your patients with us and joining us
Speaker 1: this morning. So welcome to software a Radio. Thank you
Speaker 1: for having me and um, you did more or less
Speaker 1: pronucy correctly. If you're from the Philippines or we're Pow,
Speaker 1: it's Baton. If you're from the New York metropolitan area,
Speaker 1: it's Batan. Okay, I've heard both. I wasn't sure which
Speaker 1: is the correct one, so we'll go with the Filipino. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I grew up on a farm in upstate New York,
Speaker 1: so I say things like coffee and Batan. Let's let's
Speaker 1: talk about you know your organization first, UM, tell us
Speaker 1: a little bit about the American Defenders of Baton in
Speaker 1: Corregador Memorials. It's a great organization. If you're interested in
Speaker 1: World War Pacific theater, World War two history, and interested
Speaker 1: in the American Pow Japan experience, this is the organization
Speaker 1: to be a member of. It was founded in n
Speaker 1: by a man by the name of Sam Moody from Lynn, Massachusetts.
Speaker 1: He was on the Baton Death March, and he was
Speaker 1: a slave laborer in a UH train factory in Japan,
Speaker 1: which makes any train you go on in Boston or
Speaker 1: New York or Chicago. They this company still exists and UM,
Speaker 1: they have yet to apologize for torturing Mr Moody in
Speaker 1: the and at their factory. They made him stand and
Speaker 1: he has sort of a world record for standing for
Speaker 1: about three and a half days at attention. He was
Speaker 1: young and state, what can I say? And so he
Speaker 1: found his ortization mainly for the POWs. So he understood
Speaker 1: that only people who are pwes could really understand each other.
Speaker 1: And for the first were two years, it was a
Speaker 1: drink fest. It was three days of drunken whatever. And
Speaker 1: then as they got older and sobered up and family
Speaker 1: started becoming involved, the people started researching and trying to
Speaker 1: understand what had happened to the POWs. And also by
Speaker 1: the seventies, people understood what PTSD was. And every single
Speaker 1: POW that came back because of the torture they experienced,
Speaker 1: that the privation that they experienced and the sheer inexplicable
Speaker 1: in humanity that was inflicted upon them by the Japanese,
Speaker 1: they all had severe to awful PTSD very the highest
Speaker 1: rate of suicide, though as I've told you, they didn't
Speaker 1: call it suicide. Then it was an accident. It was
Speaker 1: an accident that the training that the truck stalled on
Speaker 1: the railroad trucks, It was an accident that the rifle
Speaker 1: went just happened to be pointing to his head. Um
Speaker 1: things like that, and in fact, UM, I'm sure some
Speaker 1: of the listeners are from California. And it doesn't matter
Speaker 1: how you feel about Governor Newsom, but his grandfather was
Speaker 1: a very disabled POW who became a very well known horticulturalist.
Speaker 1: But one day in the seventies, he took a rifle
Speaker 1: and was going to kill his two twin daughters, of
Speaker 1: which one became the mother of the Governor. And instead
Speaker 1: of killing his daughters, he killed himself in front of
Speaker 1: them because he couldn't live with himself anymore. This was
Speaker 1: not an unusual story, how many now in it by
Speaker 1: nineteen By two thousand nine, the po ws were a
Speaker 1: little too old and the families and descendants have taken
Speaker 1: over and now it's more of a memorial society. We
Speaker 1: also the last Pow commandant, UM negotiated with the Japanese
Speaker 1: government with the help of the U. S Government to
Speaker 1: finally get something the U. S Government had never done.
Speaker 1: We never went to UH. The Japanese created UM a
Speaker 1: fund for reconciliation with amid many of its victims in
Speaker 1: Asia and the POWs Uh and POWs but the only
Speaker 1: POWs who got any any relationship to this where they
Speaker 1: created research UH funds trips to Japan for reconciliation and conferences.
Speaker 1: It was only for the British, the Australians and the Dutch.
Speaker 1: The Americans were completely left out and the U. S.
Speaker 1: Government did nothing for them. In fact, the U. S
Speaker 1: Government has denied them funds, It fought against them being
Speaker 1: able to sue for their wages they did as slave laborers,
Speaker 1: and all the major Japanese companies UM and so it
Speaker 1: wasn't until the Obama administration that they took this on
Speaker 1: and they negotiate with the Japanese to start UM a
Speaker 1: visitation program for xpows two for them and their families
Speaker 1: to go back to Japan and actually be treated like
Speaker 1: royalty and UM. I have been told by a number
Speaker 1: of the POWs that after those trips they stopped the
Speaker 1: night the nightmare stopped and now we're on children and
Speaker 1: but children is is and this is what we have
Speaker 1: to always explain to the children. Doesn't mean someone who's
Speaker 1: twenty years old children me someone who's eight, eight seventy, Yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly a children, right, But how many of we worked
Speaker 1: with the government. We testify the Congress and we advocate
Speaker 1: and we one of the main things we really want
Speaker 1: is to get a Congressional Gold Medal, of which there
Speaker 1: is one incredibly bad bill in Congress being considered and
Speaker 1: one very good bill that we're trying to get more
Speaker 1: attention to. We'll come back to that. Okay, Sorry, you
Speaker 1: didn't get me off on a tangent. That's quite all right.
Speaker 1: I was trying to ask you how many of our
Speaker 1: pow is from that error are still alive. Well, the
Speaker 1: short answer, we don't fully know, but I think the
Speaker 1: answer is more like around two. D Wow, that's not
Speaker 1: very many. And we just lost one last week who
Speaker 1: was a hundred and one from Minnesota, and uh it's
Speaker 1: and then it's in fact we lost to one from
Speaker 1: Minnesota and one from I think he was from California.
Speaker 1: So it's a little A lot of the men came
Speaker 1: back and simply didn't want to talk about it, let
Speaker 1: alone join something. So there's a lot of people floating
Speaker 1: out there who we're not We just don't know about.
Speaker 1: So there's always people who appear right, And now let's
Speaker 1: let's just go back to that time in you know, everyone,
Speaker 1: like I said at the outside of the podcast, everyone
Speaker 1: knows about the Baton death March. You know it was
Speaker 1: sixty miles or so that that again is a bit
Speaker 1: of a misnomer. There's a few things people don't know
Speaker 1: where Baton is. It's in the Philippines. There's a there's Manila,
Speaker 1: and there's a bay. And on one end of the
Speaker 1: bay is this peninsula in the middle of the bay.
Speaker 1: Is this a series of fortress islands, of which the
Speaker 1: most famous is Corregator, which is in the Marine Corps
Speaker 1: anthem Baton. So when when Baton was surrendered, and this
Speaker 1: every pow who was on the Baton death March will
Speaker 1: snap at you and say, I did not surrender. I
Speaker 1: was surrendered. They were told to to go to the
Speaker 1: tip of the peninsula or at an midpoint, and start gathering,
Speaker 1: and they were to march up the peninsula to a
Speaker 1: train station. From the tip of Baton to this train
Speaker 1: station is sixty ruling miles. April is one of the
Speaker 1: absolute hottest months in the Philippines, and that's saying a
Speaker 1: lot when it's hot all the time. And then from
Speaker 1: the train stations about seventeen miles. In these box cars,
Speaker 1: which literally some of them, if you were to look
Speaker 1: at the Holocaust box cars in France, they literally the
Speaker 1: same cars. Um. And so the men were packed into
Speaker 1: these box cars a hundred these are very tiny box cars. Uh,
Speaker 1: they were packed a hundred at a time. Men. You
Speaker 1: can imagine the fifth the disentery, the waste, the vomit,
Speaker 1: and men died standing up. And then after they fell
Speaker 1: out of the boss cars, they had to march another
Speaker 1: three miles. So all this is about eighty five miles.
Speaker 1: But the but the best known is the sixty March,
Speaker 1: but not everyone did. But it only felt like six
Speaker 1: thousand miles because it was so horrific and we all
Speaker 1: know about that one, the one I wanted to I
Speaker 1: don't think people really understand how capricious and ill prepared
Speaker 1: the Japanese were. And ill prepared is one thing, but
Speaker 1: you another thing is the abject in humanity, nity, and cruelty,
Speaker 1: and and just the wilfulness of and delight of killing
Speaker 1: people along the march. They would run over them with
Speaker 1: tanks or trucks and leave them embedded in the road.
Speaker 1: If someone tried to get something to drink, they shot
Speaker 1: him in the back of the head or they bayoneted him,
Speaker 1: and they would make other POWs bury him alive. Um.
Speaker 1: They took. There were two field hospitals, large field hospitals
Speaker 1: at the beginning of the route. They made all the
Speaker 1: prisoners to get out, no matter what condition. And they were,
Speaker 1: and that's how most of the Filipinos died. They were
Speaker 1: in no condition to march, let alone walk a half
Speaker 1: half a step, so they died. Um. They if he
Speaker 1: were in a Japanese officer was in a trust, he
Speaker 1: just put out his sword and and the head someone.
Speaker 1: They did not feed them for a day and a half.
Speaker 1: They were hardly a water breaks. Uh. They take up
Speaker 1: about thinking disgusting him the name truck in the hottest
Speaker 1: possible way. I think you're there. They do not understand.
Speaker 1: No one understands the atrocity enough. Um. And then not
Speaker 1: everyone was another thing. Not everyone was on the Baton
Speaker 1: dead point. People think if you were a pow Japan
Speaker 1: and you were in the Philippines, you were the Baton
Speaker 1: death March. Where there's there's a few caveats to that one.
Speaker 1: There's about two thousand guys more or less jump into
Speaker 1: the bay and being all being young and stupid, and
Speaker 1: you have to understand the bag has had sharks, had minds,
Speaker 1: had all sorts of slips that were on fire and
Speaker 1: blown up stuff all over the place. They swam or
Speaker 1: floated to the three miles to Corregador. Curregador wasn't for
Speaker 1: this island, which is where was the headquarters for the
Speaker 1: US forces from the Philippines. And they were on Pregator
Speaker 1: with the Marines and co star pilot Hillary and anyone
Speaker 1: could get there. I'm good friends with a man who
Speaker 1: was Army air car you know. Unfortunately, uh well, you
Speaker 1: have to understand when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor at
Speaker 1: the same time they bombed Philippines, they bombed Hong Kong,
Speaker 1: they bomb Hallean Island, they bombed Wake Island, they bombed Guam,
Speaker 1: they bombed Shanghai, and they bomb a part of Malaya.
Speaker 1: So this wasn't it was. This was all out war
Speaker 1: for the Japanese, and so and so so that all
Speaker 1: the airfields by December tenth were knocked out for all
Speaker 1: the air been and all the and also all the
Speaker 1: navy yard was nack out. They all were sent to
Speaker 1: Baton become provisional infantry on. So this Penelman jumped in
Speaker 1: the water at the beginning of the March, and Twantomdor
Speaker 1: and fought with the Marines. So he was in the
Speaker 1: Air Corps arm the Army infantry on the marine car um.
Speaker 1: So I already got lost on what I was saying.
Speaker 1: That's quite all right. It was a god awful situation,
Speaker 1: has that. Yes, that's very very true, and which brings
Speaker 1: us to the other death march that we mentioned at
Speaker 1: the outset um. This is one that you know. Honestly,
Speaker 1: until I started corresponding with you, I was not aware of.
Speaker 1: So inform our listeners a little bit about this one. Okay. Well,
Speaker 1: part of what I there knowing that there were American
Speaker 1: and Filipino troops on the island of Cordet Craigador and
Speaker 1: the other little islands near Agador, is understanding that troops
Speaker 1: weren't only on Baton, but they were throughout the Philippines,
Speaker 1: throughout other islands and other parts of the Philippines. And
Speaker 1: one group was on an island which we know about
Speaker 1: today as Menda now, which is a stronghold for um
Speaker 1: Muslim Filipinos and we we are quite a number of
Speaker 1: plantations there. We had an air field, we were building
Speaker 1: an air field. Uh, there are a number of things
Speaker 1: going on, and we had a very sophisticated, very savvy
Speaker 1: General Guy Fork in charge of the American Filipino troops
Speaker 1: on Minda Now. He was told and Minda Now was
Speaker 1: like the last to surrender. One of the reasons um
Speaker 1: with Corregador. They felt that when Waynewright was surrendered his troops,
Speaker 1: they said, well, you surrendering all the Philippines and he
Speaker 1: said no, Uh, there's commanders all over the Philippines. And
Speaker 1: he says, well, you you get them to surrender, we
Speaker 1: kill everyone here. So he sent people out with a
Speaker 1: Japanese officer to try to track these guys down and
Speaker 1: get them to surrender. Most a Guy Fort, who had
Speaker 1: been spent basically a lifetime in the Philippines, new Minta
Speaker 1: Now like the back of his hand, was practically amorrow,
Speaker 1: and most of his Filipino troops went into the jungle
Speaker 1: to become UH guerrillas, and his troops were told his
Speaker 1: Americans were told, if they leave, we're gonna kill every
Speaker 1: They will kill everyone in Corregador. So he, some of
Speaker 1: the Filipinos and he were surrendered in um near a
Speaker 1: lake uh in Minda Now, and they felt the Japanese
Speaker 1: felt the thing about the death marchers. There have been
Speaker 1: many throughout the Pacific. It was systemic. Um, the level
Speaker 1: of cruelty was systemic, The level of incompetence was systemic
Speaker 1: in the sense that, yes, you can be disorganized, but
Speaker 1: why do you have to be so cruel And this
Speaker 1: was where whether you were in the Andemate Islands, whether
Speaker 1: you were on Borneo, there's the very famous and docan
Speaker 1: death March where all of the people who started out
Speaker 1: only six survived. Um there. So this in Minta, now
Speaker 1: they took the American troops were about three hundred or so,
Speaker 1: and they made they wired them together and they made
Speaker 1: them walk, which we think, miles, how cow hard can
Speaker 1: that be? Well, if if you stumble and they bayon
Speaker 1: at you, if you try to get something to drink,
Speaker 1: they bayonet you. If you fall behind, they bayonet you.
Speaker 1: The Filipinos were made to take their shoes off and
Speaker 1: they had to walk on the hot pavement. You have
Speaker 1: to understand that it was incredibly hot. This is the tropics.
Speaker 1: So and like even with the death March, many of
Speaker 1: the men made it, but they often they died at
Speaker 1: in droves once they got there. Something about achieving the goal,
Speaker 1: So what and what is significant about this? Men to
Speaker 1: now death March, which has actually a number of names.
Speaker 1: There were much less survivors, but it was one of
Speaker 1: the sixteen war crimes that the Filipino prosecutors brought to
Speaker 1: the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal. It was considered that grave,
Speaker 1: that awful, that over the top that they raided that
Speaker 1: with the Palawan massacre and the Baton death March. And
Speaker 1: if you don't know what the Palawan massacre is, and
Speaker 1: that's significant for today's foreign policy, American foreign policy. We
Speaker 1: have uh an agreement with the Filipinos uh and Enhanced
Speaker 1: Agreement to for defense and we're using an airfield on
Speaker 1: this island, this beautiful island of Palawan. While this airfield
Speaker 1: was built by American POWs for the Japanese Army air
Speaker 1: air Air Corps. They didn't call in the corps or force.
Speaker 1: There was a Japanese Imperial Japanese Army airplanes. So this
Speaker 1: in with by hand. There were no no machinery. They
Speaker 1: had build this from the coral and it was hard,
Speaker 1: it was horrible work. They are hardly fed. Um they
Speaker 1: were constantly in compree sicily tortured and so towards the
Speaker 1: end of when the airfield was finished. Uh. They left
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty guys there. This is in nineteen
Speaker 1: December nine. UM. The US was already coming to the Philippines.
Speaker 1: They had started approaching and landing on the Philippines in October.
Speaker 1: So the Japanese uh there there are some examples of it,
Speaker 1: but there was a kill all order out for all
Speaker 1: POWs from the Japanese. So what they did they had
Speaker 1: the POWs dig air raid trenches and so one day
Speaker 1: December fourteen, which should live in history, they told the
Speaker 1: men to get in the air raid trenches. They doused
Speaker 1: them with airplane fuel like, lit them on fire and
Speaker 1: machine gun them. And any guy who tried to crawl
Speaker 1: out they shot machine or in some cases played with UM.
Speaker 1: Some of the po debts were smart enough when they
Speaker 1: were building the trench to feel something was wrong. And
Speaker 1: the field was on the side uh of the on
Speaker 1: a cliff of sorts, so they you could at one
Speaker 1: end could actually push out the end to jump into
Speaker 1: the water. Eleven guys got out, uh, some in the water,
Speaker 1: some just hiding in the jungle. They were able to
Speaker 1: The Japanese found some of them and killed them. But
Speaker 1: the level leven were able to get to across to
Speaker 1: some other part uh in the Palawan where there was
Speaker 1: a prison colony and there was also guerrillas. And when
Speaker 1: MacArthur heard about this, he realized he had to step
Speaker 1: up the rescues. And so if you've seen the move
Speaker 1: The Great Raid where they liberate the Pow camp in
Speaker 1: January nine, the movie starts with the Palawan massacre, right,
Speaker 1: and yeah, one of the men who was rescued there
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk about in just a second, but
Speaker 1: I wanted to mention General Ford because General Ford was
Speaker 1: executed by the Japanese later in nineteen forty two, the
Speaker 1: only American born general officers would be executed during the war. Um. Now,
Speaker 1: that was because he wouldn't give up his men who
Speaker 1: had joined the gorillas. Is that that was exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: He was a very tough, stern, interesting fellow. They wanted
Speaker 1: him to go into the jungle and get his Filipinos
Speaker 1: and any of the Americans back. He just was not
Speaker 1: going to do it. And also it wasn't going to
Speaker 1: happen even if he had of it, And so the
Speaker 1: Japanese killed him. They beheaded him. It was that simple.
Speaker 1: It was that simple. For for the and and I
Speaker 1: see what people when the Japanese have said, well, these
Speaker 1: were just isolated incidentss this just happened. But wherever the
Speaker 1: Japanese went, whether it was a Northern China, whether it
Speaker 1: was an Aleutian Islands, I bet you didn't know. The
Speaker 1: Japanese invaded the US m uh. They beheaded, they tortured,
Speaker 1: they humiliated, they starved the people around them. The Aleutian
Speaker 1: Islands is the Battle of at Two. The Japanese and
Speaker 1: not also in nineteen forty two took over the island
Speaker 1: of at Two and the of which there were forty
Speaker 1: two Allusian Elutes and two Americans, a husband and wife,
Speaker 1: a teacher in a other man. They took the weather
Speaker 1: man and they shot him, and then they took the teacher,
Speaker 1: and she said that they asked, they tried to interrogate her,
Speaker 1: and then eventually they dragged her dead husband's dead body
Speaker 1: in front of her and then beheaded him in front
Speaker 1: of her. Then they took the the um native Americans
Speaker 1: to northern Japan, where they died in droves. Because they
Speaker 1: were forced to work, they couldn't eat the Japanese food.
Speaker 1: They were very subject to diseases um. The women were
Speaker 1: raped and the the American woman was taken to um
Speaker 1: near Tokyo and was eventually joined by a bunch of
Speaker 1: Australian nurses and and they were not liberated until literally
Speaker 1: MacArthur landed on Japan and the got the soldiers were
Speaker 1: driving down the road and they saw a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of white women like we're dead. Come from h Well,
Speaker 1: I wanted to again, yeah, I wanted to switch up
Speaker 1: a little bit, um because one of the things that
Speaker 1: you also sent me when we started corresponding was about
Speaker 1: the first tank battle that was won by the United States.
Speaker 1: And again this was something I was not aware of.
Speaker 1: The first tank battle that the United States won and
Speaker 1: during the Second World War was in the Philippines. And
Speaker 1: can you tell our listeners a little bit about this. Well,
Speaker 1: I am not very good on tank battles, but there
Speaker 1: were two big, important tank battalions that arrived in the
Speaker 1: Philippines in in late November nineteen forty one, so they
Speaker 1: were about basically in the Philippines for a week before
Speaker 1: the war started. The first shots to be fired really
Speaker 1: World War two were from one of these tank battalions. Uh,
Speaker 1: they so you had the hundred uh and then h
Speaker 1: and part of this tank battalion. Interestingly enough, um I
Speaker 1: really can't give you that they were to cover the
Speaker 1: some people call it retreat. MacArthur would say it was
Speaker 1: a withdrawal of US forces on the island and Lasan
Speaker 1: into Baton, which they felt they could defend better. Uh
Speaker 1: then just scattered throughout the island and so they covered
Speaker 1: the the withdrawal and in one of the cases they
Speaker 1: had at all out tank battle with the Japanese very
Speaker 1: early on and they won it. And it's pretty shocking,
Speaker 1: but not shocking, but impressive and amazing. And one of
Speaker 1: the tankers into thing enough was that name a guy
Speaker 1: called John Robinette. And wherever we heard that name before, well,
Speaker 1: it turns out he is related to President Biden, and
Speaker 1: he is sort of six cousin once removed, but it
Speaker 1: is the family through his father. Uh He he clearly fought,
Speaker 1: very courageously, clearly suffered, and they reached the withdrawal down Braton,
Speaker 1: and he went through the Baton death March and he
Speaker 1: died in November two of berry Berry. The conditions in
Speaker 1: these these were makeshift last minute pow km't with no
Speaker 1: water no medical care, no food. It as grim as
Speaker 1: you can imagine. And there were points at these Pow
Speaker 1: camps where people three hundred four hundred a day, We're dying.
Speaker 1: But he he died in November at Kabana Tuan and
Speaker 1: he Uh was able after the war, his body was
Speaker 1: able to be identified and retrieved and he was buried
Speaker 1: back home. There is a whole huge effort to um
Speaker 1: tried to identify many of the unknowns from the Kabana
Speaker 1: to One Pow camp Uh, and that's becoming quite successful
Speaker 1: now that we have DNA. Yeah, and I was reading
Speaker 1: about after you know, we were corresponding back and forth
Speaker 1: about this tank battle and yeah, it was tell me better,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm most interested in the humanity and sociology
Speaker 1: of how how did such an as they say in
Speaker 1: the history clusterfuck happened. Yeah. Well, in one of the
Speaker 1: tankers who was considered a hero at the time. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, his name was Gentry and he was later
Speaker 1: liberated at Kabana Tuan during the raid by the U. S.
Speaker 1: Army Rangers. And if he was at Kabana Tuan when
Speaker 1: the Great Raid, those were the five guys that were
Speaker 1: too sick and firm just they could not transport to Japan.
Speaker 1: The Japanese tried to get everyone who was on the Philippines,
Speaker 1: particularly the officers, to Japan. There's some thinking and that
Speaker 1: this was to create a hostage situation. But so because
Speaker 1: so many documents were destroyed by the Japanese, we don't
Speaker 1: know for sure. Uh So he must have been in
Speaker 1: pretty bad shape. Uh In. In Januar, my own uh
Speaker 1: descent relative was on Corregador with the Army Corps of
Speaker 1: Engineers and he actually and he was older because he
Speaker 1: was a mining engineer on the Philippines and enlisted or
Speaker 1: whatever started when when the war started, and he died
Speaker 1: of pick a disease because just before liberation in January.
Speaker 1: Oh well, he didn't make it and he's buried in
Speaker 1: the Philippines. Now you mentioned earlier about you know there
Speaker 1: there's what we were talking offline, but you mentioned there's
Speaker 1: a lot of revisionist history going on with the Japanese
Speaker 1: in regards to POWs, in the way they treated civilian internees,
Speaker 1: not only Americans, Australians, New Zealanders, British subjects, Chinese and
Speaker 1: I know and some of the information you sent me
Speaker 1: the Tokyo Information Center that one of their coal mines
Speaker 1: where the largest. I guess it was the largest one.
Speaker 1: Who largest call mine in Japan? Yes, and it's now
Speaker 1: considered um what a World Industrial Heritage site the Japanese
Speaker 1: since the Abbe administration starting in two thousand seven, he
Speaker 1: had one year term and then he came back in
Speaker 1: the end of two thousand and twelve. His he believes
Speaker 1: and his everyone around him believes that there's been a
Speaker 1: masochistic telling of Japanese history, that Japanese history should be
Speaker 1: more glorious. That they were literally tricked into the war
Speaker 1: by the US. The US has exaggerated the stories of
Speaker 1: the war crimes and the atrocities. A lot of these
Speaker 1: things didn't happen. That the people we know as comfort
Speaker 1: women were just a bunch of lying horrors, and they
Speaker 1: only Korean lying horrors. When the reality with the comfort women,
Speaker 1: they were not only were they trafficked Korean, Japanese and
Speaker 1: Taiwanese and Chinese women, but when the traffic women were
Speaker 1: not enough, they went local. They either grabbed them or
Speaker 1: bought them. And that was everywhere. Uh, and you know Sean.
Speaker 1: And when they say that the military had nothing to
Speaker 1: do with it. If you were Japanese, the young lieutenant paymaster,
Speaker 1: you literally were trained, trained how to set up a brothel,
Speaker 1: and how to manage a brothel, and how to recruit
Speaker 1: or obtain women, and that as you can well imagine
Speaker 1: warps into an issue of entitlement. So you have a situation,
Speaker 1: uh in the internment camps, whether they're in the Philippines
Speaker 1: or in Japan, or in China, or in the Dutch.
Speaker 1: And the Dutch is the only one where anyone has
Speaker 1: admitted where the Japanese just drive in and says, I
Speaker 1: tell you, let's line up all the twenty one years
Speaker 1: nine twenty one year old girls and I'll pick one
Speaker 1: of those. I'll pick one of these, one of that.
Speaker 1: I like that one. It was. It was a nightmare.
Speaker 1: And with the American Civilian interman camps, the women will
Speaker 1: tell you you have to understand this is the so well,
Speaker 1: nothing happened. But if you were asking the question, how
Speaker 1: did you get the quay nine, how did you get
Speaker 1: the food the milk for the child, Well, it's a transaction. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then with the POWs uh and with the other atrocities,
Speaker 1: they just gloss over them and the most in nineteen
Speaker 1: and two thousand fifteen, the Japanese applied for the Beiji
Speaker 1: Industrial Heritage Sites where supposedly Japan industrialized before the rest
Speaker 1: of Asia, and they create they acquired machinery and a
Speaker 1: completely gloss o where that industrialization is about labor. And
Speaker 1: these sites, which was coal mines, foundries, docks, is very
Speaker 1: sort of random and it's just bad history. Um many
Speaker 1: of them were where there were prisoners of war and
Speaker 1: at these so they've made these sites. They have an
Speaker 1: information center in Tokyo. There is no mention of the
Speaker 1: prisoners of war who were at these sites and who
Speaker 1: were slaved and had forced to mind coal stoked. The
Speaker 1: steel mills were capriciously tortured and and none of them
Speaker 1: were There was a policy not to feed them, and
Speaker 1: there was also a policy to withhold the across boxes,
Speaker 1: so medicine didn't get to the doctor's, food didn't get
Speaker 1: to the POWs. It was a strange policy. It wasn't
Speaker 1: and what it was interesting again, its systemic. It wasn't
Speaker 1: just one pow camp. So this coal mine, the Meeky
Speaker 1: coal Mine, which was owned by Mitsui, and for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: Baron Mitsui lived near there and not only did he
Speaker 1: allowed as horrific tortrait of Australian, British, American, Dutch, Norwegian, Malta, Czechoslovakian, Saudi, Arabian,
Speaker 1: all kinds of people, because they also took over merchant
Speaker 1: marine ships, so they didn't care if you were Irish.
Speaker 1: You're in the Europeo debut as far as they were concerned.
Speaker 1: So Baron Mitsui would like to like to motor into
Speaker 1: his mind to look at his white slaves, and that's
Speaker 1: how he called them. And he eventually arranged for some
Speaker 1: costumes for some of the POWs who are a bit
Speaker 1: more talkative, so he could go and watch little plays.
Speaker 1: It was just totally revolting and insulting. Uh um And
Speaker 1: and the meeky mind was across a lake, so to speak,
Speaker 1: from where Nagasaki was and if the men were the
Speaker 1: men who were above ground when Nagasaki was bombed actually
Speaker 1: saw the cloud and could feel the heat. It's an
Speaker 1: extraordinary experience. But they weren't liberated. A liberation team did
Speaker 1: not appear until September, so it took a long time.
Speaker 1: So in the end of August we started sending over
Speaker 1: um air drops. But this mine was the largest, and
Speaker 1: they would put the POWs in the mind cavities that
Speaker 1: had been closed, that were old, that were the most dangerous,
Speaker 1: most capable, most going to fall down. Men were so
Speaker 1: adverse to working in the mind that they would that
Speaker 1: there was a group of guys who were professional bone
Speaker 1: breakers that for five bowls of your rice for dinner,
Speaker 1: you would only get one bowl. You could get your
Speaker 1: arm broken or your leg broken, and that would keep
Speaker 1: you out of the mind for a few days. You
Speaker 1: have to stand that the different tiers wherever the mind
Speaker 1: shaft was, uh, it was either very cold or incredibly
Speaker 1: hot because it was deep into the earth and it
Speaker 1: was under the lake, so you're often working in um water.
Speaker 1: It was horrific situation. And none of these POWs had
Speaker 1: been in the mind before. Imagine what that did to
Speaker 1: you psychologically. Uh. And then if you're not fed and
Speaker 1: you don't have vitamins and you're not getting medical care.
Speaker 1: It was a hellhole. And which um, let's let's switch
Speaker 1: up a little bit one more thing. So the Japanese
Speaker 1: have we have completely wrote out this history, and it
Speaker 1: was all about happy smiling coal miners uh or steel workers,
Speaker 1: and you know with coal the first miners in Japan
Speaker 1: were convicts. The next was poor, poor, landless Japanese. And
Speaker 1: they're what of Japanese coal miners were women until nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty and then even after because you can get around
Speaker 1: rules and regulations. And one of the big pushes for
Speaker 1: this UNESCO and this is something and and and the
Speaker 1: Japanese rewriting a history. Japan is probably the only country
Speaker 1: in the world that had a cabinet official completely focused
Speaker 1: on getting these UNESCO World Heritage Sites and history rewritten
Speaker 1: the way they wanted. They literally had a cabinet official
Speaker 1: for UNESCO and rewriting of history, and that they do
Speaker 1: not have one now that person has really has resigned,
Speaker 1: but as part of managing these these industrial heritage sites,
Speaker 1: and this head of the Tokyo Information Center, and it
Speaker 1: just so happens that she's very close to the Abbe government,
Speaker 1: and she is the sister in law of the Chief
Speaker 1: Cabinet Secretary. So it is just it's it's nepotism, it's gratuitous,
Speaker 1: it's arrogance, and it's very dangerous when you start to
Speaker 1: rewrite history. That is a condemnation of democracy and free thought. Well,
Speaker 1: let's talk a little bit about now this the work
Speaker 1: behind the scenes about getting a Congressional gold Men for POWs.
Speaker 1: I know when we talked offline, you said, there's there's
Speaker 1: some good ones out there and there's some bad ones
Speaker 1: out there. Uh. Filling their listeners about this. This is
Speaker 1: a conundrum, um. For for many years we have been
Speaker 1: trying to get a Congressional gold Medal for the American
Speaker 1: powts Japan and doing it collectively for all the POWs,
Speaker 1: whether you are China marine surrendered on the first day
Speaker 1: of the war, or you're a Wake Island marine. And
Speaker 1: those of you who know the story of Wake Island
Speaker 1: four Hunter Marines uh fended off Japanese armada for two
Speaker 1: weeks and eventually when they surrendered, um uh, they were
Speaker 1: sent to northern China to work in the northern that
Speaker 1: northern China, northern Japan to work in the coal mines.
Speaker 1: And of course five guys we're taken aside on the
Speaker 1: trip up to Japan beheaded and kicked into the water. Um.
Speaker 1: To the the Texas battalion that was sent to Java
Speaker 1: and was captured on Java. To the American nurses on baton,
Speaker 1: there's there's twenty seven thousand American powts in various situations
Speaker 1: from the aviators onto the Baton Death March. Guys. But
Speaker 1: the New Mexico delegation um always every Congress, and if
Speaker 1: you don't know what Congress is, only two years. The
Speaker 1: legislation is only active for two years. Every Congress introduces
Speaker 1: legislation only focused to the the two units from New Mexico,
Speaker 1: the coast artillery units, and they try to make it
Speaker 1: so narrow that only as best the people for that
Speaker 1: were in the Coast Artillery units that are on the
Speaker 1: Baton Death March would be getting the medal. Well, that's
Speaker 1: ridiculous that that ignores, And so they wind it a
Speaker 1: little bit for the and they say, now the two
Speaker 1: tank units and maybe some other people. Well, a, that
Speaker 1: bill that they have introduced is riddled with historical inaccuracies.
Speaker 1: And guy Fort wouldn't get a pow medal, his family
Speaker 1: wouldn't get one. My guy who jumped into the water
Speaker 1: and swamm to Grega Or would not get a pow metal. Uh.
Speaker 1: I mean the eight years that that got beheaded on
Speaker 1: the deck of the ships during the Battle of Mill
Speaker 1: Midway wouldn't get a po W metal. That the commander
Speaker 1: of the Wake Island Marines wouldn't get appear. That's just ridiculous,
Speaker 1: that's just wrong, that's just un American. And then there's
Speaker 1: another bill, which, to be quite honest, I wrote that
Speaker 1: Congressman Boost and low Enthal have introduced Well, there's problems
Speaker 1: with that. You have to have a bill in the
Speaker 1: House in the Senate. The New Mexico delegation has a
Speaker 1: bill in the House and the Senate the Boost bill.
Speaker 1: I don't know what he's doing. He didn't tell us
Speaker 1: he was going to introduce it. And Boost, you know,
Speaker 1: there's everything is its politics, but not in an exactly
Speaker 1: bad way. But you have to understand the House is democratic,
Speaker 1: and you can't have a lead co sponsor lead sponsor
Speaker 1: being a Republican. It doesn't matter if it's a good guy,
Speaker 1: bad guy, what guy it's it's just that's the dynamic.
Speaker 1: And so I'm we don't have a lobbyist. We just
Speaker 1: have volunteers. I need more volunteers. I need people who
Speaker 1: will contact their members of Congress. I write these little
Speaker 1: uh email saying, you know, don't support this or support that. Uh.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to get these and we don't have much
Speaker 1: time in all reality, I think this is the last
Speaker 1: literally this year would maybe any living POW is left
Speaker 1: to accept the medal. And when one of the strange
Speaker 1: ionies in this is a number of years ago the
Speaker 1: Filipino veterans were able to get a Congressional Gold medal
Speaker 1: because as an ethnic group, as a solid ethnic group,
Speaker 1: and so anyone who served during the war I would
Speaker 1: be eligible for the gold medal. So but the problem
Speaker 1: with that is not though many Filipinos can say they served,
Speaker 1: a lot of them didn't in the end, because this
Speaker 1: was all thrown the Filipino Army was thrown together and
Speaker 1: the last in a few months leading up to the war.
Speaker 1: They were never given guns, they were were trained, they
Speaker 1: never did anything, and awful lot of Filipinos were able
Speaker 1: to blend back into them jungle and become guerrillas or
Speaker 1: become collaborators. Uh. And so this bill, interestingly enough, is
Speaker 1: the Filipinos that have interpreted as they're giving it to
Speaker 1: people who Americans who were on the Philips, who who
Speaker 1: were POWs on the Philippines. Though the intent of the
Speaker 1: legislation is just for the Filipino units, all the Filipino
Speaker 1: units had American officers. So technically only the American officers
Speaker 1: to the Filipino units and members of the Filipino units
Speaker 1: to get it. But there's another glitch, like because most
Speaker 1: people don't sweat the details, particularly this long ago, far
Speaker 1: away stuff. So the bill is written it's for the
Speaker 1: American Armed Forces of the Far East. Well, there was
Speaker 1: never any American Armed Forces of the Far East. Um,
Speaker 1: the Secretary Stimpson did not like MacArthur. A lot of
Speaker 1: people didn't like MacArthur, and the Navy particularly disliked MacArthur.
Speaker 1: So they were not going to give them control over all.
Speaker 1: The Armed Forces of the Far East not gonna happen.
Speaker 1: So the correct designation is the American Army Forces of
Speaker 1: the Far East. So that Filipino Bill, if you examine it,
Speaker 1: it's for nobody that doesn't exist. So there's been a
Speaker 1: lot of Shendanigan's with the Filipino Bill. But now we
Speaker 1: have this Heinrich, Senator Heinrich bill. It's just insulting. It's
Speaker 1: literally insulting. Uh. And it's it's it means the sacrifices
Speaker 1: of these men, and the herorism of these men, and
Speaker 1: the internal strength of these men, and and the other thing.
Speaker 1: It's women that the women are cut out of the
Speaker 1: Hindrich Bill. The first women to become prisoners of war
Speaker 1: in a combat situation was in the Philippines, and those
Speaker 1: are the army nurses. Um. They were also nurses in
Speaker 1: on Guam. Guam was was the Japanese took over Guam
Speaker 1: on December tenth, and so there were POWs men and
Speaker 1: women uh on Guam. And then there's the Philippines so
Speaker 1: and one of the other. And with the New Mexico
Speaker 1: they really want to focus on the Hispanic group from
Speaker 1: New Mexico, which is fine. But one of the most
Speaker 1: interesting things about the POWs of Japan is incredibly diverse
Speaker 1: group there. It wasn't just why men. There were Native Americans,
Speaker 1: there were Chinese Americans, there were Japanese Americans, there were
Speaker 1: Black Americans, there were there were Korean Americans. There there
Speaker 1: were um as I said, the Alaskan Natives, Uh, Native Americans. Uh.
Speaker 1: Every ethnic group and religion was represented. The Later day Saints,
Speaker 1: the Mormon's actually had a whole group in the Kabbata
Speaker 1: Tuan Pow camp and tried to maintain a unity for
Speaker 1: as long as they could stay alive. Uh. There was
Speaker 1: a famous Um Jewish UH soldier who had trained in
Speaker 1: Russia to be a cantor, who became a religious leader
Speaker 1: in the Kabana Tuan Pow camp and he died on
Speaker 1: a hell ship. UM. So we need something that represents
Speaker 1: all Americans and all POWs. Well, ums a little bit
Speaker 1: about how they can help out your organization and how
Speaker 1: they can maybe donate to the cause or well volunteer
Speaker 1: their time. If you look up American Defenders at Batan
Speaker 1: and Corregular Memorial Society, Uh, there is a donation page. Uh,
Speaker 1: maybe we can and then I have a blog and
Speaker 1: they can donate there. I would like people, if they're
Speaker 1: interested in helping with the congressional effort, to contact me
Speaker 1: directly and I will try to see I need all
Speaker 1: the help from someone who's willing to write letters to
Speaker 1: who people who have donated to the congressman so you
Speaker 1: can harass them, you know. I think like Jamesville, Wisconsin,
Speaker 1: that congressman should be front and say that very famous
Speaker 1: tank tank group from there, McConnell Harrod's Harrisburg, Kentucky. So
Speaker 1: I don't know how you can get out there my
Speaker 1: email or are or or the website or the two
Speaker 1: websites I would like to put out there. How can
Speaker 1: we do that? Well, uh, if it's all right with you,
Speaker 1: I will share your email with everybody because, um, you know,
Speaker 1: I think this is something um that people can get
Speaker 1: involved with. And if you're interested in emailing Mindy, it's
Speaker 1: Mindy Cottler Smith all one word, all lower case at
Speaker 1: gmail dot com. You can though is spelled with a
Speaker 1: K and oh, a T and L E R and Smith.
Speaker 1: Well you know that's Smith. I rarely say am Mrs
Speaker 1: Smith because no one would believe me. So that doesn't
Speaker 1: make my mother in law happy, then not much I
Speaker 1: do bakes are happy. There you go, Well before we
Speaker 1: really use some help, and there's a lot of ways
Speaker 1: to do it, from merely making a phone call to
Speaker 1: there's a lot of ways. We got to make it
Speaker 1: known that this is important and we will bring as
Speaker 1: much light to that as we can. Before we wrap
Speaker 1: up this afternoon, I just wanted to read another add
Speaker 1: for software people. If you want to get software on
Speaker 1: your phone, download our free mobile app to get easy
Speaker 1: access to articles, podcast gear reviews, all perfectly formated to
Speaker 1: your device. Please subscribe to software dot com to get
Speaker 1: access to our library of e books and our exclusive
Speaker 1: team room forms and content available on all your Apple
Speaker 1: and Android to vices. Mindy, thank you for taking the
Speaker 1: time to join us today. We really appreciate it. We
Speaker 1: appreciate your insight and your passion for this. It's something
Speaker 1: I think we can all get behind. We've heard all
Speaker 1: the the stories of the po ws, including the you
Speaker 1: know Zamperini, Louis Zamperini, who they just made a movie about.
Speaker 1: Considering he's on the best seller list for two years,
Speaker 1: you would think more people would be understanding of this
Speaker 1: is as if they never made the connection. If you
Speaker 1: want to hear a read of some of the stories
Speaker 1: I've talked about, look on my blog, which is cleverly
Speaker 1: called American POWs of Japan dot blogspot dot com. Well,
Speaker 1: we appreciate that and we will definitely uh check that
Speaker 1: out and we encourage all our readers to do that. Mindy,
Speaker 1: thank you for taking the time with us. Thank you
Speaker 1: this morning, and h it was a pleasure, and we'll
Speaker 1: be looking forward to seeing that gold medal before too long,
Speaker 1: I hope, so invite you there you go. I appreciate
Speaker 1: that for all of us here at Software Radio. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening software radio on time, on target. We'll be
Speaker 1: back with another podcast in the very near feld. You've
Speaker 1: been listening to self red Radia