Linda Goetz Holmes - Guests of the Emperor: The Secret History of Japans Mukden POW Camp

This book has been brought to publication with the generous assistance of Marguerite and Gerry Lenfest.

Naval Institute Press

291 Wood Road

Annapolis, MD 21402

2010 by Linda Goetz Holmes

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

ISBN 978-1-61251-382-9 (eBook)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Holmes, Linda Goetz.

Guests of the emperor / Linda Goetz Holmes.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Mukden (Prisoner of war camp) 2. World War, 1939-1945Prisoners and prisons, Japanese. 3. World War, 1939-1945Conscript laborJapan. 4. Prisoners of warJapan. 5. Prisoners of warUnited States. 6. Mitsubishi ZaibatsuHistory. 7. Shenyang (Liaoning Sheng, China)History, Military20th century. I. Title.

DS805.J3H65 2010

940.547252095181--dc22

2010009803

14 13 12 11 10 17 16 15 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

First printing

Contents

O ver the past fifteen years, as I gathered data on this most mysterious of Japanese prisoner-of-war camps, many, many people have helped me in my work. Some are no longer living, but I will always be in their debt.

First and foremost are the Mukden camp survivors, who shared their recollections, documents, and photos with me: Oliver Red Allen; James D. J. D. Beshears, Arnold Bocksel, Herschel Frenchie Bouchey, Robert A. Brown, Art Lu Campbell, Herman Castillo, Sam Castrianni, William Wesley Davis, Charles Dragich, Randall Edwards, Leon Elliott, Val Gavito, Ralph Griffith, Philip Haley, Henry Harlan, Erwin Johnson, Vernon La Heist, Paul Lankford, Eddy Laursen, OSS rescuer Hal Leith, David Levy, T. Walter Middleton, Wayne Miller, Leo Padilla, Robert Rosendahl, Bobby Shoobridge, Ken Towery, Joseph Vater, Robert Vogler, Roy Weaver, Robert Wolfersberger, Gene Wooten, and John Zenda.

The help of family members Ferdinand Fred Baldassare Jr., Lydia Castillo, Jim DelBonis, Sylvia Elliott, Patricia Favulli, Randy Haley, Mark Chip Herbst Jr., Alexander Paliotto, Catherine Meringolo Quoma, Frances Worthington Lipe, Pete Wuttke, and Suzanne and Sheldon Zimbler has been invaluable.

A special thanks is due to the late Melvin Routt, past national commander of the American Defenders of Bataan and Corregidor, who was among the first to supply me with a continuing stream of data about Mukden, where so many of his friends had been confined, and alerted me as early as 1996 to the odd doings at this camp. My thanks also to former POW Wayne Carringer, who put me in touch with several Mukden survivors in his home state, North Carolina. Australian researcher and Web host Peter Winstanley put me in touch with Mukden medic Bobby Shoobridge and sent me the taped recollections of Dr. Des Brennan and the transcription of William Dingle Bells colorful remembrances, for which I am very thankful.

A special place in heaven must be reserved for Roger Mansell, who out of his own pocket and with countless hours of time, patience, and expertise has created an extraordinary database of Pacific POW camp rosters and archival information, which he has selflessly shared with all of us. Rogers roster of Mukden POWs, their ranks, where they fought prior to capture, and which hellships they traveled on has been priceless to me. Wes Injerd is another wonder resource, especially with current news articles about ex-POWs; he effortlessly clarifies details about the Pacific war.

To me the greatest archive on the planet is the National Archives in Washington, D.C., and its Modern Military Records facility at College Park, Maryland, where I spent many hours, assisted by the incredible depth of knowledge shared with me by senior archivists Richard Boylan, William Cunliffe, Richard Myers, and David van Tassel, along with Mukden record wunderkind Eric vanSlander. I will always be grateful for their expertise in locating just the records I needed, and for the late, legendary John E. Taylor, who put me in touch with everyone else.

It was Richard Myers who suggested my name as a historical advisor to the Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Records Interagency Working Group (IWG), an honor for which I will always be proud. Historian Edward Drea served on that panel with me, and I am in awe of his depth of knowledge about the entire Pacific war. Gerhard Weinberg, the formidable historian who chaired our Historical Advisory Panel and managed to straddle Europe, America, and Asia with his encyclopedic knowledge, is another source of wonder to me. I appreciate the interest IWG chair Steven Garfinkel has taken in my research and writing. IWG member Eli Rosenbaum, who heads the Office of Special Investigations at the Justice Department, deserves my special thanks for his constant encouragement.

And where would my Pacific war documentation be without the declassification efforts of National Security Agency historian Robert Hanyok? I owe him much for bringing so many valuable files to light in recent years. James Zobel, curator at the MacArthur Memorial, has come to my rescue with lightning speed on many occasions.

Chinese historian and Shenyang native Jing Yang is a sleuth of the highest order. His incredible work in rediscovering and identifying the remains of the Mukden POW camp has been the linchpin of this book. And then he discovered and photographed the small village in Inner Mongolia where the three escaped POWs were recaptured. More recently he has done more than anyone else to solve the mystery of the unaccounted-for Mukden POW, SSgt. William Lynch, and what may have been his fate in a distant Kempeitai prison following his recapture.

Another Shenyang native, Ao Wang, along with his wife Pat, has pushed relentlessly to get local Chinese officials to establish and fund a museum at the Mukden camp site; the couple has formed an organization to serve as liaison between the ex-POWs and museum officials. It is inspiring to see the zeal and determination of Moores Marauders founder Ken Moore and the group of forensic, archaeological, and geneaology experts he has assembled to locate and retrieve Staff Sergeant Lynchs remains and to return them to his family.