POW Camp Hyogo-Ken
Our sincere thanks to researcher Mark Schwartz for his major contribution of documents, photos, and information on this page. His Godfather was an internee in the POW camp the night our uncle's B-29 crashed into and near the camp.
Without Mark, most of this information would not be available. He has extensive knowledge of the internees in this camp.
- Rich C. & Rich S.
Without Mark, most of this information would not be available. He has extensive knowledge of the internees in this camp.
- Rich C. & Rich S.
POW Barracks at POW Camp Hyogo-Ken (image from J. Thomas)
Photograph of prisoners in back of their barracks, Hyogo-Ken POW camp
This tunnel was dug through the hill behind the Hyogo-Ken POW Camp. During the 17 March 45 incendiary raid on Kobe, some prisoners hid in this tunnel. Others went up the hill to watch the B-29s bomb the city
Mr. Taketoshi Higasa (head guard of the Hyogo-Ken POW Camp), and Mark Schwartz
This was found in one of the POWs diaries. He has filled in more information in English
Hand drawn, yet they evidently had access (or stole) to a typewriter to fill in names etc.
Please note! This is the 2nd document listing someone named Boulliard instead of our Uncle Bob. No idea who this is, and he was not in the 500th Bomb Group.
** In the below document, there are a few errors that were included. It stipulates that the plane number was 692, and the bombing Squadron was the 29th and the Bomb Wing was the 313th. This was actually our Uncle Bob's plane which was ship number 42-24849, 500th BG and 73rd Wing.
Additionally, it stipulates Boulliard as being found in the tail with other bodies, but it was actually our Uncle Bob. This error appears in other documents, but we have obviously never found a Boulliard in any roll and specifically NOT in the 500th BG.
Additionally, it stipulates Boulliard as being found in the tail with other bodies, but it was actually our Uncle Bob. This error appears in other documents, but we have obviously never found a Boulliard in any roll and specifically NOT in the 500th BG.
POW prepared letter detailing body disposition near the camp the night of the crash
Diary accounts from prisoners in the Hyogo-Ken POW camp of the crash of our Uncle Bob's B-29, on 17 March 1945
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** POW Roy Henning used his own shorthand style/method and below is exact transcription w/o our interpretative corrections.
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MARCH 16, 1945
Charles F. Gregg:
Max Brodofsky's birthday. He gave a birthday breakfast to (Joe) Morganthaler, (Tom) Appedail, (Edward) Maxim, and me.
Roy Henning:
Wrk garden half day. Prepare 3 nw beds wid straw leaf mould. Ready to plant onions (leeks). Hv Dutch conversation wid
(Charles) Rolandus. YMCA gvs us egg each.
MARCH 17, 1945
Charles F. Gregg:
All Kobe is aflame! Chisslin Hojo cried his warning at 1:45 and the full precaution was immediately declared. We were ordered to dress and remain in our rooms. 2:15 a.m. the 1st B-29's were over and at such a low altitude that we failed to recognize their throb. By 2:30 a.m. the sky was aglow with light from the burning town, along the entire snake-like strip of the town from the CAA area SE of us through the entire shopping and financial center of the town, continuing through the SW industrial section clear to the west, fires were blazing! Weather was almost ideal for the raid, light breeze from the NW, ceiling 2,000' and top approx. 3,500' - 4,000'. The B-29's came on singley or by 2's and 3's. They first swept Kobe from
W to E with incendiaries of several types, then the town was cross-swept from S to N. It is impossible to adequately describe the awe-inspiring sight of these giant planes raining H.E. and incendiaries until the night was light as day. The red glow from the burning town reflected on the under-surfaces of the planes, bathing them in a reflected bath of Kobe blood. Time after time these giant war birds wheeled over the city and dumped their "load" of destruction.
All the while the A.A. batteries were blazing away, cutting the sky with the rapid "lightning-bug-like" trace bullets. Pomp-pom guns were blazing and even heavy machines were unused in an endeavor to "stop" the bombers. The 4' - 8" A.A. guns, fortunately few in number, were the only defense weapons that had a sting, all the rest were futile waste. The continual crack of these guns and the detonation of exploding bombs made war a reality to us for the 2nd time! Suddenly there was a terrific explosion directly overhead. Six guards on the lawn outside looked directly overhead, then broke into a mad run toward the mess hall. At the end of the lawn they stopped, one pointed skyward and then equally madly, the police, like a flock of ducks, rushed directly back in the opposite direction and one guard jumped down the sloping bank and fell flat.
We at first thought the upper building had been hit, then suddenly a large object all aflame plummeted earthward directly in front of us until it was cut off from our view by the ridge directly south of us. Then, to our awe and horror, the full wing of a B-29 with nacelles intact, but sans empinage and rear fuselage, slowly twirled counter-clockwise in a very flat spin and fell a short distance from the camp.
Seconds later a parachute came into view with the man dimly visible, then another parachute followed. Shortly before this, there was a terrific crack on the roof which later was found to be an incendiary bomb (aluminum tube, 3# in weight, 24" long, 4" diameter). It went through the roof and landed on the ply board ceiling of the second floor directly over the bed of Frank Angel. The bomb splintered the ceiling but failed to explode!
Shrapnel fell like rain on the roof and in the trees surrounding the camp at various times during the 3 hour raid. Another B-29 showered ribbon-like incendiaries all the way up the mountainside where the last particles fell just a few yards from the camp. Unfortunately, the forest was wet from recent rains and fresh fallen show, so the fire did not spread.
The bombing continued until well after 5:00 a.m., by which time the sky was blackened with smoke -- white in color from the business and residential section, black from the area of docks and harbor.
As dawn broke and it became light, internees surreptitiously made their way into the surrounding hills and soon returned to camp with a great variety of parts and articles from the B-29. An auxiliary gas tank of buna rubber was the 1st object, then a float-flare, a rubber life boat, incendiary bomb cases, etc.
Then an engine was found, and two others badly broken up, accessories, pumps, oil separators, a propeller blade, etc.
At 10:00 a.m., a body was found just 50 yards from the lower end of the camp -- one of the flyers with his 'chute unopened.(Zane) Stickle had come into the camp with a U.S. Army blanket just before roll-call and reported the tail assembly with bodies in it located a few hundred yards in back of the building. I had previously gone out and seen an engine, reasonably intact, but badly twisted and broken.
At roll-call at 7:30 a.m., the police gave us orders "under no condition" to leave the building for the rest of the day.
This stopped our searching, but soon the Japanese home guards were in camp and combing the hills. They found the wrecked wing and brought in all kinds of equipment and articles from a load adjuster to two .45 caliber pistols. By this time, 100's of opinions, observations, guesses, and prejudices were being harangued by the internees. Several, perhaps a good many internees had been in the mountains during most of the raid.
They were painting vivid word pictures of what they saw, or thought they saw. As these stories are too numerous to relate, it is better to chronicle merely what we actually know. A crew member of the B-29 (Nelson, age 22) walked into camp with a calm air of self-assurance at noon. His hands were tied behind his back and two of our guards were directing him. He proceeded with a swaggering walk and occasionally looked back and down on the coppers! (He had done his job and could well hold these Japs in contempt.) The house sergeant treated him as well as he was allowed to under the circumstances and gave him tea and a piece of bread (not benjo-burgers, as we had for lunch). He was held here merely for an hour until the Army came for him. When he left, he smiled at us, and at the last rise of the trail, turned, and raised his hand in salute. His face was bloody from a superficial head wound, but he walked with a fine stride and assurance -- he had guts! And, Thank God, there are thousands more like him in the U.S. armed forces!
By late afternoon, we had heard that 7 bodies had been found and 4 men captured, thus accounting for the total 11 crew members. As best we can now tell, a single B-29 was body crashed by a Jap fighter when they were directly over our camp. The engines were torn out and the fuselage and empinage disintegrated, falling over a wide area on all sides of the camp. It is reported that 2 other B-29's were body-crashed during the raid. From eye witness accounts, at least 6 Jap fighters were shot down besides those who body-crashed. For myself, I definitely saw one Jap plane dive in flames earthward and saw 2 others falling.
Concerning the fires in Kobe, Akabani's place was destroyed and he saved merely 6 bags of rice destined for our camp, losing all his clothing, furniture, etc., in the flames. The military barracks near the Canadian Academy was destroyed; the harbor facilities badly damaged; numerous ships were burned; in general, the section of town from Sogo Dept. Store westward and below the elevated was badly burned -- rumored destroyed -- particulars will come in late. Electricity is off, consequently there is no radio reception, nor lights. Fires were still brightly burning at a late hour tonight. Several families arrived for menkai today, but they were allowed to stay only 20 minutes and little news was forthcoming. No newspapers today.
Harold Brinkerhoff:
Well, Kobe sure got it, and what a shellacking it was. The raid started at 12:45 a.m. and lasted until 5 a.m. We had to get out of bed and dress, then we could go back to bed if we wished. I never expect to see such a sight again if I live to be 100. The B-29's came in from the bay. They would drop their bombs flying parallel to our camp. As they got abreast of our camp, they would make a turn and return out to sea.
They were flying low; in fact, so low we could see paintings on their sides as they banked over our camp. As they passed over the shipyards, the searchlights would pick them up and the anti-aircraft guns would go into action, spewing bullets on all sides, the tracers making queer patterns. They were fearless and continued coming wave on wave. They were using incendiaries and bursting in the air reminded one of Roman Candles on the 4th of July.
It was not long until the searchlights were of no use. The bursting bombs and the reflection from the fires outlined the coming planes as clearly as if it was daylight. We could read a newspaper.
It was a beautiful sight to see those monstrous planes bank showing us the full outline of their glistening sides. At 3:20,four of us slipped out of camp and went up on the hill behind our camp. We could see that the whole of West Kobe was a mass of scattered fires. The B-29's as they came in seemed to drop their bombs in between the fires.
The sky over East Kobe was flaming red. The hills shut off our view of that section. East Kobe is long and narrow; as it gets to West Kobe, it opens out like a spatula with one edge off. We were enjoying the sight when we suddenly heard a crash and saw a flash in a cloud directly over our camp. We saw what appeared to be one plane come below the cloud. It was spinning in a horizontal position, the wings remaining perfectly level, away from where we were, and at the same time, another plane went directly over the camp buildings and lit on the mountain side not over 100 yards from us. As it landed, it sounded like the tinkling of broken glass on a cement floor. We thought that either two B-29's had collided in the cloud, or a Jap fighter had body crashed.
We saw two parachutes blossom out from the wing section and slowly float to earth. We were all sick at the sight, and no longer got pleasure from the sight. We wanted the B-29's to wipe out the town. We immediately returned to camp, and I went to bed, but I couldn't sleep for thinking about what I had witnessed. As it was getting light, I got up, but did not leave camp again.
Many fellows were swarming up the hill in search of souvenirs. One fellow came down dragging one half of a prop, another with part of a supercharger. Others with various and sundry pieces. My curiosity got the best of me, so I left. I got up to where one of the motors was lying. It surely is a monstrous thing, and to think it passed right over our buildings.
The guards who were at the wreckage a little further on made the fellows return. The fellows were forced to turn in the pieces they had picked up. Our anger was fanned when at 12:30 p.m. our guards found one of the aviators who we saw floating down. They brought him in with hands tied behind his back and one guard was pushing him occasionally. He was a nice-looking, heave-set blond with wavy hair. His name was Nelson. I have been unable to learn his initials. He was 22 years old. His face was bloody and he had a slight cut above one eye. He had probably come down in a pine tree. He walked with a springy step and held his head high. The guards kept him in the police office for several hours until some military police came and took him away. We were not allowed to speak with him. Many shouted "good luck" to him as he was taken away.
Dean Brunton:
One of our B-29s was rammed by a kamikaze suicide fighter directly above our camp. One of the engines fell within a hundred yards of the camp buildings, a heavy rail from the bomb rack landed only a few feet from our sleeping quarters, and an incendiary bomb penetrated our roof, but failed to ignite. The wing section of the huge plane landed about a half mile from camp and the tail section fell an equals distance on the other side. Parts of the plane, bombs, and equipment were scattered over more than a square mile of our mountainside.
Roy Henning:
Prec alarm at midnite, alert at 2 a.m. Mni planes cum ovr, drop incendiaries, all Kobe ablaze, AA fire all ovr, planes vy lw. B-29's crash ovr hs, spin dwn lk car wheel, shower our gnds wid parts, 4 bodies fnd on nr hill, one only 100 ft fm hs. 2 otrs in garden. One crew man captured alive, brot in ofc hr. Hr ltr tt otr crew fnd and broken leg. Higasa sez tt 3 B-29's body crashed in raid, great coincidence tt one should crash rite ovr our camp. Up all evening. Tired, cold, snowing, freezing. Aft bkfst, inspt mtr in hills, all parts brot tgr, prop, cylinders, bomb rack tt fell only 50' fm my window, parachutes, rubber life boat, gast tanks, etc. On incendiary goes thru our roof. Not allowed outdoors all day. Planes gone at 5 a.m., 3 hr raid, evyone hs enuf of war. Akabani's place burned dwn, our month's supply rice gone. no bread, no elec. Go to bed 8 p.m.
MARCH 18, 1945
Charles F. Gregg:
Kobe still burning though most of the fires have burned out. The home army has taken over control of this area. Some of the soldiers are women. Their gun straps are made of braided coarse grass. Several B-29's have been overhead since the raid, but no further bombing has been heard. The bakery, our source of bread, did not burn but as electricity is off, they have been unable to bake. We did not receive our bread yesterday, and were warned that for a few days our food supply and meals might be "irregular." We miss the newspapers as much as anything. Without them and the radio we are completely isolated from news and war developments. The news we do get is so censored, colored, and doctored that little of it is wholly reliable, yet we have grown to look forward to it as the big event of the day. Father Spae even translates the Jap News and the translation is typed and passed around to the various rooms.
Monthly subscriptions are sold at Y-6.00/month, to pay for the paper, etc. Cold with snow flurries today. YMCA socx distributed. They had supplied the camp with 140 eggs, 10# dried apples, 500 pairs of sox, and 40# of rice on the day before the raid. It was brought to the camp just in time! We will be long in receiving that promised Red Cross Food kits! General camp spirit is dead and subdued as the after-math of the high excitement of the B-29 crash.
The tunnel is being shored-up so that if necessary, it may be used during the raids.
Re the B-29 wreck, the police and home guard spent all day yesterday bringing in equipment from it but left the bodies.
It is now 2:00 p.m. and the bodies have not been removed. Numerous hawks are circling the several spots where they are. The police refused our request to inter the bodies and said the military would never listen to such a proposal. Like Guam, the Japanese here have no feeling for the dead, and leave them lie, unprotected, in the sun!
Japanese Paper came late today. It reports "60 B-29's as indiscriminately bombing Kobe, causing fairly large damage. Most of the fires were out by 10:00 a.m." This is as much as they have ever admitted. They claim 20 B-29's shot down and all the rest damaged. (Prior to the arrival of the paper, the police said 3 B-29's had been lost, all by body-crashes.)
Reports from menkai people would indicate that approx. 35% of the total area of Kobe was burned. Most of the main section of town and the harbor area was destroyed. Emergency assistance was given to those who could produce certificates that their homes had been destroyed; these were 10 cigarettes and 400 gms of salt; no food, no clothes!
Other relief measures (?) will be carried out as soon as possible. Air raids by single B-29's were made on Kobe on the 17th at 8 a.m., 10 a.m., noon, 1 p.m., and 1:30. The fire from the harbor area is still sending up a good-sized smudge of smoke!
A new political party has been formed -- "Japanese Political Organization" by name. The Diet is still in session and really giving the Cabinet and Koiso in particular plenty of trouble.
The best news is that the German Foreign Office emphatically denies rumors emanating from the Anti-Axis Quarters to the effect that Germany is making Peace overtures thru the mediation of Sweden! That, coupled with the fact that there is no news concerning the fighting in Europe!
Roy Henning:
Sun. Quiet day, anticlimactic cndn. Not allowed out of bldgs. Bread cums up, bt only luck bk tr as bakery nt running. Rcvg
rice, 3 times day nw, cup full of rice water. Early to bed as no lites.
MARCH 19, 1945
Charles F. Gregg:
Air Raid at 7:30 a.m. In mess hall until 10 a.m., saw dive bombers drop bombs on Kobe. At 7:20 a.m., some of the men saw 40 odd small planes fly towards Osaka. At 12:30 p.m., we were again sent to the mess hall which single B-29's dropped bombs on Kobe. These raids were not heavy, but appeared to be in company with some other larger raid. Papers came at 7 p.m. after dark, so by light of the stove, we read that yesterday the Task Force Struck Kyushu with 800 planes during the forenoon and 600 planes in the afternoon! Street fighting in Mandaley.
Roy Henning:
Air alert at 7 a.m., go to Mess Hall, eat bkfst while tr, all-clear at 10 a, hr explosions, hr tt small planes attacking. In aftnoon, an otr raid & we spend cuple mr hrs in Mess Hall. At 2 a.m, nxt morn, a prec. alarm, vy tiring, tension strong.
Wx cld overcst. Still no gardening, nt allowed outside.
MARCH 20, 1945
Harold Brinkerhoff:
On the 18th, shipboard planes bombed Kobe, but not very severely. We were in the dining room twice during the day, from 7:30 a.m. to 10:05 a.m., and 12:40 to 1:50 p.m.
One dead man from the B-29 was found on the trail, just 50 feet from the house. The trees screened him, which is why we had not seen him. Five more dead were with the fuselage just over the ridge, north of camp. One of our fellows came on the fuselage that first morning. He got the names and identifications of two of them.
1. John T. Barry -- 16141602 -- T42 -- 43A -- dead, fuselage.
2. Dave W. Holley -- 17097498 -- T43 -- 440 -- dead, fuselage
3., 4., 5. -- 3 unknown dead with Barry & Holley -- fuselage
6. Nelson -- alive, in good health
7. August -- alive, presumed to be pilot -- came down with
wings, had broken leg; taken to Kobe.
8. Boullard -- dead -- came down just below house
9. Unknown dead -- found still strapped in his seat in the top of a pine on ridge just west of camp.
There are two still unaccounted for. That is, if the word we have to the effect that a B-29 carries an 11 man crew is right. The Jap soldiers are still searching for the other two. I am quite sure as we saw only two parachutes leave the plane.
Charles F. Gregg:
Over 100 B-29's rained incendiaries and H.E.'s on Nagoya yesterday, the 19th. The Task Force is moving northward and struck Shikoku and Hanshin area yesterday morning! The Japs claim to have sunk 1 A. carrier, 1 battleship or A. carrier, or 1 cruiser and 2 destroyers -- oh, yes? The air raids are now greatly intensified and the task force is striking horror in to the people as well as doing great damage.
Roy Henning:
Rcv 2 loafs bread. Loaves shrank to 5 oz. from 6 oz. and fm previous 3 - 8 oz. loaves we used to get. No lunch served, things getting tough. Still no elect. Read. Tension terrific, all men out of smokes, hungry.
MARCH 21, 1945
Charles F. Gregg:
Rumors as to the destruction in Kobe are still rampant and frequently conflicting. Apropos of the B-29 flyers, only two men have surrendered or been taken alive. One of these men, Nelson, came down by 'shute. The other man, supposedly the pilot, is reputed to have ridden the wing down and crashed with it and only sustained a broken ankle. Five bodies were found in the tail assembly, one other fell with unopened 'shute 50 yards from camp and the ninth man was found seated in the right hand pilot's seat, dead from head injuries. The brought the seat back to camp and it is badly bent, particularly the back rest. Parts and equipment are continually being found on all sides of the camp.
Several hundred separate items have been found to date and yet there has been no systematic search made of this area. The bodies of the crew were finally taken to town today, 5 days after the accident! Higasa our camp chief, reported that 2 Jap planes had crashed into this single B-29, that one of the Japs had been able to jump, and survived while the body of the other Jap was found only today.
7:50 p.m. -- Thick wisps of scud clouds permeated with smoke are drifting up this canyon from town. The smoke is quite strong and has a sweet nauseating odor as if coming from burning rubbish - or -- burning flesh. Are they cremating the thousands of Japs who must have died in the raid?
The Task Force on the 18th and 19th put 2,500 planes over these islands. This is the most to date. The Japs claim to have destroyed 260+ planes, mainly by body-crashes, thus admitting to a great loss on their part.
Food is a real problem. Since Saturday the 17th, we have had a little rice for breakfast and dinner and no lunch other than bread when the could get it! Our net loss of food to date is 4 loaves of bread and our noon meals, in addition to the extra bread members of the work crew received. With the extensive damage to Kobe, our black market food will become more expensive and difficult to secure. All lights are still out and it is reported that only streetcars are running in Kobe -- telephones, water, and power are off. The lack of lights makes reading impossible, consequently the days drag endlessly on. We go to be at 7:00 p.m. and rise at 7:00 a.m. We were allowed in the yard at 3:00 p.m. for a little exercise -- the first time we've been outside since early Saturday morning.
Roy Henning:
Resume garden wrk, under police surveillance. half days wrk lvs me dead tired, back & legs sore. We planted abt a housand leek seedlings. Rcv loaf bread fr wrk. Wail of sirens in early morning hrs. No lunch agn, starvation diet.
MARCH 22, 1945
Harold Brinkerhoff:
The dead bodies were finally taken away. It took the damned Japs four days to get around to taking care of the bodies. Our guards would not allow us to bury the bodies. We were really mad. One guard did have the decency to cover them over with brush and put stones on them to keep the buzzards and dogs off. It has been freezing weather, so the bodies have kept in good condition. We have been confined to the buildings since the bombing. We are now restricted to the confines of the camp, except my garden crew.
This a.m., a piece of windshield was found in the garden. It is 1-1/2 inches thick and is covered with blood. We just left it there. A fellow was in Kobe last night, and fires are still burning. We could hear blasting all morning. I guess they are razing some of the walls left standing. The Dai Maru department store that was a block from the Seamen Mission is nothing but a shell. If we had been there, we would probably be no more.
The pilot with the broken leg was supposed to have told Higashi, who talked to him, that a Jap fighter hit them just behind the wings, cutting the plane in two. There is a story that two Jap fighters hit the B-29 at the same time. One Jap pilot was found dead; the other bailed out, and was found alive.
Charles F. Gregg:
A single B-29 dropped a powerful bomb somewhere on Kobe this morning, judging from the way the house quivered and the windows and doors rattled. Reports from town are that Kobe is still completely disorganized; warehouse fires are still burning; hundreds of refugees are lining the roads leaving town. The cops are playing around with the incendiary bombs found nearby. One of them will explode some time and we'll have fewer guards! it is difficult to realize that the battleground of the Kobe raid was right over our heads! Continually, new evidence is brought to camp to prove it, however. It is damnable to be a prisoner during these raids, realizing that others are doing their best and losing their lives while you are doing nothing for your country or your self-respect!
Roy Henning:
Scratching top soil & humus fm hill sides, cutting bamboo grass. Dnt fl tired tdy. Hv a ptc fire pump drill. I'm member of #1 pump crew (hand). Part wid one of my army blankets, wl rcv seite y media libres de grase. Halsey & Ken (Meyer) tink dat we shud do away wid Chippy & Saipy, they are starving, nothing fr dem, nor us either.
MARCH 23, 1945
Charles F. Gregg:
The fighting along the Rhine River is at last starting to move rapidly. The U.S. army, having been the 1st group of any size to cross the Rhine on a railroad bridge that had not been destroyed. A lieutenant of a tank corps was the first to see the bridge and he lead his group over it immediately. In the next 24 hours, some 20,000 (?) troops were taken over the bridge before the Germans could destroy it by bombing. Patton's 3rd Army are also on the loose; they stormed into Mainz on the 20th, captured Worms and is rapidly taking all the territory back of Saarbrueken and the Siegfried Line.
Japan has passed a General Mobilization Law in order to cope with the present state of emergency. All schools have been closed except lower schools up to the 6th grade.
Iojima: The last surviving Japs made their final charge on March 17th! This completes all fighting on Iojima, according to the Nippon paper.
Roy Henning:
Wrk cutting grass, scratching soil. Hv a section in bk of amasan's hs, pretty lil valley. Sen(ator) (Wallace Robira) is tkg Barney Jones plc on our crew.
Charles F. Gregg:
Max Brodofsky's birthday. He gave a birthday breakfast to (Joe) Morganthaler, (Tom) Appedail, (Edward) Maxim, and me.
Roy Henning:
Wrk garden half day. Prepare 3 nw beds wid straw leaf mould. Ready to plant onions (leeks). Hv Dutch conversation wid
(Charles) Rolandus. YMCA gvs us egg each.
MARCH 17, 1945
Charles F. Gregg:
All Kobe is aflame! Chisslin Hojo cried his warning at 1:45 and the full precaution was immediately declared. We were ordered to dress and remain in our rooms. 2:15 a.m. the 1st B-29's were over and at such a low altitude that we failed to recognize their throb. By 2:30 a.m. the sky was aglow with light from the burning town, along the entire snake-like strip of the town from the CAA area SE of us through the entire shopping and financial center of the town, continuing through the SW industrial section clear to the west, fires were blazing! Weather was almost ideal for the raid, light breeze from the NW, ceiling 2,000' and top approx. 3,500' - 4,000'. The B-29's came on singley or by 2's and 3's. They first swept Kobe from
W to E with incendiaries of several types, then the town was cross-swept from S to N. It is impossible to adequately describe the awe-inspiring sight of these giant planes raining H.E. and incendiaries until the night was light as day. The red glow from the burning town reflected on the under-surfaces of the planes, bathing them in a reflected bath of Kobe blood. Time after time these giant war birds wheeled over the city and dumped their "load" of destruction.
All the while the A.A. batteries were blazing away, cutting the sky with the rapid "lightning-bug-like" trace bullets. Pomp-pom guns were blazing and even heavy machines were unused in an endeavor to "stop" the bombers. The 4' - 8" A.A. guns, fortunately few in number, were the only defense weapons that had a sting, all the rest were futile waste. The continual crack of these guns and the detonation of exploding bombs made war a reality to us for the 2nd time! Suddenly there was a terrific explosion directly overhead. Six guards on the lawn outside looked directly overhead, then broke into a mad run toward the mess hall. At the end of the lawn they stopped, one pointed skyward and then equally madly, the police, like a flock of ducks, rushed directly back in the opposite direction and one guard jumped down the sloping bank and fell flat.
We at first thought the upper building had been hit, then suddenly a large object all aflame plummeted earthward directly in front of us until it was cut off from our view by the ridge directly south of us. Then, to our awe and horror, the full wing of a B-29 with nacelles intact, but sans empinage and rear fuselage, slowly twirled counter-clockwise in a very flat spin and fell a short distance from the camp.
Seconds later a parachute came into view with the man dimly visible, then another parachute followed. Shortly before this, there was a terrific crack on the roof which later was found to be an incendiary bomb (aluminum tube, 3# in weight, 24" long, 4" diameter). It went through the roof and landed on the ply board ceiling of the second floor directly over the bed of Frank Angel. The bomb splintered the ceiling but failed to explode!
Shrapnel fell like rain on the roof and in the trees surrounding the camp at various times during the 3 hour raid. Another B-29 showered ribbon-like incendiaries all the way up the mountainside where the last particles fell just a few yards from the camp. Unfortunately, the forest was wet from recent rains and fresh fallen show, so the fire did not spread.
The bombing continued until well after 5:00 a.m., by which time the sky was blackened with smoke -- white in color from the business and residential section, black from the area of docks and harbor.
As dawn broke and it became light, internees surreptitiously made their way into the surrounding hills and soon returned to camp with a great variety of parts and articles from the B-29. An auxiliary gas tank of buna rubber was the 1st object, then a float-flare, a rubber life boat, incendiary bomb cases, etc.
Then an engine was found, and two others badly broken up, accessories, pumps, oil separators, a propeller blade, etc.
At 10:00 a.m., a body was found just 50 yards from the lower end of the camp -- one of the flyers with his 'chute unopened.(Zane) Stickle had come into the camp with a U.S. Army blanket just before roll-call and reported the tail assembly with bodies in it located a few hundred yards in back of the building. I had previously gone out and seen an engine, reasonably intact, but badly twisted and broken.
At roll-call at 7:30 a.m., the police gave us orders "under no condition" to leave the building for the rest of the day.
This stopped our searching, but soon the Japanese home guards were in camp and combing the hills. They found the wrecked wing and brought in all kinds of equipment and articles from a load adjuster to two .45 caliber pistols. By this time, 100's of opinions, observations, guesses, and prejudices were being harangued by the internees. Several, perhaps a good many internees had been in the mountains during most of the raid.
They were painting vivid word pictures of what they saw, or thought they saw. As these stories are too numerous to relate, it is better to chronicle merely what we actually know. A crew member of the B-29 (Nelson, age 22) walked into camp with a calm air of self-assurance at noon. His hands were tied behind his back and two of our guards were directing him. He proceeded with a swaggering walk and occasionally looked back and down on the coppers! (He had done his job and could well hold these Japs in contempt.) The house sergeant treated him as well as he was allowed to under the circumstances and gave him tea and a piece of bread (not benjo-burgers, as we had for lunch). He was held here merely for an hour until the Army came for him. When he left, he smiled at us, and at the last rise of the trail, turned, and raised his hand in salute. His face was bloody from a superficial head wound, but he walked with a fine stride and assurance -- he had guts! And, Thank God, there are thousands more like him in the U.S. armed forces!
By late afternoon, we had heard that 7 bodies had been found and 4 men captured, thus accounting for the total 11 crew members. As best we can now tell, a single B-29 was body crashed by a Jap fighter when they were directly over our camp. The engines were torn out and the fuselage and empinage disintegrated, falling over a wide area on all sides of the camp. It is reported that 2 other B-29's were body-crashed during the raid. From eye witness accounts, at least 6 Jap fighters were shot down besides those who body-crashed. For myself, I definitely saw one Jap plane dive in flames earthward and saw 2 others falling.
Concerning the fires in Kobe, Akabani's place was destroyed and he saved merely 6 bags of rice destined for our camp, losing all his clothing, furniture, etc., in the flames. The military barracks near the Canadian Academy was destroyed; the harbor facilities badly damaged; numerous ships were burned; in general, the section of town from Sogo Dept. Store westward and below the elevated was badly burned -- rumored destroyed -- particulars will come in late. Electricity is off, consequently there is no radio reception, nor lights. Fires were still brightly burning at a late hour tonight. Several families arrived for menkai today, but they were allowed to stay only 20 minutes and little news was forthcoming. No newspapers today.
Harold Brinkerhoff:
Well, Kobe sure got it, and what a shellacking it was. The raid started at 12:45 a.m. and lasted until 5 a.m. We had to get out of bed and dress, then we could go back to bed if we wished. I never expect to see such a sight again if I live to be 100. The B-29's came in from the bay. They would drop their bombs flying parallel to our camp. As they got abreast of our camp, they would make a turn and return out to sea.
They were flying low; in fact, so low we could see paintings on their sides as they banked over our camp. As they passed over the shipyards, the searchlights would pick them up and the anti-aircraft guns would go into action, spewing bullets on all sides, the tracers making queer patterns. They were fearless and continued coming wave on wave. They were using incendiaries and bursting in the air reminded one of Roman Candles on the 4th of July.
It was not long until the searchlights were of no use. The bursting bombs and the reflection from the fires outlined the coming planes as clearly as if it was daylight. We could read a newspaper.
It was a beautiful sight to see those monstrous planes bank showing us the full outline of their glistening sides. At 3:20,four of us slipped out of camp and went up on the hill behind our camp. We could see that the whole of West Kobe was a mass of scattered fires. The B-29's as they came in seemed to drop their bombs in between the fires.
The sky over East Kobe was flaming red. The hills shut off our view of that section. East Kobe is long and narrow; as it gets to West Kobe, it opens out like a spatula with one edge off. We were enjoying the sight when we suddenly heard a crash and saw a flash in a cloud directly over our camp. We saw what appeared to be one plane come below the cloud. It was spinning in a horizontal position, the wings remaining perfectly level, away from where we were, and at the same time, another plane went directly over the camp buildings and lit on the mountain side not over 100 yards from us. As it landed, it sounded like the tinkling of broken glass on a cement floor. We thought that either two B-29's had collided in the cloud, or a Jap fighter had body crashed.
We saw two parachutes blossom out from the wing section and slowly float to earth. We were all sick at the sight, and no longer got pleasure from the sight. We wanted the B-29's to wipe out the town. We immediately returned to camp, and I went to bed, but I couldn't sleep for thinking about what I had witnessed. As it was getting light, I got up, but did not leave camp again.
Many fellows were swarming up the hill in search of souvenirs. One fellow came down dragging one half of a prop, another with part of a supercharger. Others with various and sundry pieces. My curiosity got the best of me, so I left. I got up to where one of the motors was lying. It surely is a monstrous thing, and to think it passed right over our buildings.
The guards who were at the wreckage a little further on made the fellows return. The fellows were forced to turn in the pieces they had picked up. Our anger was fanned when at 12:30 p.m. our guards found one of the aviators who we saw floating down. They brought him in with hands tied behind his back and one guard was pushing him occasionally. He was a nice-looking, heave-set blond with wavy hair. His name was Nelson. I have been unable to learn his initials. He was 22 years old. His face was bloody and he had a slight cut above one eye. He had probably come down in a pine tree. He walked with a springy step and held his head high. The guards kept him in the police office for several hours until some military police came and took him away. We were not allowed to speak with him. Many shouted "good luck" to him as he was taken away.
Dean Brunton:
One of our B-29s was rammed by a kamikaze suicide fighter directly above our camp. One of the engines fell within a hundred yards of the camp buildings, a heavy rail from the bomb rack landed only a few feet from our sleeping quarters, and an incendiary bomb penetrated our roof, but failed to ignite. The wing section of the huge plane landed about a half mile from camp and the tail section fell an equals distance on the other side. Parts of the plane, bombs, and equipment were scattered over more than a square mile of our mountainside.
Roy Henning:
Prec alarm at midnite, alert at 2 a.m. Mni planes cum ovr, drop incendiaries, all Kobe ablaze, AA fire all ovr, planes vy lw. B-29's crash ovr hs, spin dwn lk car wheel, shower our gnds wid parts, 4 bodies fnd on nr hill, one only 100 ft fm hs. 2 otrs in garden. One crew man captured alive, brot in ofc hr. Hr ltr tt otr crew fnd and broken leg. Higasa sez tt 3 B-29's body crashed in raid, great coincidence tt one should crash rite ovr our camp. Up all evening. Tired, cold, snowing, freezing. Aft bkfst, inspt mtr in hills, all parts brot tgr, prop, cylinders, bomb rack tt fell only 50' fm my window, parachutes, rubber life boat, gast tanks, etc. On incendiary goes thru our roof. Not allowed outdoors all day. Planes gone at 5 a.m., 3 hr raid, evyone hs enuf of war. Akabani's place burned dwn, our month's supply rice gone. no bread, no elec. Go to bed 8 p.m.
MARCH 18, 1945
Charles F. Gregg:
Kobe still burning though most of the fires have burned out. The home army has taken over control of this area. Some of the soldiers are women. Their gun straps are made of braided coarse grass. Several B-29's have been overhead since the raid, but no further bombing has been heard. The bakery, our source of bread, did not burn but as electricity is off, they have been unable to bake. We did not receive our bread yesterday, and were warned that for a few days our food supply and meals might be "irregular." We miss the newspapers as much as anything. Without them and the radio we are completely isolated from news and war developments. The news we do get is so censored, colored, and doctored that little of it is wholly reliable, yet we have grown to look forward to it as the big event of the day. Father Spae even translates the Jap News and the translation is typed and passed around to the various rooms.
Monthly subscriptions are sold at Y-6.00/month, to pay for the paper, etc. Cold with snow flurries today. YMCA socx distributed. They had supplied the camp with 140 eggs, 10# dried apples, 500 pairs of sox, and 40# of rice on the day before the raid. It was brought to the camp just in time! We will be long in receiving that promised Red Cross Food kits! General camp spirit is dead and subdued as the after-math of the high excitement of the B-29 crash.
The tunnel is being shored-up so that if necessary, it may be used during the raids.
Re the B-29 wreck, the police and home guard spent all day yesterday bringing in equipment from it but left the bodies.
It is now 2:00 p.m. and the bodies have not been removed. Numerous hawks are circling the several spots where they are. The police refused our request to inter the bodies and said the military would never listen to such a proposal. Like Guam, the Japanese here have no feeling for the dead, and leave them lie, unprotected, in the sun!
Japanese Paper came late today. It reports "60 B-29's as indiscriminately bombing Kobe, causing fairly large damage. Most of the fires were out by 10:00 a.m." This is as much as they have ever admitted. They claim 20 B-29's shot down and all the rest damaged. (Prior to the arrival of the paper, the police said 3 B-29's had been lost, all by body-crashes.)
Reports from menkai people would indicate that approx. 35% of the total area of Kobe was burned. Most of the main section of town and the harbor area was destroyed. Emergency assistance was given to those who could produce certificates that their homes had been destroyed; these were 10 cigarettes and 400 gms of salt; no food, no clothes!
Other relief measures (?) will be carried out as soon as possible. Air raids by single B-29's were made on Kobe on the 17th at 8 a.m., 10 a.m., noon, 1 p.m., and 1:30. The fire from the harbor area is still sending up a good-sized smudge of smoke!
A new political party has been formed -- "Japanese Political Organization" by name. The Diet is still in session and really giving the Cabinet and Koiso in particular plenty of trouble.
The best news is that the German Foreign Office emphatically denies rumors emanating from the Anti-Axis Quarters to the effect that Germany is making Peace overtures thru the mediation of Sweden! That, coupled with the fact that there is no news concerning the fighting in Europe!
Roy Henning:
Sun. Quiet day, anticlimactic cndn. Not allowed out of bldgs. Bread cums up, bt only luck bk tr as bakery nt running. Rcvg
rice, 3 times day nw, cup full of rice water. Early to bed as no lites.
MARCH 19, 1945
Charles F. Gregg:
Air Raid at 7:30 a.m. In mess hall until 10 a.m., saw dive bombers drop bombs on Kobe. At 7:20 a.m., some of the men saw 40 odd small planes fly towards Osaka. At 12:30 p.m., we were again sent to the mess hall which single B-29's dropped bombs on Kobe. These raids were not heavy, but appeared to be in company with some other larger raid. Papers came at 7 p.m. after dark, so by light of the stove, we read that yesterday the Task Force Struck Kyushu with 800 planes during the forenoon and 600 planes in the afternoon! Street fighting in Mandaley.
Roy Henning:
Air alert at 7 a.m., go to Mess Hall, eat bkfst while tr, all-clear at 10 a, hr explosions, hr tt small planes attacking. In aftnoon, an otr raid & we spend cuple mr hrs in Mess Hall. At 2 a.m, nxt morn, a prec. alarm, vy tiring, tension strong.
Wx cld overcst. Still no gardening, nt allowed outside.
MARCH 20, 1945
Harold Brinkerhoff:
On the 18th, shipboard planes bombed Kobe, but not very severely. We were in the dining room twice during the day, from 7:30 a.m. to 10:05 a.m., and 12:40 to 1:50 p.m.
One dead man from the B-29 was found on the trail, just 50 feet from the house. The trees screened him, which is why we had not seen him. Five more dead were with the fuselage just over the ridge, north of camp. One of our fellows came on the fuselage that first morning. He got the names and identifications of two of them.
1. John T. Barry -- 16141602 -- T42 -- 43A -- dead, fuselage.
2. Dave W. Holley -- 17097498 -- T43 -- 440 -- dead, fuselage
3., 4., 5. -- 3 unknown dead with Barry & Holley -- fuselage
6. Nelson -- alive, in good health
7. August -- alive, presumed to be pilot -- came down with
wings, had broken leg; taken to Kobe.
8. Boullard -- dead -- came down just below house
9. Unknown dead -- found still strapped in his seat in the top of a pine on ridge just west of camp.
There are two still unaccounted for. That is, if the word we have to the effect that a B-29 carries an 11 man crew is right. The Jap soldiers are still searching for the other two. I am quite sure as we saw only two parachutes leave the plane.
Charles F. Gregg:
Over 100 B-29's rained incendiaries and H.E.'s on Nagoya yesterday, the 19th. The Task Force is moving northward and struck Shikoku and Hanshin area yesterday morning! The Japs claim to have sunk 1 A. carrier, 1 battleship or A. carrier, or 1 cruiser and 2 destroyers -- oh, yes? The air raids are now greatly intensified and the task force is striking horror in to the people as well as doing great damage.
Roy Henning:
Rcv 2 loafs bread. Loaves shrank to 5 oz. from 6 oz. and fm previous 3 - 8 oz. loaves we used to get. No lunch served, things getting tough. Still no elect. Read. Tension terrific, all men out of smokes, hungry.
MARCH 21, 1945
Charles F. Gregg:
Rumors as to the destruction in Kobe are still rampant and frequently conflicting. Apropos of the B-29 flyers, only two men have surrendered or been taken alive. One of these men, Nelson, came down by 'shute. The other man, supposedly the pilot, is reputed to have ridden the wing down and crashed with it and only sustained a broken ankle. Five bodies were found in the tail assembly, one other fell with unopened 'shute 50 yards from camp and the ninth man was found seated in the right hand pilot's seat, dead from head injuries. The brought the seat back to camp and it is badly bent, particularly the back rest. Parts and equipment are continually being found on all sides of the camp.
Several hundred separate items have been found to date and yet there has been no systematic search made of this area. The bodies of the crew were finally taken to town today, 5 days after the accident! Higasa our camp chief, reported that 2 Jap planes had crashed into this single B-29, that one of the Japs had been able to jump, and survived while the body of the other Jap was found only today.
7:50 p.m. -- Thick wisps of scud clouds permeated with smoke are drifting up this canyon from town. The smoke is quite strong and has a sweet nauseating odor as if coming from burning rubbish - or -- burning flesh. Are they cremating the thousands of Japs who must have died in the raid?
The Task Force on the 18th and 19th put 2,500 planes over these islands. This is the most to date. The Japs claim to have destroyed 260+ planes, mainly by body-crashes, thus admitting to a great loss on their part.
Food is a real problem. Since Saturday the 17th, we have had a little rice for breakfast and dinner and no lunch other than bread when the could get it! Our net loss of food to date is 4 loaves of bread and our noon meals, in addition to the extra bread members of the work crew received. With the extensive damage to Kobe, our black market food will become more expensive and difficult to secure. All lights are still out and it is reported that only streetcars are running in Kobe -- telephones, water, and power are off. The lack of lights makes reading impossible, consequently the days drag endlessly on. We go to be at 7:00 p.m. and rise at 7:00 a.m. We were allowed in the yard at 3:00 p.m. for a little exercise -- the first time we've been outside since early Saturday morning.
Roy Henning:
Resume garden wrk, under police surveillance. half days wrk lvs me dead tired, back & legs sore. We planted abt a housand leek seedlings. Rcv loaf bread fr wrk. Wail of sirens in early morning hrs. No lunch agn, starvation diet.
MARCH 22, 1945
Harold Brinkerhoff:
The dead bodies were finally taken away. It took the damned Japs four days to get around to taking care of the bodies. Our guards would not allow us to bury the bodies. We were really mad. One guard did have the decency to cover them over with brush and put stones on them to keep the buzzards and dogs off. It has been freezing weather, so the bodies have kept in good condition. We have been confined to the buildings since the bombing. We are now restricted to the confines of the camp, except my garden crew.
This a.m., a piece of windshield was found in the garden. It is 1-1/2 inches thick and is covered with blood. We just left it there. A fellow was in Kobe last night, and fires are still burning. We could hear blasting all morning. I guess they are razing some of the walls left standing. The Dai Maru department store that was a block from the Seamen Mission is nothing but a shell. If we had been there, we would probably be no more.
The pilot with the broken leg was supposed to have told Higashi, who talked to him, that a Jap fighter hit them just behind the wings, cutting the plane in two. There is a story that two Jap fighters hit the B-29 at the same time. One Jap pilot was found dead; the other bailed out, and was found alive.
Charles F. Gregg:
A single B-29 dropped a powerful bomb somewhere on Kobe this morning, judging from the way the house quivered and the windows and doors rattled. Reports from town are that Kobe is still completely disorganized; warehouse fires are still burning; hundreds of refugees are lining the roads leaving town. The cops are playing around with the incendiary bombs found nearby. One of them will explode some time and we'll have fewer guards! it is difficult to realize that the battleground of the Kobe raid was right over our heads! Continually, new evidence is brought to camp to prove it, however. It is damnable to be a prisoner during these raids, realizing that others are doing their best and losing their lives while you are doing nothing for your country or your self-respect!
Roy Henning:
Scratching top soil & humus fm hill sides, cutting bamboo grass. Dnt fl tired tdy. Hv a ptc fire pump drill. I'm member of #1 pump crew (hand). Part wid one of my army blankets, wl rcv seite y media libres de grase. Halsey & Ken (Meyer) tink dat we shud do away wid Chippy & Saipy, they are starving, nothing fr dem, nor us either.
MARCH 23, 1945
Charles F. Gregg:
The fighting along the Rhine River is at last starting to move rapidly. The U.S. army, having been the 1st group of any size to cross the Rhine on a railroad bridge that had not been destroyed. A lieutenant of a tank corps was the first to see the bridge and he lead his group over it immediately. In the next 24 hours, some 20,000 (?) troops were taken over the bridge before the Germans could destroy it by bombing. Patton's 3rd Army are also on the loose; they stormed into Mainz on the 20th, captured Worms and is rapidly taking all the territory back of Saarbrueken and the Siegfried Line.
Japan has passed a General Mobilization Law in order to cope with the present state of emergency. All schools have been closed except lower schools up to the 6th grade.
Iojima: The last surviving Japs made their final charge on March 17th! This completes all fighting on Iojima, according to the Nippon paper.
Roy Henning:
Wrk cutting grass, scratching soil. Hv a section in bk of amasan's hs, pretty lil valley. Sen(ator) (Wallace Robira) is tkg Barney Jones plc on our crew.
