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Captain Shosaku Kameyama
On 15 September 1989. a letter came with a Japanese stamp. It was from Mr S Kameyama, the Lieutenant who had been in charge of us in the transport unit. I was astounded. For forty-four years, I had thought of him as dead.
The letter was in English, well typed, but not by him. He had miraculously survived the Burma campaign. A friend had drawn attention to an article about me in a Japanese newspaper, the Yomiuri Shimbun. This had appeared after I had given a talk in Tokyo on UNESCO, in which I had worked for most of my post-war life.
He had belonged to the Japanese Army 31st Division, which had gone through to Burma in January 1944. As adjutant of one of the battalions of 58 Infantry Regiment, and later as a company commander, he had fought in the battles of Imphal, Kohima and Sangshak. The casualties in his unit had been extremely heavy, and he himself was wounded, but survived to surrender at the end of the war. He did not tell me much of what he had done afterwards.
All he said was new to me. When we were with his transport unit, the battles of Burma were still in the future. Not being particularly interested at the time, we knew nothing about 31st Division or 58 Infantry Regiment.
In fact, 31st Division was one of the two principal divisions engaged in the unsuccessful invasion of India. They suffered very severely at the hands of the Fourteenth Army, and in particular, of the 2nd British Division.
He had actually been in England. in June 1984, as a member of the reconciliation movement, about which I was starting to learn. He had been in a veterans group which had visited London, Leeds, York and other towns.
Lieutenant Kameyama always stuck in my memories for the best reasons. Always polite, considerate and softly spoken, he lived in a hut of his own at the end of the compound. The POWs lived at the other end, with the Japanese soldiers in the middle. We could sometimes see Lieutenant Kameyama on the slightly raised platform of the veranda in front of his hut, often dressed in only a loin cloth, where he would do exercises, perhaps sword practice. When outside his hut he was always meticulously dressed in the tropical uniform of a Japanese officer, that is to say, open-neck shirt, breeched, riding boots and sword, with a cap on his head, sometimes with cloth flaps down the back, supposedly to keep off the sun. Like other officers he always wore white gloves, His complexion wag very fair. and his ears slightly obtrusive. In some ways he gave the impression of being very well-groomed, and young. Indeed, it is now remarked how young he looks for his age.
I doubt whether we spoke to each other more than about twenty times while we were with him in Banpong. His being kind and agreeable may not seem much, but it was remarkable compared with the way we were usually treated. The behaviour of a Japanese unit usually reflected the attitudes of its commanding officer. We did attribute our good treatment to his influence. Perhaps the general run of Japanese professional officers was different from those we normally encountered. Or perhaps we were just unlucky in having so many disagreeable characters in the POW administration.
Of course, I had buried five British soldiers while at Kinsaiyok, in the space of little over a month. This was an appalling death rate for so small a party. I am not sure now that all of them were attached to our transport unit. If they were, their poor health was due to the conditions before we went there, and not to the way Tamotsu Yusotai had treated us, For the whole period I was with this unit, about eight months, I lived and moved among Japanese soldiers in army camps without encountering any significant bad treatment or even rudeness. We were treated as quite normal people to have around the place, in a very inferior position it is true, but without brutality and unpleasantness. At times I was well outside Lieutenant Kameyama's sphere of influence, so our treatment was not always determined by his actual presence. Perhaps the treatment we usually suffered in most POW camps was not necessarily typical of the Imperial Japanese Army as a whole.
Hitherto, I had had only a vague notion of what had happened in Burma. I knew of the retreat of our own forces in 1942, of the advance of the Japanese on Kohima and Imphal, and of their eventual defeat, including their desperate efforts to break out towards the south.
Our own guardians in Thailand had been committed to the battle for Burma from early 1944 onwards — which is why I had thought that few of them could have survived. Over three hundred thousand Japanese troops went to Burma; under one hundred and twenty thousand returned. The combined British and Commonwealth losses were just over fourteen thousand. So the Japanese had lost three-fifths of the men sent to Burma, a twelfth of the 2.3 million they lost in the entire war. These were appalling casualties. I am happy that Lieutenant Kameyama was among the survivors.
He is mentioned in Louis Allen's book, ‘Burma, the Longest War’. Allen quotes a Japanese source in connection with the battle of Sangshak, just before the attacks on Imphal and Kohima. Major-General Miyazaki was waiting for his artillery before attacking. But Captain Nagaya, commanding 11 Battalion of 58 Regiment in which Lieutenant Kameyama was adjutant — begged him to put in an immediate night attack, and the general consented.
The attack did not go well, without artillery support. Nagaya's 8 Company, led by Lieutenant Naka, in spite of Naka's heroism, failed. Captain Nagaya told his adjutant, Lieutenant Kameyama, to take over, saying, 'I must go and find Naka's bones. I must find his bones!' , as the blood streamed from a bullet wound in his jaw. But the dawn brought British aircraft into the skies over Sangshak, and Kameyama knew there was no question of renewing the attack.
An attack on 24 March by 6 Company succeeded in breaking into the south-west corner of the hill area and Nagaya, the 11 Battalion commander, came through the perimeter with them. As they burst into enemy lines, two grenades landed near him and the adjutant, Kameyama, kicked one hard and sent it flying, hurling himself to the ground. Nagaya picked up the other and threw it ahead, yelling 'Charge! Charge!' They held their gains, but got no further, as a curtain of shellfire came down.
So the battle wore on. Hardest hit was Nagaya's 11 Battalion. In attack after counterattack, he lost more than four hundred killed and wounded. As Nagaya numbered with bloodshot eyes, heavy his depleted companies... with bitter self-reproach and crushed by fatigue, he knew his battalion had almost ceased to exist as a fighting force.' (p. 215, op. cit.)
Allen also tells of a later incident in which Lieutenant Kameyama appealed to the courage of his men at Kohima.
He remembered a novel by Sato Koraku in which older members of a baseball team got the members who were without a box to grasp their testicles.
'Don't flap!' he called out to his men who were finding it hard to dig in on the slopes, where the ground was hard, and were being sniped at whenever they showed themselves. 'No point in panicking. Calm down. Everyone grab your balls! Right? If they are hanging loose, you're 0K!'
He tried to suit his own action to his words and found to his dismay that, far from hanging loose, his scrotum had contracted hard. Thirty or so of his men were gazing at him demonstrating, all of them with their hands between their crotch. He brazened it out. 'Well, what are they like? Mine are dangling!'
Not even the imminent terrors of battle prevented the whole group bursting out laughing when a young private in front of him, face red with the effort of search, said 'Sir, I can't find my balls!' (op. cit, p. 269, quoting Biruma Sensen, 1964, pages 308 and 405.)
At the end of the day, only eighteen out of thirty men were still alive.
Despite their successes, the condition of the Japanese was becoming desperate. The official ‘British History of the Second World War’ records that:-
A great proportion of the men of 15th and 31st Divisions who had survived the battle' [of Ukhrul in the first week of July 1944] 'were found dead and dying of disease and exhaustion. Bodies, guns, vehicles and equipment lay rotting and rusting along the quagmire that had once been the track leading from Ukhrul — a scene of horror which compelled pity, for it was obvious that many of the dead had been sick or wounded men who had dropped and died of starvation or drowned in the ooze that filled every rut and pothole.' [A footnote suggests that] '...the supply breakdown was due to the impossibility of distributing stocks to the scattered Japanese forces over the congested and almost unusable tracks.' (Vol. Ill, 'The War Against Japan', page 364).
The youthful-looking Lieutenant we had known in Banpong was evidently a real fighting soldier with subsequent battle experience such as few of us ever had. Which makes it all the more impressive that he became identified with a movement for reconciliation.
I decided to ask him some more questions about our time together. Of course, what had been a major part of my war experience was for him only a passing phase on the way to much more tumultuous and memorable events. There was some delay, and I wondered if I had expected too much. But he did answer.
His account was not very full on all points. Like me, he was dredging his memory for events of half a century before. He had no written records; after the ceasefire, he had been ordered to burn all papers, public and private. He could not recall the exact date when we had begun to work with him, but remembered that it was at the height of the railway work. Our transfer to him had been authorised by the higher command because the rapid transfer of 31 Division to Burma had an even higher priority than building the railway. He was surprised to find four officers included in the party of thirty, supposing that they must have been considered for work in the rear ‘as they were very infirm.’
He recalls providing us with medical attention. He thinks that the senior officer who addressed us in Banpong was Captain Matsumiya. who had preceded him in command of the transport unit. Tamotsu Yusotai had been formed as part of 31 Division Infantry Group to undertake liaison with the lines of communication and railway units, and to report on the actual situation of the advancing units of the whole Division. Tamotsu and Retsu were code names for Infantry Group and HQ Staff Department respectively, the change in name coming when the unit became directly responsible to the latter.
All the men in transit that I met in Banpong belonged to this same Division. The main elements came, as I had suspected, from frontline troops in China. The main combat power lay in 31 Infantry Group, under General Miyazaki. One regiment, 124 from Nara, included both troops already fighting in Burma and some who had survived the battles of Guadalcanal in the Solomons.
He agrees that the Nissans, Fords and Chevrolets we used were in a very bad state due to the terrible roads. They had relied to a considerable extent on the work of the British NCOs and privates. The goods we carried were mostly personal appraisal records of the units that marched into Burma on foot. Weapons and ammunition were carried after the troops had advanced into Burma. He himself travelled into Burma by truck. The railway does not seem to have been much use to them at that stage.
He remembers giving me the language book ‘Tadashii Nihon-go’ in the hope that it would help me learn a little Japanese and so avoid trouble or misunderstanding between us. He succeeded better than he then knew. He is glad that we managed to live in harmony together.
He says that combat units of the Japanese Army had been taught to comply with the Geneva Convention, and to treat prisoners of war humanely. He remembers particularly that officers, 'even POW', should not be forced to work, and that he briefed those under his control accordingly, This may seem incredible, as it flies in the face of nearly everyone else's experience.
Lieutenant Kameyama himself belonged to 11 Battalion of 58 Infantry Regiment, and when he rejoined them on 9 February 1944, they were preparing for the Imphal offensive. The CO was then Captain Yorizawa, and Kameyama became is adjutant. However, Yorizawa died shortly after, and was succeeded by Captain Nagaya. Japanese battalions were somewhat smaller than ours and they seemed to have commanded by officers of lower rank than would be normal in the British Army. Captain Nagaya and almost all the company and platoon commanders were killed in the Imphal campaign, but he himself survived until the surrender.
With his answers to my queries, Shosaku Kameyama sent me a copy of a regimental journal to which he had contributed, It began with the news item in Yomiuri Shimbun, his letter to me and my reply, then giving a more detailed explanation for the benefit of ex-military colleagues. He explained his duties as commander of Retsu Yusotai: -
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To transport by lorry the belongings and materials of the units of 31 Division from Nongpladuk in Thailand to Thambyuzyat in Burma, in all four hundred and fourteen kilometres, via Banpong, Kanchanaburi and the railway construction sites in the Kwai Noi river valley.
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To liaise with the Railway Control Headquarters at Kanchanaburi, and arrange transport on completed parts of the line.
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To see that the Commisariat HQ at Kanchanaburi and its local posts provided accommodation and meals for the advancing units of 31 Division.
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To assess progress and report to the divisional chiefs of staff.
He named the six officers serving with him, three of whom were subsequently killed in action. I don't remember them. They had a total strength of sixty and twenty vehicles. His HQ was in Banpong, and he had liaison posts at Kanchanaburi, Kinsaiyok, Changaraya and Thanbuzayat, the latter two in Burma. There were three transport units, each working between two posts. The roads were very steep and uneven, and the lorries had as much difficulty in the dust and heat of the dry season as in the mud of the rainy season. This seems to have been the reason for employing us.
Although I was not the commander of the group, in practice I did most of the liaison work, particularly after I had acquired some knowledge of Japanese.
He then explains a remarkable arrangement, which I did not know about at the time, not being directly involved myself.
'In order to prevent any trouble between Japanese soldiers and the British, who had different language and habits, I put together pairs of Japanese and British soldiers, and asked the Japanese soldiers to take care of their British partners in official and private life. All my soldiers were delighted to have partners with different coloured hair and eyes, and took good care, both spiritually and physically of those who had sunk to a low state of life as prisoners of war. They competed in showing friendship to their partners. The prisoners of war made good friends of their Japanese partners and positively helped in the work. I did not observe any of the trouble I had feared, and both Japanese and British persevered to the end in a very difficult job in a friendly and cheerful manner.'
There was no one with whom I myself could have been paired. The result was certainly as Shosaku Kameyama states it. I think he had drawn on the now well-known secret of Japanese industrial relations. If all Japanese had treated POWs in the same way the whole story would have been very different.
He says that when men fell ill he sent them to a clinic for a medical examination. If they were too ill to return to work they were sent to hospital. I think he means the POW hospital. In fact, two officers and two men died during this period, as a result of their ill-treatment while working on the railway. But I am not sure where they died.
My account differs in one respect. He says he gave permission for the POWs to hold shows, with tap dancing and suchlike, and that he offered cigarettes as prizes. This may have happened at other camps where he was with POWs, but as already mentioned, our POWs were only dragged in reluctantly, the shows being organised by Japanese troops in transit, some of them particularly talented, we ourselves having very little talent.
In paying tribute to my part in our amicable relationships he refers to me as a 'graduate of the theology faculty' of Cambridge University. In fact I never did graduate, nor pursue my pre-war intention of studying theology.
He confirms my belief that when our time together came to an end, he ensured that we would not be sent back on railway work, arranging with the POW administration that our men's driving skills would be used with a transport unit being set up at Nongpladuk to serve the camps. He adds an anecdote hitherto unknown to me. Some of our drivers were passing our old Retsu Yusotai camp while he and his men were still clearing up before leaving for Burma. He was surprised that they were able to take time off to look him up. But he was pleased to see his orderly, Lance-Corporal Yamaguchi, furtively passing them cigarettes and food.
Unfortunately, Yamaguchi did not survive the Burma campaign. So he is among those to whom former Lieutenant Kameyama now pays his respects at the Yasukuni shrine in Tokyo. And he has seen it as fitting that he should tell Yamaguchi about our renewed relationship. Thus, the Yomiuri Shimbun article and my first letter to him have been offered to 'the war dead's souls'. I wonder whether he knows of Laurens van der Post's story of Colonel Lawrence and Captain Yonoi. The parallel is remarkable.
Although there were no immediate plans, I was already sure we would meet again one day.
In the final days of the war, he was promoted to the rank of Captain. (Since this book was written; Captain Kameyama has died.)
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