Jim Brigginshaw - Survival on the Death Railway and Nagasaki

By the time the film finished, night had fallen. The men were on their way back to camp when they came upon a red-light district. They knocked on a door, a flap opened and a girl’s face appeared. Despite language difficulties, they were able to establish that the house worked only by day and slept by night.

‘What a lousy bloody union you must have’, Barnstable told the girl.

She still wouldn’t let them in, even when they said they only wanted to look at the place, not use it. An argument developed, and the noise was sufficient to draw the attention of a Japanese policeman, who provided another example of the changed Japanese attitudes. Instead of running the men in, he gently advised them that it would be better if they moved on.

He left, but they didn’t. Barnstable suggested going round to the back of the house to see if there was an entrance there. It was pitch dark now, and he led the single file of men that groped its way along a narrow path around the building.

Suddenly, Barnstable disappeared. The others heard a splash, and then his voice came from a long way off. ‘Get me out of here!’

The men could see nothing, and felt their way along the path, which led to a well. Stumbling along in the dark, Fred hadn’t realised that the path led to a well, and he was now splashing about in it. Luckily, the well was fairly full, and his mates were able to reach down and fish him out. Fred was nearly frozen by the time they got back to camp, and his mates were kept busy pulling leeches off his shivering body.

ON 22 August 1945, a message was posted at Sendryu camp under the signature of the Commander of the Fukuoka POW Camps. Jim Bodero kept a copy of it.

About a month after the Japanese surrender, word was received that the Americans were ready to evacuate the prisoners.

The men boarded trains at Sendryu railway station and travelled to Nagasaki through country that showed signs of the air raids that had preceded the dropping of the atom bomb.

Passing through one town, they were puzzled by the burnt-out aircraft lying in the streets. A closer look revealed that it was not a town, but an aerodrome made to look like a town. The ‘streets’ were actually runways disguised by houses lining each side of them. The subterfuge had not deceived the Allied pilots, however, and the place had been thoroughly bombed, destroying the fighter planes on the ground.

When the men reached Nagasaki, they were aghast at the devastation, mile after mile of it. All that was left of the city were the shattered remains of a few concrete buildings. Vast areas were flattened, burnt and blackened. As far as the eye could see, which was to the tops of the surrounding hills, no vegetation remained. Charred tree stumps were the only indication of any greenery ever having grown there.

The huge shipbuilding yards on the waterfront were a mass of twisted steel. Molten metal had run down the pylons and congealed like melted wax on candles.

The railway tracks the men were travelling on were the only thing that was undamaged, having been re-laid after the bombing.

Hundreds of Japanese men, women and children wandered aimlessly among the ruins, their faces still masks of terror. Strips of skin and flesh hung from their burnt bodies.

The released prisoners, on their way home to a land almost untouched by war, were sad for these devastated people. They wondered whether their own lives were worth what had happened in Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

It was tragic to learn that it needn’t have happened. If Emperor Hirohito had rejected the demands of the warlords to continue fighting, the atom bomb would never have been dropped.

After leaving the train at Nagasaki, the men were moved to an area set aside for decontamination and medical treatment.

Here, they were looked after by American nurses, the first white women the repatriates had seen in three and a half years. In their presence, the men were shy and uncomfortable about their physical appearance. No longer were they the fabled big, bronzed Anzacs from Down Under. Now, they were pitiful skeletons.

After the medical procedures were completed, the injured and sick were moved to a hospital ship anchored in the harbour. Those who were able to walk were taken to an American aircraft carrier, the USS Chenango, which had just come from the war zone and bore the scars of battle. Holes in the carrier’s superstructure and other damage showed where a kamikaze pilot had crashed his death plane.

With the repatriated men, including Bodero and several of his mates, now on board, the Chenango set off at full speed for Okinawa, south of Japan. On deck, the men were lapping up their new life of luxury when suddenly sirens sounded, orders were shouted and the carrier’s crew ran about urgently.

‘Just our bloody luck to get sunk by a torpedo when the war’s over and we’re on our way home’, someone said. Everybody scanned the sea, anxiously looking for the telltale white trail.

‘Forget the sirens, guys’, an American sailor grinned. ‘We’re just changing course to miss the goddam typhoon that’s right in our path.’

The repatriates started breathing again.

The carrier changed course and increased speed, heading west towards the Chinese mainland. Later, the typhoon avoided, the Chenango resumed its original course for Okinawa. A few hours later, it entered the port of Naha.

The typhoon had devastated Naha, and hardly anything had been left intact. Ships had capsized in the harbour, and planes had been wrecked at the airfield. Had the typhoon arrived before the war ended so dramatically, it would have set back plans for the invasion of Japan because the Allied fleet had been anchored in Naha harbour.

The repatriates were housed in temporary quarters on Okinawa under American command. There was no discrimination according to rank. Privates, dixies in hand, lined up for meals with major-generals and brigadiers.

The stay on the island, which was short and sweet, came to an end when the repatriated prisoners were flown to Manila. On landing at Clark Airfield, they were taken to a large camp and accommodated in tents to await the next stage of their journey home.