Terraced hell : a Japanese memoir of defeat & death in Northern Luzon, Philippines

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A Japanese Memoir of Defeat & Death in Northern Luzon. Philippines

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by lETSURO OG AWA .

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NEAR the end of World War II, when the Japanese military machine was crushed but still hanging on, thousands of Japanese soldiers and civilians were caught in the backlash of the wa,r in Northern Luzon, the Philippines, where half a million Japanese lost their lives.

This is an honest and straightforward account of defeat and death in the Philippines, described by aJapanese teacher who survived the horrible ordeal. "Several things compelled me to write the story," says Ogawa.

"Since it was my record of a dangerous and fateful year in my life, I thought I should write an exact account of it for my children, an account which could be passed on to future generations."

Ogawa questioned a system which demanded death rather than surrender when defeat was imminent and all hope gone. Constant bombing was their daily fare, along with daring guerrilla raids and the incursions of head-hunting Igorots. The "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" ran rampant; starvation and malaria took over where the enemy left off. Men and women dropped like flies; they were alive one minute and dead the (continued on inside back cover) next.

Jacket design by H. Doki

R emains of a Japanese soldier near Baguio.

Terraced Hell A JAPANESE MEMOIR OF DEFEA1 & DEATH

INN 0 R THE R N L U Z 0 N, PHI LI P PIN E S

by Tetsuro Ogawa

CHARLES f. TUTTLE COMPANY

Rutland, Vermont & Tok!lo . Japan

Representatives For Continental Europe: BOXERBOOKS, INC., Zurich For the British Isles: PRENTICE-HALL INTERNATIONAL, INC., London For Australasia: PAUL FLESCH & CO., PTY. LTD., Melbourne For Canada: M. G. HURTIG, LTD., Edmonton

Published by the Charles E. Tuttle Company, Inc. of Rutland, Vermont & Tokyo, Japan with editorial offices at Suido l-chome, 2-6, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo

©

1972 by the Charles E. Tuttle Company

All rights reserved Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 72-79021 International Standard Book No. 0-8048-1001-x

First printing, 1972

PRINTED IN JAPAN

Dedicated to my friends who died in Northern Luzon without being able to share the present peace and prosperity of their country

Table

of Contents 11

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FOREWORD

by Michael Healy

13 19

PREFACE

1. Bauang to Baguio

29

2. From Baguio to Bayombong

47

3. The Cagayan Valley

64

4. A Miserable Exile

86

5. Refuge

105

6. Mountains of the Igorots

132

7. Final Strategy

154

8. Shocking News

178

9. More Rivers to Cross

206 9

List

of Illustrations

Page l. Zigzag road southeast of Baguio Balete Pass 2.

3. Church at La Torre 4. La Torre supply base 5. Bullet-riddled chimney, Balete Pass 6. Igorot's hut, Rayamvugang Farmschool 7. Santo Domingo Pass 8. Asin River 9. Snake tree o. Valley of Pacdan l. Banaue 2. Igorot warrior

113

113 114 114 115 116 116 117 118 118 119 120

MAPS

l. Philippines 2. War dead in Northern Luzon 3. Deployment of Japanese Army 4. Author's route of travel

11

Page 25

26 27 28

12

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

5. Northern part of Central Luzon plain 6. Deployment of Army as of mid-March 7. La Torre Base 8. Baguio-Aritao Supply Road 9. Deployment of Army as of end of May 10. Deployment of Army around Kiangan II. Retreat through Bagabag on Route 4 12. Route from R.H. 3 to Kiangan 13. Route from R.H. 3 to Joyo 14. Deployment of Army August 15, 1945 15. Casualties in final positions

45 71

77 83 97 101 109 195 197 209 217

Foreword

by Michael Healy I REMEMBER very clearly being regaled on my way to school one bright summer morning in 1942 by an account of the Japanese atrocities in the war. The story, greatly embellished ' by an Irish boy's vivid imagination, aided by the propaganda of the time, lost nothing in the telling. It was a delightfully spinetingling story of cruelty and depravity, and it left no room for a spark of humanity in the Japanese.

Such is the way of myths. Take an element of truth (the Japanese atrocities), add imaginary incidents or accompaniments to heighten the narrative, and a myth is born-the myth of Japanese inhumanness.

Children of any age have their flattering stories about their heroes, but the stories of the children of my age were anything but flattering, and they were all about the Germans and the Japanese.

13

14

FOREWORD

While an innocent child's unflattering myth may be as harmless as a kitten, yet if it grows to be an axiom in an adult's thinking it can and frequently does sire the tiger prejudice that preys on mutual understanding. Ten years of living in Japan have brought a change in most of my ideas, but what about the many others of my generation who have not seen the Japanese in their own surroundings? They still have their pet myth's prejudice. And why shouldn't they?

The generation before mine that met them as an overbearing conqueror, as a nervous and sometimes dangerously excitable captor, as a mysteriously brave and tenacious fighter, and, afterwards, as a starved and defeated people, may be closest to the truth in their estimation of the Japanese. But even their ideas must needs be colored by their particular experiences.

The generation after mine that, mainly through television, documentary films and Japan's leisure products, know her as a world power, have their myths, albeit mostly flattering and no less unrealistic than ours. Indeed, theirs may be the most dangerous of all, for there is nothing more devastating to self-esteem than the peevish regrets of popular acclaim turned sour.

In my preoccupation with myths and biased thinking I may have made the Westerner appear to

FOREWORD

15

be poorly informed and thereby do him an injustice.

He has his myths but he also has a general knowledge of Japan, and it is to his credit that he is not satisfied with this but wants to know more. The Japanese has his cultural differences and no one denies him the right to be different. But the Westerner, in his perennial question, "What are the Japanese really like?" pays a great compliment, not to the differences but to the Japanese as a person. "Never mind the differences! Never mind the comparisons! Tell me what the guy is like!" Surely even mere politeness entitles him to a fair answer.

The many foreigners, both scholarly and profane, who have written about Japan have done her a great service in trying to ansWer this, and they can claim the lion's share of the credit for her being known so well. However, through no fault of theirs, all their attempts have been bedevilled by a regrettable side effect which counteracts much of what they hoped to achieve. In their efforts to explain any aspect of the Japanese spectrum, they have highlighted the difference and so added to the impression of strangeness or even quaintness in their readers' minds.

What then of the tantalizing Japanese silence about themselves? The first, the language barrier, is frightening in itself, but it is really the second which is the more formidable, and that is the Japanese's

16

FOREWORD

reluctance to let himself be perfectly known. It is true that he wants to know all about the other fellow and to have rapport with him, yet he is loath to make himself perfectly known lest, in doing so, he walk the world naked.

With this book, Mr. Ogawa enters that small select group of Japanese who have courageously overcome both obstacles. Terraced Hell makes no claim to grandeur. It is the straightforward, honest account of Mr. Ogawa's and his fellow Japanese teachers' struggle for existence in the mountains of Northern Luzon near the end of World War II. Because they weren't military they could (in so far as anyone could under the system) say what they thought. Because they were under stress they did say ~hat they thought. Thus, without reasoning and explaining, the veil of inscrutability is abruptly raised, giving an insight into the Japanese soul. Terraced Hell succeeds where more pretentious works have failed. The author is to be complimented on his achievement.

Yet success in honest portrayal is not the only thing this book has to offer. It is generally accepted that perfect world understanding demands understanding at two levels-individual and national. Mr. Ogawa makes a contribution at both levels by showing the Japanese to be, foremost, individual personalities, not uniform products of an involved

FOREWORD

17

culture (a fact that is often lost in the welter of words written about this country). Cutting through all the myths about Japan, both foreign and Japanese, he simply reveals that the Japanese as an individual is just as much in love with life and in dread of death as the next man (the spririt of Bushido notwithstanding), and also that the Japanese as a nation have their cowards, crooks and humbugs, their brave, upright and gentle souls to the same degree as any other nation. This is not a startling theory by any means, but is a restatement of a truth that is necessary to foster a meeting of minds, from which arises the spirit of world unity so essential for our times.

Thus, if the small time I have spent in revising the English idioms in this book has contributed to its publication, the honor has been mine.

Preface WORLD WAR II ended twenty-five years ago, but it will take more than twenty-five years to erase from my mind the memory of that cruel war, during which, in the Philippines alone, half a million Japanese lost their lives.

As a prisoner of war in Compound No.4 at Canlubang after the surrender, I had written an account of my wartime experiences, but I had never had it published. In a recent reunion some of my former comrades (Hirohisa Onoda, Teruyoshi Mizuno, and Prof. Muneo Kimura) advised me to have it published, saying it would be of interest, for various reasons, to many people. With this end in view, I set out to revise and make my original attempt more readable. I wrote it time and again, but each time I found it hopelessly superficial and inadequate, although the incidents described were all true and unexaggerated. I despaired of ever completing it.

Every time I wanted to give up, several things

19

20

PREFACE

compelled me to continue. Since it was my record of a dangerous and fateful year in my life, I thought I should write an exact account of it for my children, an account that could be passed on to future generations as part of the family's history. This may be vain of me, but I like to imagine a descendant at some future date reading it with quiet pride, for I think I can take credit for not having disgraced either myself or my family in my struggle to live.

I also hoped that this account would be for my former comrades a memoir of that part of the past which we all shared. Finally, I wished it to be, in its small way, a requiem for all the Japanese who died in that war and lie ignored in foreign lands-but especially for the half-million who lost their lives in the battlefield that was the Philippines.

A happy occurrence further encouraged me to persevere. While this book was still in the preparatory stage, I learned that the War Theater Visiting Party in Tokyo was accepting applications for a trip to the Philippines, slated in May, 1969.

I applied and was accepted.

We journeyed over the battlefields in Northern Luzon-Baguio, San Fernando, Bontoc, Banaue, Kiangan, Bayombong, and Ba1ete Pass-holding a memorial service for the war dead at each place. It was a great privilege for me to revisit the scene of our sufferings, and I wept like a child at every place that reminded me of my deceased friends and of those

PREFACE

21

hardships. The pilgrimage also served to review the geography I refer to in my book.

Among the many war stories of that time, there are very few written in English by Japanese. Apart from the official documents issued by our government, the only account that I am aware of is a story by Dr. Tadashi Moriya of Kyoto, titled No Requiem-which treats of the sufferings of the Japanese driven into the mountains east of Manila. Having completed this narrative in my own language, I decided to translate it into English so that English readers could know what we Japanese as individuals felt and thought during the war.

We were notorious for our cruelty in dealing with a surrendering enemy and with the people in our occupied areas. The misdeeds of our soldiers hitherto reported are indeed an indelible disgrace to our history. Although these cruelties were committed by wartime Japanese made fanatical by mass psychology and by the heady wine of success, I have no intention of trying to defend them here. Words fail to express our shame and regret.

However, I would like the Filipinos and Americans to understand that the vast majority of the fiend-like ''Japs'' were, behind the military facade, just as homesick and desirous of peace as any other people.

We were also victims of the war and the war psychology. With the idea that it would be worth the effort if this English narrative were to further mutual

22

PREFACE

understanding, I overcame my diffidence and boldly set to the task.

In writing this memoir, I am indebted to many people-too numerous for all to be mentioned here.

However, special mention must be made of Prof.

Kimura of Waseda University, whose brilliant memory furnished much pertinent detail. I am also indebted to the writing of the late Masanori Ito and of Yo shihis a Kurihara, former staff officer of the 14th Area Army, for data on the general war situation at the time of this narrative. My thanks are also due to the members of the War Theater Visiting Party, who provided me with valuable material from their expenences.

Finally, I express my heartfelt gratitude to Father Michael Healy of the Catholic Church in Kushimoto, Wakayama Prefecture, who assisted me in my frustrating struggle with the idioms of a language not my own. Without his invaluable help and painstaking revision, this story would not have seen the light of day.

TETSURo OGAWA

Author calls to spirits of his deceased comrades, according to the custom of the War Theater Visiting Party.

About the author TETSURo OGAWA was a civilian teacher attached to the Japanese Army in the Philippines. That he survived the horror with his spirit undaunted bears witness to the strength of the human spirit; that he wrote a truthful account of war's degradation is something the world can be thankful for. Today retired, he is the former principal of the Tanabe Senior High School of Commerce in Tanabe City, Wakayama Prefecture.

CHARLES E. TUTTLE COMPANY