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Baxter 14
quality fish, seaweed, or grasshoppers cooked in soy sauce would be served to us as a luxury. Breakfast and supper were eaten in camp, but lunch was brought from the camp to the work site in a hand-pulled two-wheeled cart and was cold upon arrival.
The kitchen, as well as other choice in-camp job areas, was run by a contingent of Dutch sailors, who during the two-year stay at Niigata Camp 5B managed to remain together as a well-knit group.
Men on the sick list and unable to work had their already insufficient and almost nutritionless food ration cut in half, making their chance of recovery-even less likely. This fact the Japanese authorities chose to ignore. In January, 1944, we received our first Red Cross parcels, which had been turned over to the Japanese in late October, 1943, by the American-chartered Swedish exchange ship Gripsholm. The distribution of food and comfort items proved to be a great morale booster, if only for a brief period.
By early 1945, as the war situation worsened for the Japanese, incoming shipments of food from the occupied areas became increasingly scarce, causing even greater hardships for both the P.O.W.'s and the now hungry civilian population.
When the camp was liberated, undistributed food, clothing, and Red Cross medical supplies that would have helped to save hundreds of prisoners' lives were found in storage sheds, an occurrence common in many of the prison camps in Japan.
HYGIENE
There were no bathing facilities provided by the Japanese for the P.O.W.'s at Niigata Camp 5B until August, 1945. Our first hot bath, with soap, in 22 months was in a communal bathhouse at the Rinko coal yard, June 4, 1945. Prior to that, the only source for washing was a single spigot at the front of each barracks, but such facilities were of little or no use during the freezing