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Baxter 15
winter months between November and March. Whenever possible we would use the Japanese civilians' benjo, which contained a sink and cold running water, to clean ourselves. However, if anyone were caught, the punishment administered was severe.
The Japanese furnished no soap, towels, or toilet paper, thus making any real personal hygiene impossible. After existing in such filth for those 22 months, my body became infested with lice and fleas, and my skin, coarse and cracked, was covered with dry scales and festering sores.
Dental hygiene was nonexistent, and, as a result, over 70 per cent of all Allied P.O.W.'s of the Japanese lost either half or all of their teeth during the three and one-half years of imprisonment.
CORRESPONDENCE
Mail originally addressed to Canadians in Hong Kong was redirected to Camp 5B and distributed initially in October, 1943, and again in February, 1944, and possibly at later dates. Letter sheets in printed envelopes left Niigata sometime in mid-1944.
Outgoing as well as incoming mail from Canada and the United States bears the official chops of Sgt. Uyemoni, 2nd Lt. Nemoto, and 1st Lt. Kato, as well as of Onishi, a censor stationed in Tokyo. All the incoming mail carries the manuscript "5B" notation. Sometimes, but not always, the prisoner's assigned number appears. Few letters have survived from the several hundred American P.O.W.'s interned at Camp 5B for almost two years. Among them is one of mine: Dear Mother; I am well and hope this letter finds you the way I am I recived your letter and was very happy to know that the rest of the family is well, please do'nt worry about me, take care of yourselfs until I get back Give my regards to all family and when I get back we are going places, and do'nt forget have some good old apple pie ready, well