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Baxter 18
that Major Fellows issue orders for all Allied personnel to remain inside the walled compound until U.S. forces could be flown in for added security, because he feared that radical, hard-core Japanese might seek revenge on the ex-P.O.W.'s.
Niigata Camp 5B's P.O.W.'s were declared free on August 10, 1945, but it was mid-September before the American forces could repair the destroyed rail system and move us out. Most of the men were flown by B-24 Liberators to a field hospital on Okinawa for treatment and evaluation. On September 29 a large contingent of former P.O.W.'s was airlifted from Okinawa 800 miles to Manila, to yet another field hospital, where they would impatiently wait another three weeks before a Liberty Ship was made available to take them home, 7,000 miles across the Pacific via Borneo, Papua New Guinea, the Marshall and Gilbert groups of islands, and then San Francisco.
A DOLLAR A DAY
Of all the American soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines captured by the Japanese on Bataan, Corregidor, and the southern islands of the Philippines, there is no record that a one was ever paid. The P.O.W.'s were considered by the Japanese as slave labor and were treated accordingly. At some time in June, 1944, the Japanese issued to all working prisoners a small packet of "hair," a very fine dried rice straw which had been cured and aged in tobacco juice and opium. A small brass pipe with a bamboo stem was included with the packet. The "hair" would last a week when smoked sparingly three to four times a day. This combination of tobacco and opium had a very debilitating effect upon the minds of the P.O.W.'s, so much so that in time some of the prisoners, despairing and sickly, would trade the meager rations of their daily bread for this evil, temporary reprieve.
When all American P.O.W.'s were safely returned to the Armed Services of the United States, they were rewarded by their government with one grade rank above