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News
WWII ex-POW remembers his time in Japan Posted: Thursday, Nov 10, 2005 - 04:47:54 pm PST By ERIC PERO Whitefish Pilot
Sixty years after World War II ended, one 85-year-old vet still carries with him memories of time spent in prisoner of war camps in Japan and Taiwan. John Nelson, of Kalispell, enlisted in the Army on Dec. 15, 1939, at Ft. Missoula. After basic training in San Francisco, he was shipped off to Ft. Mills, Corregidor, in the Philippines."I was glad to get off the ship," Nelson said. "It was a good place to be. It was a good lazy man's island." The island of Corregidor is 31/2 miles long and 21/2 miles wide. Nelson's responsibilities involved beach patrol and guarding locations for the Philippine government. While his duties may have been easy at first, things changed quickly. "They had to come and get us," Nelson remembers. "We had 14-inch guns that shot about 29 miles." After nearly five months of fighting on the island, the Japanese broke through the front lines and there was nowhere for Nelson's company to run. The Americans unconditionally surrendered on May 6, 1942. "I had about nine days to go before heading back to the states," Nelson said. "But I got sidetracked by way of Tokyo." In September, Nelson was named one of 250 prisoners to be sent to Japan to build a railroad station platform. By this time, prisoners were down to 100 pounds and living on a diet of soybeans and small portions of rice. This treatment continued until Nelson was transferred to Yokohama to work at the Mitsubishi ship yard. He remembers the treatment in Yokohama being a little better, where he received a coffee cup loosely packed with rice in a watery soup made of a bean paste soup stock with rotten radish tops. Once in a while a rotten fish head was dropped into the soup for added flavor. On New Year's Day 1945, Nelson remembers hearing air raid sirens and seeing a B-29 flying overhead towards Mt. Fuji. The air raid warden at his camp said the Americans were dropping incendiary bombs. Another day, Nelson says, Americans conducted a daylight raid by his camp, and prisoners were jumping up and down as they flew by. One made a turn and came in lower, tipping his wings up and down as he flew by. "What a beautiful sight," Nelson said. "We knew the war was going to be over." In March 1945, Nelson remembers, sirens sounded and an uncountable number of American B-29s filled the sky. That night, 33 blocks of Tokyo went up in smoke and flames. He recalls being scared the Americans would bomb their camp without knowing it. On Aug. 18, the prisoners learned that hostilities were over. A week later, a plane flew over the camp with a message saying food would be coming the next day. That day just happened to be Nelson's 25th birthday. On Sept. 11, 1945, the group of now-free men would make their way to the railroad station to make their way home. Once aboard the USS Rescue, they were allowed to shower and were then sprayed with the pesticide DDT from head to toe. "I hadn't had a shower for six years," Nelson said exaggerating. "It felt great." Nelson arrived back in Whitefish on Oct. 31, 1945. He signed up for another tour, but was discharged from the military in March, 1946 with 50 percent disability because he had neuropathy. He still has a hard time getting around, but is glad to be here. "Thank God I'm alive," Nelson said enthusiastically. "It's a great feeling." Nelson currently lives in Kalispell and is a member of the Big Sky Chapter of the American Ex-Prisoners of War group, which meets once a year. He hasn't been to a meeting for three years because of his neuropathy, but is still enthusiastic about the military and plans to commemorate Veterans Day. "This country, with all its faults, is still the best republic in the world," Nelson said in a speech to members of the American Ex-Prisioners of War group in Miles City in 1998. "Patriotism is not a nasty word ... it is still worth fighting for ... don't take your freedom for granted ... you could lose it like we did."
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