Jack Ford Story by Fitzgerald Jack

Author:Fitzgerald, Jack
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HIS000000
Publisher: Creative Book Publishing
Published: 2007-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

USN

Two suicide planes hit the USS Bunker Hill thirty minutes apart.

Jack Ford Collection

Sgt. Major Bokugo. This photograph was taken after Bokugo was found guilty of war crimes and sentenced to eight years in prison.

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Kamikaze pilots enjoying a meal before going out on a mission.

CHAPTER 11

NAGASAKI BECOMES

HELL ON EARTH

At 11:00 p.m. on August 8, 1945, the air-raid sirens sounded over Nagasaki. It had no effect on those POWs at Camp Fukuoka who heard it and, like most people in Nagasaki, had become desensitized to its frequent sounding. For months, American B-29s had flown over Nagasaki on their way to bomb military targets in other cities. Each time they approached Nagasaki, the sirens were sounded and, by August 8, people responded in a routine manner. Sometimes, people even ignored the warning.

Jack Ford slept, undisturbed by the commotion taking place in the city across the harbour. The hardships of prison life had taken their toll and Ford, who weighed 174 pounds when taken prisoner, was now down to a skeleton weight of ninety-six pounds. Disease and malnutrition were rampant in the POW camp, and it was unlikely that Ford would have survived another six months. The all-clear sounded over the city as Ford tossed and turned trying to find escape and comfort from the fleas that infested the beds and attacked his body each night.

The concentration of Mitsubishi Industries, major suppliers to the Japanese military, made Nagasaki a legitimate target for the atomic bomb in the eyes of American military strategists. The city faced the East China Sea and was located at the head of a long bay, which gave it the best natural harbour in southwestern Kyushu1. It was surrounded by hills, which were divided by fertile valleys that spread upwards from the harbour’s industrial area. Nagasaki was the setting for Giacomo Puccini’s immortal opera, Madame Butterfly.

In 1945, Nagasaki had a population of 280,000. Ninety percent of the city’s work force was employed with the Mitsubishi Industries which included shipyards, electrical equipment works, steel mills and an arms plant. Nagasaki was a peculiar Japanese city because it was the most Christian and Western influenced city in all Japan. There were many Catholic schools and churches throughout the city. Nagasaki also had a Catholic hospital and a Catholic seminary.

Portuguese missionaries and European merchants brought western culture and Christianity to Japan in the sixteenth century. Christianity was not accepted by the Japanese and in 1639, all Portuguese had been expelled from Japan. A tiny and scattered band of “hidden Christians” kept the light of faith burning.

In response to the efforts of missionaries to introduce Christianity to Japan, a ritual developed at Nagasaki that lasted for more than two hundred years. It was called Fumi. The practice of Fumi demanded that every citizen of Nagasaki had to submit to an annual ritual of stepping on a Christian image. These were engravings of saints and martyrs on a small square of wood.2

It was through Nagasaki that the first missionaries and merchants came to Japan and by the outbreak of war on December 7, 1941, there was a strong foundation for both in the city.

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