Submarine Stories: Recollections from the Diesel Boats by Paul L. Stillwell

Author:Paul L. Stillwell [Stillwell, Paul L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781612513676
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
Published: 2013-05-11T05:00:00+00:00

During the latter part of World War II, this prisoner-of-war camp at Ashio, Japan, housed survivors from a number of U.S. submarines. Courtesy of George Rocek

After reaching shore, I was led through a part of the city. I could see the women’s shoes and bottoms of their kimonos. I felt a little funny at first, because the seat of my uniform was torn out from sliding down the carrier flight deck. We arrived at a railroad station and sat down on a bench. I heard the chief talking to a woman, and after a few moments, he removed my blindfold—apparently she wanted to see my face. She was a doll—and dressed stateside with a short skirt and high heel shoes. He replaced my blindfold and a short time later we boarded a train. The train was very crowded, so we had to stand for about an hour or two. After getting off the train, he insisted I run. I could see the road, which was narrow and stony. I pointed to his shoes, the rocks, and my “go-aheads,” which kept falling off. He understood but then motioned he wanted to get me to Camp Ofuna in time for eating, which we did.

On arriving at Ofuna, I was turned over to a stateside-dressed Jap who spoke perfect English. Most of their intelligence interrogators spoke good English and were educated in the States. He asked where the rest of the men were, and when I told him about the carrier being sunk he became very irritated. They had moved most of the Grenadier crew out to make room for us. The commander of Ofuna could not speak English and refused to believe a Jap carrier got sunk, but he could never understand what happened to the other men.

It was at this camp that I was reunited with the remainder of the Sculpin crew, who had sailed on the other carrier. We believed we would become registered prisoners of war but were sadly mistaken. . . . Ofuna was a secret questioning and intimidation camp run by the Japanese navy for nothing else but to pump or beat military information out of the prisoners. It was mainly comprised of aviation and submarine POWs, except for a few civilians.

One man was designated to a cell and no talking was allowed. Every week or two, you were questioned by a different interrogator. They then would compare notes to see if you lied on certain questions. We all had made up fake stories on Truk and memorized them. I believe most of us said it was our first patrol. My story was that I spent a year each at New London, San Diego, and Pearl, and the sinking was my first patrol.

If you were sitting outside on the bench and had your eyes closed, periodically the guard would silently stand in front of you and put his bayonet close to your eyes. Since no talking was allowed, we used leg-pressure warnings to make each other aware of the s.

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