No Better Friend by Robert Weintraub

Author:Robert Weintraub
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Pets / Essays & Narratives, History / Military / World War Ii
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2015-05-05T00:00:00+00:00

Lieutenant Colonel Hirateru Banno was sixty years old when he was put in charge of internment camps in Sumatra, operating out of the headquarters of the 4th Branch Malaya POW Command, a group of small buildings and huts that sat a short distance from the Gloegoer camp. (The 25th Army, based in Singapore and at Fort de Kock in Sumatra, had overall command over POWs in the area. Both officers in charge, Lieutenant General Yaheita Saito and Lieutenant General Moritake Tanabe, were sentenced to death after the war.) A retired lifer who saw little actual combat during his time in the Imperial Japanese Army, Banno had gone home to live the simple life of a gentleman farmer, only to come back to the military when the war with China broke out. Banno served in Manchuria for several years, then was transferred to internment service when his age made him too old for combat command.

Banno was from Kanazawa, a seaside town in the Ishikawa Prefecture on the west side of the main island of Honshu (almost directly across the country from Tokyo). A rainy, ghostly place, Kanazawa is best known in Japan for its winding, twisted roads that were laid out in haphazard fashion, and for its ancient architecture. Kanazawa is one of the few places where structures remained unvarnished from the Edo period, when samurai, geishas, and shoguns dominated the land.

A thoughtful, reserved type, the bespectacled Banno played against the stereotype of the loud Japanese officer who constantly spit bile. His elderly, lined face and gray mustache gave him an almost pleasant mien and a quite distinguished appearance. He was far taller than most Japanese soldiers, and lean, and while he was capable of harsh discipline when necessary, he generally gave off an air of remove from the creative cruelty on display in his camps.

Put simply, Banno was too old for that shit. He was generally too drunk as well—it was common knowledge that the old man put away copious amounts of alcohol, even while on duty.

He was also capable of crudeness, surely—Banno would gather his officers in their mess hut and put on great shows of civility, drinking iced tea and smoking cigarettes from ornate holders. Then he would rise from his overstuffed easy chair, stomp out to the garden, and urinate on the roses. Another of his favorite pastimes was to swing his heavy two-handed sword at prisoners, stopping inches from their heads. Those who flinched, which was most everyone, got a stern lecture on timidity. The one man who didn’t, a Dutchman, was slapped on the back and given fruit and smokes as a tribute to his manliness.

Banno’s lasting legacy to many POWs was the dank cellar used for storing fertilizer that he had converted into a punishment isolation cell, one that assaulted those unlucky enough to be kicked inside with an overpowering stench as well as dark loneliness. In the hole, prisoners were not permitted to lie down or sit during the day. The effort it

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