In Japan, remorse forwar atrocities
Company apologizes for slave labor camp’s treatment of POWs
HANAWA, JAPAN When Candie Blankman’s father was released from a forced- labor camp here at the end of World War II, he was near death from starvation, beatings and lack of medical care.
He and 500 other American prisoners of war had spent nearly a year digging copper ore under slave- like conditions in a camp operated by then- Mitsubishi Mining Co. Eight died, and many others never fully recovered from the physical and emotional damage they endured.
Last week, representatives of former POWs and the mining company took a major step toward reconciliation with a formal apology and dedication of a memorial plaque to honor those who suffered and died at the Hanawa mine.
“Our purpose here is to explain the hardships that wartime POWs endured and express our deepest remorse and sincerest apologies. We are determined to do everything we can to create a world in which this can never happen again,” Hikaru Kimura, a senior official at Mitsubishi Materials Corp., the successor company to Mitsubishi Mining, said at Tuesday’s ceremony.
The action days before the 75th anniversary of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor comes amid the nation’s growing willingness to examine its wartime past.
“This was a very bold and courageous step for Mitsubishi,” said Blankman, a Presbyterian pastor from San Clemente, Calif., who attended the dedication. “Yes, it’s late in coming. But what matters is that it has come. It’s not an easy thing to do. Mitsubishi is taking very direct ownership of what happened here, and that’s the right thing.”
Blankman’s father, Army Sgt. Kenneth Early Davis, was captured in the Philippines in the opening months of the war. He survived the infamous Bataan Death March and more than two years of imprisonment in the Philippines before being transported to Japan in September 1944. He died in 2006.
The Hanawa mine is in the snowy mountains of northern Japan. Prisoners lived in flimsy wooden barracks with little or no heat, scant food, no medical care, little rest and little hope of survival.
Although some camp guards showed extraordinary kindness, beatings and abuse were the norm, said Jim Nelson, whose father became blind while at the camp because of poor nutrition and working as a welder without eye protection.
“It was slave labor. My father survived only with the help of his friends,” said Nelson, a retired history teacher from Burlingame, Kan., who also attended the ceremony. Nelson’s father, James Leonard Nelson, was captured on Corregidor island in the Philippines. He died in 2005.
The Hanawa plaque is believed to be the first such memorial to American POWs erected by a major Japanese company, according to Kinue Tokudome, executive director of the U. S.- Japan Dialogue on POWs, a California- based support organization.
The Hanawa mine was closed in the 1970s but is now operated as a popular tourist attraction; the memorial is easily visible just outside the mine’s main entrance.
The plaque reads in part: “Working conditions for the POWs were exceedingly harsh and left deep mental and physical wounds that the lapse of time would not heal. … Mitsubishi Materials offers its heartfelt apologies to all former POWs who were forced to work under appalling conditions.”
The Japanese government issued a formal apology in 2009 for the treatment of American POWs. Still, “the level of sincerity and commitment Mitsubishi Materials showed by building this plaque is unprecedented in Japan’s dealing with its World War II history,” Tokudome said.
About 27,000 U. S. troops were captured by the Japanese during the war; of those, about 11,000 died in captivity, according to the U. S.-Japan Dialogue on POWs.
“To me, this is a sacred place,” Nelson said at the memorial service. “Despite all the horrible things that happened to him, my father never hated the Japanese. He put all that behind him. I think this act will bring ... closure to some of the families of the veterans who worked here.”