Lee Roach's Story by Lee Charlie Roach (continued) A lot of us were loaded on a big freighter after about a week. There were 750 in one hold for 18 days and nights. We had steel floors to sit or stand on. You couldn't lay down at all during that 18 days. We got a little rice twice a day and less than a pint of water a day. A lot of our guys died on that ship. We didn't have any bath rooms at all; just some buckets to use. There was no way to take a bath or clean up during that time, and it was really bad in that heat. One night, way after dark, we saw the sky all light up behind us. The Americans had sunk a ship behind us and we didn't know if American prisoners were on it or not. We thought we were next because the ships were not marked and the Americans didn't know we were in them. We finally made it to Japan. After we all got off the ship we found some water to drink. The water was bad and we didn't know it. Nearly all of us got sick and were sick for a long time. I was so sick that when I had to run I would fall then get up and go again. The Japanese put us in a graphite factory working with the powdered stuff. It sure was a mess to work with. In 1944, about August, the Japanese moved us to an old barracks to work on a dirt and rock moving detail. There were no doors or heat and by then it was cold. They gave us three blankets and that's all for us to sleep on a wood floor. We had onion soup which was mostly water and very little rice to eat. It wasn't long until the Americans went to bombing Osaka. The bombers would circle over us after they had dropped their bombs. The Japanese would run us up in the hills close by and make us lay face down. They thought we couldn't see the bombers: but we did. At night we could see the fires from the bombing. The Japanese never did give us much to eat. They would give us the same soup for about three months at a time. We called it "whistle weed" soup. All of the soup was just colored water. We got about half a canteen cup at a time. Sometimes we got coffee made out of burned rice. The Japanese moved us again the first part of 1945. They moved us up farther north, close to some big boat docks. There were some big warehouses at the docks and they were unloading thousands of sacks of grain on the docks. We carried the grain into the warehouses and stacked it. Then they brought some railroad boxcars up to the warehouses and we loaded the grain in the box cars. Most of the sacks would weigh about 200 lbs each and it took four guys to lift them up with hay hooks at each corner. They would lift it up and put it on your back behind your neck and you would carry it out to the car. There were about 12 men to a car and we had to load three cars a day. At that time I didn't weigh 125 lbs. They had 2 x 12 planks for us to walk up and put the sacks in the boxcars. They let us off one day a month. One of those days I layed down on the sacks of grain in the warehouse and went to sleep. The sound of planes woke me up and I ran outside. Everybody was already in their foxholes; everybody but me. I ran up north and jumped in a foxhole. There were four P-51 fighters high up circling and pretty soon they came straight down; one at a time, trying to hit the ships at the docks. They missed the ships and hit our warehouse. A bomb came through the roof and hit right where I had been sleeping. Boy was I lucky that time! The first part of July 1945, about nine in the morning; my friend and I were upstairs in a shack they had us living in. It was raining slow and easy. I heard some planes and when I looked out at the other docks I saw a fire. In a few minutes the building next to us was on fire and soon our building was on fire. We got out of there with nothing but what we had on. American planes had dropped phosphorus bombs and burned the whole town down in just a little while. We were just left out in the rain. The next day they put us in an old abandoned brick factory about two miles from where we were and then we got to walk to work every day. All we got to eat at that time was cooked burned wheat. We had a Japanese put over our kitchen then and he told our other cooks, "if you can get some rice or barley in here we will all eat better". So when the American planes would come over; the Japanese would head for the foxholes and we would head for the warehouse; get some grain and take it to the mess hall. We kept the mess hall in rice and barley and got more to eat. A few days later, about noon, here came a big American bomber all by himself way up high. We found out later it was a B-29. There was a big factory of some kind by the road where we walked to work and this plane dropped a bomb right in the middle of that building. That building and everything in it was torn all to pieces. Windows were blown out of buildings across the road from the big factory. After we got back in that evening, the Japanese brought men and women over for our doctor and medics to help . The Japanese were bombed a lot after that. A lot of them that lived were in an awful mess. We kept on working every day for awhile. We heard about the big bomb and the Japanese were really excited. We didn't really know what was going on at that time. Then one morning we got up to go to work but we didn't go. We knew something had happened. The next day we didn't work and we heard the war was over. All the Japanese left and took everything with them. There was nothing to eat at all; but we made it. Somehow we got a radio and we heard on it for all prison camps to put something on the roof so they could spot us from the air. The Americans told us they would drop us food until they could get to us in about 3 or 4 days. Here came a big bomber flying real low and it dropped 55 gal. barrels of food and clothes. A lot of the can goods bursted but we got it and ate it with our hands. We were in "hog heaven" then. We didn't worry about the clothes; we just ate. We ate all that was dropped. Some food was dropped in muddy rice paddys and we ate it anyway. We would walk up there to the docks to see if we could see any American ships but we didn't. In about three or four days here came another plane. It was pretty high and it dropped 54 parachutes of K-rations; three cases to each chute. All the chutes opened but one. We got all of them and we ate like pigs. I mean we had it made then we thought. We would get a case of K-rations per man and get after it! About a week later we heard on the radio that some officers would come and get us on a train. They did. We rode all night on the train and got to Tokyo and there they gave us all new clothes. At first they told us we would fly out of Japan but a typhoon hit and we were put on a ship. We went to Manila, in the Philippine Islands. At Manila we were put in some barracks. Everybody was wonderful to us. At night they had food cooked and you could go in there and eat anytime you wanted to. We went to some outside picture shows. We hadn't seen a picture show in four years. I was in Manila about ten days. My brother Robert "Jinks" was in Manila and I didn't know it until I got home. He said he found out where I was the day after I left. We were suspposed to fly out of Manila but we didn't. There was another typhoon so we were put on another boat. We were in the typhoon for two or three days on the way to San Francisco. They took us to Letterman General Hospital when we arrived at San Francisco. I stayed at the hospital only at night. I went to see lots of things out there: Alcatraz Prison and other interesting places. I gained about a pound a day. I guess it didn't hurt me, eating like that. I was there about a week. Read part 3