Departing from Moji Port to the battlefield
Moji Port, which is close to mainland China, flourished as a coal shipping port before the war and was a trading port where domestic trading companies gathered, but during the war, it became a base for supplying people and supplies to the front lines. From January 1942 to August 1945 during the Pacific War, 761 transport ships departed from Moji. There were other ports such as Yokohama and Kobe, but Moji Port accounted for about 45% of the ships heading for war from Japan. At that time, soldiers waiting to go to war near Moji Port could not fit into inns and stayed overnight in private houses, and the town was filled with soldiers and their families seeing them off. It also appears in war stories such as Ashihei Hino’s “Soil and Soldiers”. (Nishinippon Shimbun August 12, 2011)
Table: Japanese army deployed to the south from Moji Port (from Moji Port Monument Construction Committee website)
|
|
Region |
Dispatched Troops |
War Dead |
Survivor |
Death Rate |
|
Philippines |
466,000 |
368,700 |
97,300 |
79％ |
|
|
Borneo |
29,000 |
10,400 |
18,600 |
35％ |
|
|
Celebes |
19,000 |
1,300 |
17,700 |
7％ |
|
|
Eastern New Guinea |
140,200 |
110,000 |
30,200 |
73％ |
|
|
West New Guinea |
53,700 |
1,800 |
51,900 |
3％ |
|
|
Sunda |
169,100 |
51,600 |
17,500 |
75％ |
|
|
Java |
42,600 |
2,200 |
40,400 |
52％ |
|
|
Sumatra |
61,500 |
2,000 |
59,500 |
3％ |
|
|
French Indochina |
96,500 |
6,100 |
90,400 |
6％ |
|
|
Thailand |
110,800 |
4,800 |
106,000 |
4％ |
|
|
Burma |
230,800 |
160,400 |
70,400 |
69％ |
|
|
Malay Peninsula |
91,700 |
6,900 |
84,800 |
8％ |
|
|
Andaman Nicobar |
11,400 |
700 |
10,700 |
6％ |
|
|
Central Pacific |
139,600 |
91,000 |
48,600 |
65％ |
|
|
Subtotal |
1,561,900 |
817,900 |
744,000 |
52％ |
|
|
Taiwan |
155,300 |
27,200 |
128,100 |
18％ |
|
|
Okinawa |
108,500 |
67,600 |
40,900 |
62％ |
|
|
Subtotal |
263,800 |
94,800 |
169,000 |
36％ |
|
|
Grand Total |
1,825,700 |
912,700 |
913,000 |
50％ |
Moji City Air Raid June 29, 1945
The urban areas of Moji and Shimonoseki are located in Kitakyushu and southern Honshu and are transportation gateways that affect industrial harvests. They are the most concentrated and flammable targets in Japan’s most flammable areas. Detonating these centers would cripple the economic power of the entire industrial complex within a 10-mile radius of the attack area.
Left: Moji city area before the air raid
Right: Photograph taken by a US military reconnaissance plane to investigate the effectiveness of the air raid on the city of Moji on June 29, 1945. The white area is the burnt area (owned by the Maxwell Air Force Base Historical Archives)
Destroying these two cities and their complex system of handling transportation would severely disrupt Japan’s economy and military production. Neglected ferry facilities cannot replace overburdened railway facilities, except for weeks. Saving 10 hours in freight transport (using the Kanmon Tunnel and its marshaling yard) would come at a cost. Eventually, a successful railway would eliminate alternatives such as piers and water transportation facilities.
Equally important effects would be: (1) Challenges and provisions for troops in Manchuria would be at risk. (2) The adjacent industrial area on Hikoshima would be disturbed. (3) Nearby transshipment ports such as Wakamatsu Port will be severely affected.
Moji Port and Allied POWs
(POW Study Group Taeko Sasamoto)
During World War II, the Japanese military captured approximately 130,000 Allied soldiers (American, British, Dutch, Australian, Canadian, Indian, New Zealand, etc.) across the Asia-Pacific as prisoners of war. More than 30,000 were sent to Japan by ship to fill the domestic labor shortage. Nearly 70 POW transport vessels of all sizes arrived in Japan, and most entered Moji Port. POWs were sent by train from Mojiko Station or Shimonoseki Station on the opposite shore to various parts of Japan, where they were employed in coal mines, mines, shipyards, factories, and other locations.
Moji Port just after the end of the war (U.S. National Archives)
■Prisoners who arrived at Moji Port on the “Hell Ship”
The ship that carried the prisoners was also called the “Hell ship.” Because it was a very tragic voyage. The POWs were crammed into the dark bottom of the ship, with little food or water, and the unsanitary environment with no toilets led to the spread of infectious diseases such as dysentery, and many died. In addition, the ship was sunk by Allied torpedo attacks and bombings, resulting in numerous casualties. It is said that more than 10,000 POWs died during the voyage.
The POWs who barely made it to Moji were on the verge of physical and mental weakness, and many died on board the ship just before landing. A person who witnessed the incident gave the following testimony.
En el muelle, los ataúdes que sobresalían de los almacenes estaban alineados en dos o tres niveles, y algunos tenían las manos fuera de los ataúdes, como si las tapas no estuvieran bien cerradas. Fue una visión extraña. Los prisioneros de guerra que aterrizaron apenas podían ponerse de pie y sus caras estaban de color amarillo brillante. Los prisioneros de guerra que parecían a punto de morir fueron alineados en columnas y conducidos a algún lugar por soldados japoneses.
Those who died immediately after entering Moji Port were cremated on the beach or at the municipal crematorium in Maruyama Town. Those who could manage to walk were sent to camps across Japan, but seriously ill patients were housed at Kokura Army Hospital, Shimonoseki Quarantine Station, Moji Camp, and other locations.
■Moji concentration camp
■Moji concentration camp
This camp was opened on November 27, 1945, using the YMCA building in Kusunoki-cho, Moji City (currently Oimatsu-cho, Moji Ward). The name changed depending on the period, but the last official name was “Fukuoka POW Camp No. 4 Branch Camp.”
Moji POW camp immediately after the end of the war | Moji YMCA
Approximately 300 prisoners of war, including British, American, and Dutch nationals, were “settled” here, and they were mainly forced to work as cargo workers on ships docked at Moji Port and in warehouses around Sotohama Station. A British former POW who spent about two and a half years in Moji said that although he suffered from harsh labor, hunger, and violence from the guards, some Japanese were kind.
In addition to them, we temporarily housed seriously ill patients from POW transport ships that entered Moji Port, and many of the deaths occurred from here. By the end of the war, a total of 191 people had died in this camp, but if you include the 93 people who died on the transport ship just before landing, the total number would be 284 (303 according to other sources). Their remains were first stored in a camp and later moved to the Hongan-ji temple, but as this temple burned down, they were buried in the mass grave of Daio-ji Temple in Shoji-cho in May 1945. After the end of the war, these remains were recovered by the Occupation Forces and interred together in the columbarium of the British Commonwealth War Cemetery in Yokohama.
Immediately after the end of the war, the town of Moji became a burnt-out ruin. Daiyuji Temple at the foot of the mountain, and a mass graveyard halfway up the mountain (owned by the U.S. National Archives)
■Shimonoseki Quarantine Station
Around the end of November 1945, when four “hell ships” arrived at once, about 60 patients with infectious diseases such as dysentery were placed in the isolation ward of the Shimonoseki Quarantine Station in Enoura-cho, Hikoshima, Shimonoseki City, on the opposite shore of Moji. was housed in. It was positioned as a branch of the Moji camp, but it is unknown how long it lasted. According to local people, the POWs who experienced a lull were moved to the second camp (near Hikoshima Enoura-cho 2-chome), but the details are unknown.
Shimonoseki Quarantine Station Ruins (2006)
