Japanese Surrendered Personnel and the Military Court

Abstract

On 16 August 1945, two B24 bombers flew over the Rogas railway factory, where I was stationed. The planes came down low as if they were going to strafe us with their machine-guns, and as a reflex movement I ran towards the shelter. Then it came to me that hostilities must have been terminated, and I stood still on the spot and looked at the B24s wondering what they would do. A dark green B24 circled low around my head and opened the side door fully and the crew waved their hands in a wide-sweeping gesture. Then they started to drop packages by parachutes one by one onto the PoW camp for the Dutch, which was located close to us on the other side of a stream. While I was looking up at the sky in amazement, many parachutes came down, and after the whirring had faded away, the PoWs — no, the Dutch soldiers who had now become the victors — ran with great shouts of joy towards the dropped packages. I continued to watch them and muttered to myself so as to convince myself, ‘We’ve been defeated.’