Allied POWs of The Pacific War

During the Pacific War, Allied prisoners of war (POWs) who were captured in the South Asian Battlefields were shipped and entered from Kanmon.

I met Mr. Donald Versaw in 1999 through my U.S. project. He recounted being captured in the Philippines and sent to Moji Port as a prisoner of war (POW) during the Pacific War.

The history of POWs in Japan is not well known. Moji Port was a major transportation hub at the time. Many POWs entered Japan through Moji. I promised Mr. Versaw that I would build a memorial for soldiers who could not return home, but I was unable to fulfill that promise.

I believed that nothing related to Allied POWs remained in the Kanmon area. However, during a visit to Ganryu-jima in 2025, I discovered the remains of the quarantine station where arriving POWs were processed. These ruins are visible from the tip of Ganryu-jima.

Links

• Last surviving China Band Marine relives experiences (The Official Website of The U.S. Marines Corps)
• Shoko “Seina” Shiraishi — The War History of Kitakyushu-City

Moji Port and Allied POWs

(POW Research Network Japan – 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.

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.

Along the quay, coffins spilling out from the warehouse were stacked two or three high in long rows. Some lids wouldn’t close properly, and hands protruded from the coffins. It was an eerie sight. The prisoners who had come ashore staggered to their feet, their faces deathly pale. Those prisoners, looking as if they might die at any moment, were lined up in columns and led away somewhere by Japanese soldiers.

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

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.”

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.