We POW were first to see Hiroshima damage

Tailgunner Charles Falkenhan told me about watching all the action while we floated in our rafts, we not knowing that this was all taking place in our behalf.

Years after the war, I learned through other members of my crew that a Japanese lieutenant by the name of Nobuichi Fukui played a major role in saving our lives. I was fascinated with his story, and in August of 1983 my wife and I visited him for about four hours in his home in Yanai City, Japan. During our discussion about the events that took place after we were picked up by the Japanese soldiers and imprisoned in Hiroshima, Fukui told us a fascinating story:

I WAS ON MY WAY TO HIROSHIMA THE DAY THE ATOMIC BOMB WAS DROPPED… WHEN I HEARD AN EXPLOSION. THE EXPLOSION WAS EXTREMELY LOUD

RADIO BROADCASTS BY AMERICANS WARNED THE JAPANESE ABOUT THE DANGERS OF THE ATOMIC BOMB BUT THEY DID NOTHING TO HEED THIS WARNING

“I was on my way to Hiroshima on a train that day (August 6, 1945, the day the atomic bomb was dropped) when I heard an explosion. The explosion was extremely loud, and I thought that maybe an airplane had crashed nearby. I had no idea as to the magnitude of the explosion until the train entered the outskirts of Hiroshima. Then it was plain that something extra special had taken place.” Fukui could speak and understand English, and he listened to radio broadcasts by Americans, possibly coming from Okinawa, that warned the Japanese about the dangers of the atomic bomb. He told some of the people in authority about the danger of radiation as reported in the American radio broadcasts, but they did nothing to heed this warning.

TWENTY-THREE AMERICAN PRISONERS WERE KILLED BY THE ATOMIC BOMB. THE TEN SURVIVORS OF OUR CREW WERE SCHEDULED TO BE EXECUTED

FUKUI TOLD THE COLONEL “TO TREAT U.S. PRISONERS WARMLY, BASED ON INTERNATIONAL PRISONER TREATY

Twenty-three American prisoners were killed by the atomic bomb, Fukui said, and he worked up until his death in February of 1987, at the age of 85, to have the names of the twenty-three Americans included in the Hiroshima memorial. According to Fukui, the ten survivors of our crew were scheduled to be executed. We were taken from our jail cells and carried to the train station to be moved to another place to be killed. He said that our guard was told by the colonel that the B-29 crew was of no use to the Japanese anymore and that we should take them out and shoot them. Fukui told the colonel, and then advised the colonel’s staff, “to treat U.S. prisoners warmly, based on International Prisoner Treaty as signed by the Japanese delegates. “This is an important policy,” he said, “toward Japanese diplomatic negotiations under worsening national conditions”.

THE TWO FLYERS HAD SURVIVED THE BOMB BLAST BY JUMPING INTO A CESSPOOL

Evidently the authorities understood, and we were spared the executions. An English-speaking Japanese officer came up to where we were huddled in an open space near the railroad station. He said he had come to help us and that he was getting orders from Tokyo and would return soon to let us know the outcome. Prior to our new benefactor’s visit, our guards brought two other Americans to join our little group. They were Norman Brissette, an airman who had flown from the aircraft carrier TICONDEROGA, and a Ralph Neal who was shot down as member of a B-24, called LONESOME LADY, based in Okinawa. The two flyers had survived the bomb blast by jumping into a cesspool. Both were in very bad shape after being beaten on recapture.

Neal told me that he thought that all the members of his crew were in prison in Hiroshima and had been killed. I later learned that his pilot, Tom Carthwright, had been transferred to Tokyo and Abel, the tailgunner, was taken to a different location. Both Carthwright and Abel survived the war. A newspaper article which mentioned my encounter with Ralph Neal disclosed the whereabouts of the deceased crewman. It was only then that their families learned they had died at Hiroshima.

Lieutenant Fukui, who had left us soon after the English-speaking officer told us of our good fortune of better days ahead, came back after dark with a truck and told us—including Brissette and Neal—to get in because we were going on a little trip. We were blindfolded upon entering the truck, but after we had gone a short distance, the truck stopped and Fukui told us to remove our blindfolds. “Look at how inhumane the Americans are”, he said. We gazed out on the miles of destruction and emptiness where there had been homes and businesses before August 6th. The area was completely desolate, nothing was left standing or growing. It was like looking at a huge vacant lot, as if a huge steamroller had rolled across the city. We saw no people where we had stopped and there was no noise. Just complete silence. Fukui kept shouting to us, “One bomb, one bomb did all this! The devastation that you see before you.” He kept repeating, “Look how inhumane the Americans were,” I said in a low voice so he could not hear me, “Looks like someone was playing with matches.” Lt. Holden, our pilot said, “But remember Pearl Harbor.” And someone else said, “Remember Bataan and the infamous Bataan Death March.”

At the time we did not know much about the atomic bomb, and neither had we heard about the second A-bomb attack on Nagasacki on August 8. We didn’t want to make Fukui mad at us because we sincerely believed he was our savior. After he tried to impress on us the harshness of the A-bomb attack, he drove us to Ujima Military Police Headquarters and there he hid us for two days. Here we were permitted to wash our faces and hands for the first time in ten days. We were still suffering from salt water sores and sunburn. At this time we did not know that hostilities of World War II had supposedly ceased as of August 15th.

NEAL DIED AT 2:00 A.M. AUGUST 19TH AND BRISSETTE PASSED AWAY AT 2:00 P.M. THE SAME DAY. EVIDENTLY THEY HAD RECEIVED FULL DOSES OF RADIATION IN THEIR CELLS IN HIROSHIMA

We were put into cells that looked like animal cages, two to a cell. They also gave us some food. Neal died at 2:00 a.m. August 19th and Brissette passed away at 2:00 p.m. the same day. Evidently they had received full doses of radiation in their cells in Hiroshima.

ALMOST ALL OF THE AMERICAN POW AIRMEN IN HIROSHIMA WERE EXECUTED.

It was difficult for me to accept Fukui’s actions at this time. We sincerely believed that he, as a Christian, wanted to help us. The crew was mixed on the feelings we had about him. Later we learned he really did save our lives. After Fukui turned us over to another officer, we were taken to Hiroshima camp #2 which was located on the island of Mukaishima, opposite the town of Onomuchi. We never saw Fukui again, but I believe he truly was our savior. I found out when I visited Japan in 1983 that almost all of the American POW airmen in Hiroshima were executed. We were lucky. Colonel John Olsen, West Point Class of 1938, was taken prisoner by the Japanese during the fall of Bataan, and he was eventually sent to camps located in Japan. When the war ended and he was liberated, because he had learned the Japanese language during his long confinement, he was asked if he would help locate the many POW camps scattered throughout the Japanese homeland. He was responsible for guiding the searchers to our camp.

In 1986, after years of searching, Colonel Olsen finally located me — and would you believe — he lives within five miles of my house in Kansas! We now play golf on a regular basis. I asked him what he remembered the most about the liberation of the camp I was in. He said, “You came from Onomichi camp on a ferryboat displaying the biggest American flag I have ever seen and blowing some kind of instrument.” I asked, “Did any other camps that you saw being liberated have an American flag with them?” He said “No.” “That was us,” I replied. We made our flag from the parachutes used by our own 9th Bomb Group when they flew over our camp to drop food and supplies to us. The chutes were colored: some red, some white, and some blue.

¹Original publication:  Marshall, Chester. The Global Twentieth: An Anthology of the 20^th AF in WWII. Memphis, Marshall Publishers 1985. Permission to republish granted by the heirs of B-29 pilot Chester Marshall, 73^rd Bomb Wing, 499^th Bomb Group, Saipan, 1944-45.

Bio: Capt. Walter Raymond Ross (1920-2000) enlisted in the Army Air Corps following high school. He flew combat as a B-29 bombardier with the 9^th Bomb Group, Tinian and became a POW imprisoned in Hiroshima two days after the atomic bomb drop. Ross was awarded the Air Medal, Purple Heart, Presidential Citation, Pacific Theater Medal, Prisoner of War Medal and Victory Medal.  He authored the book “Courage Beyond the Blindfold, The Last POWs of WWII” in 1995.