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Haruku
is just one of many small islands in the Maluku province of Indonesia.
It rarely makes the headlines though in 1999 as riots hit nearby Ambon
it was not left untouched. It's a small island as I said just south of
Seram, east of Ambon. The Dutch were in the neighbourhood 350 years ago.
Indeed before the Second World War KLM had looked at the island as a
support for its operations on Ambon. The Japanesewent one step further.
As the Pacific War was intensifying they decided Haruku was the ideal
jumping off point for their sorties down to Australia. All they needed
was a runway. They had the labour and they had the tools. So it was in
1943 Dutch and British POW's set off from Surabaya bound for this tiny
sliver of paradise. What they found was a Dantean vision of hell.
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2071 worn out men washed up
on the northern coast in May 1943. They were malnourished and
maltreated anyway, the journey there hadn't made things any
better. They scrambled ashore the island at night to find a a
couple of unfinished attap huts, mud and rain and a couple of
flickering candles to light the way. They slept under the
monsoon clouds that night, drenched, disheveled, depressed.
Things weren't to get much better. |
Some useful
links
Far Eastern Prisoners of War |
With
the help of press ganged local villagers, and under the watchful eye of
a syphilitic, sadistic Japanese NCO named Mori, they set about trying to
make the best of what was a bloody awful hand. Mori didn't help. Toilets
were nothing more than trenches slit in the ground in the camp, it was
not uncommon for sick prisoners, of whom there were a great many, to
fall into the maggot ridden shit, and appeals to make more hygienic
latrines over the sea were brushed away. So dysentery kicked in big
time. Work on the runway with primitive hand tools started on the 10th
May. By the end of the first month 65 young men had expired along with
the meagre medical supplies and there was no relief in sight for the
heat, the rains or the beatings.
Pretty
soon more than half the camp suffered from dysentery but Mori was moved.
The visiting Japanese Doctor was uninterested in the plight of the
prisoners and for their officers and medics to protest was to invite a
serious beating and no change. That the officers and medics would still
stick their necks out says a lot about their courage in face of
hardships we 60 years removed cannot even begin to imagine.
324
men had been buried in quick services within 5 months of arriving before
Mori agreed to new toilets being constructed. In the final 9 months
before the camp was closed down just (!) 52 prisoners died.
In
November of 1943 Mori allowed some of the sickest prisoners off the
island. They teamed up with others from Ambon and set boarded the Suez
Maru. Four days out from Ambon the ship was attacked by a US submarine
and destroyed. Just 7 Japanese were taken from the wreckage, the
prisoners to a man perished in the shark infested waters.
In
August 1944 the camp was closed but for the men who had originally set
out from Surabaya there was still to be no respite. The Maros Maru left
Ambon on 17th September with the emaciated prisoners crowded on the deck
under the relentless sun. Without cover 20 soon died, exposed to the
heat and the rains. When it arrived in Surabaya towards the end of
November half the cargo of prisoners had died.
From
the original 2071 prisoners who had left Surabaya back in '43, 1021
died. This includes the men who perished on Halaku as well as the ones
who died at sea. A further 150 went missing. Mori was hanged, a quick
release for him one can't help thinking.
Sources:
Surviving the Sword -
Brian MacArthur |
