On the 6th July we left the Tsumori camp and proceeded to a new site a few miles away, where our accommodation consisted of an old concrete warehouse, a two-storeyed building. We were housed in the upper portion, the only means of exit and entrance being a narrow iron ladder and a door only two feet by four feet - a certain trap if 350 POWs had to get out of the building in a hurry.
We built, out of scrap timber, our own cookhouse, latrines, etc. No water was laid on, so once a day we were marched in parties to a canal a few hundred yards away, where we were able to wash ourselves. Due to the destruction caused by the bombing raids, our food was just the bare minimum to keep us alive. However, we realised that the day of liberation was close at hand, and our spirits were high. Now that the Japanese realised that they had no chance of winning the war, they attempted to adopt a friendly attitude with us, and tried to cover up their brutal and vicious attitude of the past.
The Japanese civilians who were left in Osaka were in a bad plight. They lived in hovels, built of scraps of tin and wood that had survived the air-raids, while their food was just a handful of soya beans, rice being practically unobtainable, as all remaining supplies had been commandeered by the Army. Vegetables were unobtainable, and each day we noticed the people gathering grass and weeds to supplement their rations. Many had to walk miles to get water from hastily dug wells, as water-mains had been damaged beyond repair by the raids.
Money had little or no value and even the lowest paid coolie was drawing money which in pre-war days could have kept him in luxury, and which now would not even buy him a handful of rice or a cigarette. The morale of the Japanese collapsed completely when Russia declared war on Japan in 1945. News of the "Atomic" bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima were kept out of the papers, but it soon reached the ears of the Japanese people and internal strife developed. They disobeyed the Government's orders to stay, and carrying their worldly goods on their backs, hastened away from the industrial and city areas into the open country. Riots were frequent, and even the "Kempei Tai" and Army were powerless to keep completely in check the raids of a starving population on food stores and warehouses.