On the morning of August 15th, 1945, a party of us were sent to a place called Senriyama to build air raid shelters for the military staff. On arrival a Japanese who had given us reliable information in the past, told us that the "Dai Ichi" (Emperor) was making a speech that day, which would give us the news we had waited for so long to hear. We were inclined to be skeptical, as in the past we had heard rumours of peace which had turned out to be false.
However, at noon we were hastily led up the mountain side and told to stay there; but we were too excited to obey this order and sneaked back to a position where we could hear the radio. As most of us could understand some Japanese, we could hardly keep from shouting for joy, when we realised that at long last the war was actually over.
That afternoon we were taken back to the camp under a strong escort, in case the civil population turned unpleasant, but everyone seemed dazed and bewildered. They could not understand that they were a defeated nation.
On arrival at the camp, it took us some time to convince everyone that the war was over, but we had evidence of it when the following incident occurred:
A few days before, two American officers had been brought into our camp. They had escaped from an Officers' camp on the Island of Shikoku and attempted to steal a boat and head out to sea, hoping to be picked up by Allied warships. However, they were caught after 5 days and having been sentenced to execution had been brought to our camp for the sentence to be carried out. As a further mental torture, they had not been informed when this was to take place. They were bound hand and foot in full view of the camp and given no food. On the night of the 15th August, the Japanese guards released these officers and informed them that the end of the war had saved them. The next few days were days of indecision, and no one was allowed out of the camp. Food and water were still a problem. We were all excited and rumours ran rife. We did not see much of the Japanese camp staff, who did not bother to take roll call, so that our own officers in the camp set up our own administration.