Account of Uprising in Internment Camp

The Regimental Centre

With the cessation of hostilities the centre was busy in assisting, the old Grenadiers in transition from war to peace. It was also called upon in 1946 to put down rioting by 2,000 Japanese prisoners of war at Deoli, 95 km from Nasirabad and it quickly nipped the trouble in the bud.

from The Grenadiers A Tradition of Valour by Colonel RD Palsokar MC

Nurse Hideko Nagai, 490 Relief Squad (Wakayama), Japanese Red Cross.

In November we were transferred by train to the camp for Japanese located in central India. The camp was in the midst of a big desert and was surrounded by barbed wire fences. There we were so happy to meet Etsuko and Harue of our team. … They told us that more than two thousand Japanese civilians who were taken from Singapore, Rangoon and the southern area were in the camp with a few Germans and Italians.

After some time, we volunteered to work at the hospital in camp, and lived in the hospital building. A German doctor, Indian nurses and British nurses worked there and three Japanese ladies were in the kitchen. Soon after I moved to the hospital I attended a birth. When I touched the soft skin of the baby, I felt that now I was in a different world after having nursed only the soldiers.

We received a letter from the Victory Group of Japanese in the camp who believed that Japan had won the war and it was enemy propaganda that she was defeated. And another - the Defeated Group - wrote to us that Japan had surrendered unconditionally. Through lack of information we could not judge which was correct. One day the Victory Group attacked the Defeated Group with bamboo sticks and the situation in the camp became chaotic. In order to quell this riot, soldiers were brought into the camp and fired rifles recklessly; twenty-four men of the Victory Group were killed. Unfortunately many innocent women and children were shot by their bullets and were brought to the hospital for treatment, which made us very busy. We bandaged their wounds expertly and by this were recognised as experienced Red Cross nurses and were told that we would be paid 16 rupees a month, which according to the interpreter was good pay. But for some unknown reason we never received the money.

from Tales By Japanese Soldiers. John Nunneley and Kazuo Tamayama. Cassell & Co 2000.