Japanese Women POWs Braced for Execution at Dawn — Americans Brought Them Breakfast Instead
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On April 12, 1945, in the war-torn landscape of Baguio, Philippines, 24 Japanese women knelt in the mud of a makeshift compound, their hands pressed together in prayer. They weren’t praying for rescue; they were praying for death. Above them, the sky was a color of ash, and in the distance, the sounds of American voices echoed through the morning air. This was the end they had been taught to expect—swift, brutal, and final.
Among them was Lieutenant Yoshiko Nakamura, who had urged her fellow soldiers to face death with dignity as soldiers of the emperor. Yet, as she closed her eyes and steadied her breathing, her heart raced with fear. The propaganda films she had seen played in her mind—images of American soldiers laughing as they bayoneted prisoners, setting villages ablaze, and showing no mercy. The footsteps of heavy, purposeful American boots approached, and for a moment, the women braced themselves for the inevitable.
But when the compound gate swung open, the Americans weren’t carrying rifles. Instead, they brought crates filled with food, medical supplies, and blankets. In that moment, kneeling in the Philippine mud, the women realized that everything they had been told was a lie. Their story, one of suffering and fear, was a history barely remembered. No major textbooks documented their names, nor did any films dramatize their ordeal. Yet, their experience revealed a profound truth about war, propaganda, and the remarkable persistence of human decency in the darkest hours of humanity.
To understand how these women came to kneel in the mud expecting execution, we must step back six months earlier. In October 1944, American forces under General Douglas MacArthur returned to the Philippines, fulfilling his famous promise. The Japanese garrison, which had occupied the island since 1942, was now engaged in a desperate defensive campaign. Among the 30,000 Japanese troops scattered across Luzon were approximately 200 women—nurses, communications officers, administrative clerks, and comfort station managers.
Japanese military doctrine in 1944 was clear: surrender was not an option. The Senzhenkun, the military code issued to all Imperial forces, stated, “Do not live to experience shame as a prisoner.” Officers carried cyanide capsules, and soldiers were trained to use grenades on themselves rather than surrender. The concept of surrender was so foreign to Japanese military culture that the word itself, kosan, carried connotations of ultimate disgrace. For women in uniform, the stakes were even higher. Military propaganda painted American soldiers as barbaric savages who raped and murdered female captives without mercy.
As American forces pushed into the mountainous regions of Baguio in March 1945, the Japanese defensive perimeter collapsed. Most Japanese troops retreated into the mountains to wage guerrilla warfare. However, approximately two dozen women, nurses from a field hospital and several administrative staff, found themselves cut off from the main force. For three weeks, they hid in abandoned buildings and caves, surviving on foraged roots and contaminated water.
Sergeant Macho Tanaka, a 31-year-old surgical nurse, kept a diary during this time. On March 28, she wrote, “We have no food, no medicine. Fumo is burning with fever. At night, we hear American patrols passing nearby. Each night I think tomorrow they will find us. Tomorrow it ends.” The capture came not with violence but with exhaustion. On April 1, an American patrol discovered the women huddled together in a collapsed warehouse.
Private First Class Robert Chen, a Nisei soldier serving as an interpreter, was with the patrol. He later recounted, “They were in the corner, huddled together like frightened animals. Their uniforms were torn. Some were barefoot. When they saw us, they didn’t run. They just closed their eyes and started praying. I thought they were praying for mercy. Later, I realized they were praying for death.”
The women were transported to a temporary detention compound outside the city, which was not a traditional POW camp due to the rapid advance of American forces. It was simply a guarded perimeter with a few tents and a water source. The women were given minimal rations—rice porridge twice daily, occasionally supplemented with dried fish. The American guards, mostly young infantrymen from the 33rd Division, had no training in handling female prisoners and had never seen a Japanese woman soldier.
The standing orders were simple: secure the perimeter, prevent escape, and maintain basic humanitarian standards as outlined in the Geneva Convention. However, these orders did not address what to do when prisoners refused to eat because they believed the food was poisoned. For the first week, the women barely touched their rations, convinced that the Americans were fattening them for the real torture that awaited.
Nurse Fumiko Sato later recalled, “We thought they were playing with us like cats with mice. We waited each day for the game to end.” Malnutrition and disease spread quickly. Several women developed dysentery, and Fumiko’s fever worsened into pneumonia. Lieutenant Yoshiko, the highest-ranking officer among them, struggled to maintain military discipline in a situation that felt absurd. They were no longer soldiers; they were ghosts waiting to fade.
Then came April 12, the day everything changed. Captain William Morrison, a 34-year-old high school history teacher turned soldier, visited the detention compound. What he saw broke through his training and compartmentalization. These weren’t enemy soldiers; they were starving, terrified women who looked as if they had already died inside. Morrison learned from Private Chen that the women believed they were being held for execution and thought the meager rations were a deliberate cruelty.
In that moment, Morrison made a decision that wasn’t in any manual. He turned to his supply sergeant and said, “Get me breakfast. Real breakfast. Everything we’ve got.” Within an hour, soldiers returned with crates from the division supply depot. The smell hit the compound first—fresh bread, canned meat, fruit cocktail, coffee, and chocolate bars. The American soldiers opened the crates in the center of the compound, and the women just stared, unable to believe their eyes.
One of them started crying, then another, until they were all in tears. Sergeant Mitcho was the first to move. She approached the crates and picked up a can of corned beef, examining it carefully. She looked at Captain Morrison and asked, through Private Chen, if it was poisoned. Morrison opened the can, took a forkful, and handed it back, saying, “Tell her it’s real. Tell her they’re not going to die today.”
The dam broke. The women surged forward, taking food slowly, as if it might vanish. Some sat down right there and ate, while others brought food back to the sick women who couldn’t stand. Private Yuki Harada, the youngest of the group at 19, picked up a chocolate bar and held it like a sacred object. “I thought I was dreaming,” she later said. “I thought I had died, and this was some kind of afterlife. I couldn’t understand why our enemies were feeding us.”
Food was only the beginning. Over the next three days, Captain Morrison requisitioned medical supplies. An army medic examined Fumiko and started her on sulfa drugs for her pneumonia. Canvas was laid down to replace the muddy ground, and a water purification unit provided clean drinking water. The compound transformed from a holding area into something resembling a proper POW facility.
The change in the women was gradual but visible. They began eating regularly, color returned to their faces, and the constant tension in the compound began to ease. However, the psychological transformation was slower and more complex. Lieutenant Yoshiko struggled most with her identity. Trained as an officer to uphold the emperor’s honor, she grappled with what honor meant when her enemy fed her.
By the end of April, something extraordinary developed in the compound—not quite friendship but a significant recognition that the enemy was human. The Japanese women began teaching the American guards basic Japanese phrases, while the Americans taught them English in return. They shared stories carefully at first, then more openly.
As the war in the Philippines neared its end, Captain Morrison received orders to transfer the women prisoners to a larger POW facility in Manila. On the night before the transfer, Morrison gathered the women to explain what would happen next. They would receive proper medical care and eventually be repatriated to Japan. When Sergeant Micho asked if he would be there in Manila, Morrison shook his head. The women bowed deeply, a gesture of respect and gratitude.
The next morning, as they prepared to leave, each woman said goodbye to the soldiers they had come to know. Lieutenant Yoshiko shook Captain Morrison’s hand and said, “You showed us that everything we were told was wrong.” Morrison replied, “Maybe that’s the real victory—learning that the enemy is just people.”
Upon arriving in Manila on May 12, the women were processed into a larger POW facility. While it was better equipped, something was lost in the transition—the intimacy of their small compound and the daily interactions that had humanized both sides were replaced by institutional routine. The psychological aftermath surfaced slowly, with many women struggling to reconcile their experiences.
As the war ended on August 15, 1945, the women faced the challenge of returning to a devastated Japan. Lieutenant Yoshiko, now grappling with her identity, reflected on the lessons learned from her captors. When asked what she would tell people about her experience, she said, “I’ll tell them that the enemy taught me more about honor than my own commanders did.”
Years later, as they reunited in Tokyo, the women toasted survival and the humanity that persisted even in war. Their story stands as a testament to the power of compassion, reminding us that even amidst chaos, humanity can endure.
