Pod Insights ABC Rewind 03 The Loveday Trilogy | Miyakatsu Koike About this episode Miyakatsu Koike was a mild-mannered Japanese bank official who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was working in Surabaya in Indonesia when Japan attacked Pearl Harbour.
Koike was arrested by the Dutch East Indies authorities and sent to Loveday detention camp in South Australia where he spent four long years behind the wire.
Transcript 0:14 Speaker 00 Hi, Mike Ladd with you for Rewind, and the final program in our trilogy based on the lives of WWII detainees in Loveday Camp in the South Australian Riverland. The largest internment camp in Australia, Loveday was a huge prison farm where 5,000 Italian, German and Japanese civilians designated as enemy aliens spent the war years. So far, we've heard about a German, Oscar Speck, and an Italian, Francesco Fantin. Now it's time for the story of a Japanese internee, Myokazu Koike.
1:03 Speaker 00 In some ways, Koike is the odd one out in this series, not heroic like Speck or tragic like Fantin. Instead, he was a mild-mannered bank official.
1:15 Speaker 01 He was a company man and he worked in the office. Just reminds me of my own father. Very royal, patriotic, and everything is very official.
1:30 Speaker 00 And yet, Mr. Koike intrigues me. A gentle man in brutal times. He's a man of great tolerance and forbearance. He was a peacemaker and he is a man of great humanity.
1:48 Speaker 00 Plus, he left us a diary.
1:52 Speaker 02 Although I'm inexperienced as a writer, I shall attempt to write an internment camp diary. I hope that it will help children to understand the misery caused by the war and the importance of peace.
2:14 Speaker 00 Koike's diary is a simple but at times poignant record of his years behind the wire at Love Day. And an English translation of the diary has just been published by Wakefield Press.
2:25 Speaker 01 The title of his diary is called Yoku-ryu Niki. That literally means interment diary. And he's got a subtitle which is very symbolic. "四年間の赤服生活" "Four Years in Red Coat". They had to wear that red uniform when they were outside of the camp. But inside, they can wear their own clothes.
2:56 Speaker 00 Historian Yuriko Nagata. So how did a Japanese bank official end up in the South Australian riverland in World War II?
3:09 Speaker 01 Mr. Koike was an employee of the Yokohama Specie Bank. He was sent to the Surabaya branch. Surabaya in the Dutch East Indies. That was 1935.
3:25 Speaker 02 "After a three-week voyage, I finally arrived in Surabaya. From that time, I spent a little over six years in that land of eternal summer."
3:38 Speaker 01 His diary tells us that he had a good time because it was like a tropical holiday for him.
3:56 Speaker 00 But in 1941, as the Japanese forces swept down through Southeast Asia, the holiday came to an end. Koike was instructed to close the bank in Surabaya and prepare to be repatriated.
4:12 Speaker 02 We raced against the clock to prepare the settlement of our camps. Mr. Sakurai told me that the repatriation ship that we were expecting might not come due to the tense situation.
4:28 Speaker 00 Historian Peter Monty.
4:32 Speaker 03 He's someone who's imbued with a strong sense of duty and his duty is to look after the interests of his bank. But he's also keeping another eye on the military situation and following that as closely as he can. And with every day becoming more fearful that they're going to be trapped and that's exactly what happens to him.
4:51 Speaker 01 When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, he was arrested as an enemy subject by the Dutch authorities. Humeiko, his wife, had been already repatriated back to Japan, so she was not interned.
5:09 Speaker 00 Koiki was sent to Sumawono Detention Camp, then on to Australia.
5:18 Speaker 02 I was transported on the Kramer, which was referred to as a hell ship. We had absolutely no idea where we were being transported to. At first, most of us thought that we were sailing on the Indian Ocean, judging by the ocean swell. Because the port holes were all covered by iron plates, we could just see the surface of the sea through tiny chinks. At the entrance to the hold, a machine gun was pointing its ominous muzzle at us through wire netting.
5:54 Speaker 01 The ship Kramer was manned by Dutch authorities and their treatment was unfortunately very bad. And the supply of food was scarce and no medicine, no milk for babies. So a lot of people suffered from the illness and several people died.
6:33 Speaker 02 The 20th of January 1942. Today, the weather was rough again. The body of Mr. Wada was buried at sea at 10:30 in the morning. We had a moment of silence for him.
6:49 Speaker 02 We repeatedly requested the army authority for treatment for sick people, but in vain.
6:58 Speaker 02 The fate of all human beings, let alone internees, is such that no one is guaranteed whether he will be alive tomorrow or not. As internees, we knew nothing of our fate. We had to endure any hardship and wait for the day of our release.
7:28 Speaker 00 Finally, the ship arrived in Port Adelaide.
7:32 Speaker 02 An Australian officer came onto the ship, guided by a Dutch East Indies soldier, and looked around the hold. He asked whether we had been sick, and then he said to us, “すみませんでした. We apologize for this.” “Influenced Japanese.” Unlike the Dutch East Indies soldiers, his manner was so gentle that we simply admired him.
8:03 Speaker 00 Remember, these were civilian detainees, not soldiers, and the horrors of the Japanese Army’s treatment of prisoners were not yet widely known.
8:12 Speaker 03 There’s a kind of openness and generosity, it seems, at that relatively early point. Of course, by the end of the war, Australian attitudes towards Japanese people had hardened considerably.
8:25 Speaker 00 The internees were put on a train and sent to Love Day Camp, near the Murray River, about 230 kilometers northeast of Adelaide.
8:42 Speaker 02 The scenery surrounding us, which was emerging from the dim light of dawn, was an endless vineyard with only a few houses.
8:52 Speaker 00 And that's pretty much what it still looks like today. We're walking around the remains of the old Love Day camp with local historian Rosemary Gawa.
9:03 Speaker 04 We're currently going through the middle of Camp 14. On our right hand side, this is where the Japanese internees were and up in the far corner was where they had the beautiful sunken garden. And we'll be going right through the middle. We'll see a cell block up here, there was another one back behind us.
9:28 Speaker 02 Escorted on both sides by guards, we emerged quietly along the road. As our line stretched for nearly 200 metres and we wore such shabby clothing, we must have looked a sorry sight. The entrance to the camp was surrounded by wire and looked like a cage. This whole operation was done in Australian way. They opened and shut the front and back gates and counted in their knees as if counting sheep.
10:02 Speaker 00 After a good meal and his first hot shower for a month, Koike settled down into camp life.
10:09 Speaker 01 He accepted his life in the internment camp. He's trying to make the best out of the worst situation.
10:20 Speaker 02 Far from our homeland, we had to live in a foreign country in the southern hemisphere. Moreover, we have to live the dreary life of an all male group. I thought that it was important to get used to communal life.
10:40 Speaker 00 Civilian internees weren't forced to work, but they could if they wanted to.
10:45 Speaker 03 A shilling a day was the going rate.
10:47 Speaker 00 Love Day was self-sustaining, with its own poultry farm, pigery and vegetable gardens. There were also crops of opium poppies and pyrethrum daisies. Some of the Japanese loyalists didn't want to work as they felt their labour was helping the Allied war effort. The opium poppies were used to make morphine, and the pyrethrum produced insecticide to help Australian soldiers fighting in the tropics. Apart from the work, the internees could also take part in calisthenics, language classes and handicrafts.
11:19 Speaker 02 Well, they have to kill a lot of time, so any sort of like activities were encouraged rather than discouraged.
11:27 Speaker 00 Cultural historian Ted Skimura.
11:30 Speaker 02 They played a lot of sport, sumo and baseball, even cricket. Also, they were encouraged to make some artworks and craftworks. In South Australia, there were chunks of native woods available for carving. Quite a few carving objects were made in Love Day.
11:50 Speaker 02 I've seen a lot of naked women. And that's sort of understandable because in Love Day, it was like a male camp. So they were hungry for women.
12:03 Speaker 02 They got horny.
12:05 Speaker 01 In case of Mr Koike, because he was businessman, his skills were used in the administration. So he worked in the Internee Committee office as secretary.
12:20 Speaker 00 He is someone who is a pillar of the Japanese community, and he was involved in organising Japanese language classes. Japanese cultural ceremonies were also allowed in the camp.
12:34 Speaker 02 The 29th of April 1942, a ceremony to mark the Emperor's birthday was held, which sang the National Anthem Kimigayo and a song to honour the Emperor.
12:48 Speaker 00 The authorities even encouraged the Japanese to build their own shrines and a traditional water garden, using water piped from the Murray River.
12:59 Speaker 01 There are two purposes, one is just making it and being engaged in a project, and also for their spiritual purposes.
13:10 Speaker 04 And it had a little creek running through it, and they had a lantern and shrubs and things. It was really quite beautiful. Many years later, I found where it was. But unfortunately, since then, it's on private property now, and it's all been dug up.
13:37 Speaker 00 It wasn't all sweetness and light, though.
13:40 Speaker 02 The Intimate Camp was surrounded by cords of barbed wire, and flatlights were positioned at several points. We were warned that if we came too close to the barbed wire, a guard in the lookout post would fire the machine gun.
14:03 Speaker 00 The Japanese were allowed out of Love Day to work, chopping down river red gums and sawing them into blocks to fire the irrigation steam pumps. Local fruit grower Ian Shobah is taking us upriver to find the remains of one of the woodcutting camps.
14:22 Speaker 05 I wonder why they chose this spot?
14:25 Speaker 00 Lots of wood.
14:29 Speaker 00 Must have felt a long way from anywhere.
14:31 Speaker 05 Yeah, they didn't have fences, did they?
14:35 Speaker 00 Where are you going to escape to?
14:38 Speaker 00 If you had a boat, you might get somewhere.
14:42 Speaker 00 So tell us where we are, Ian.
14:46 Speaker 05 Where they were, look.
14:49 Speaker 05 The Intimate Camp.
15:00 Speaker 05 There's paths everywhere.
15:02 Speaker 00 Yes. Yeah, they're clearly laid stones, aren't they?
15:15 Speaker 00 And somewhere in this forest, there's supposed to be an old cricket pitch, where the Australian soldiers introduced the game to the Japanese.
15:26 Speaker 04 Can you imagine?
15:29 Speaker 04 The yelling and the laughing.
15:33 Speaker 05 I've never seen a professional cricket player that's Japanese.
15:40 Speaker 00 Look, there you go. Twenty-two yards, cricket pitch.
15:43 Speaker 05 Yeah, look at this.
15:43 Speaker 04 It's even got the stump.
15:44 Speaker 00 It's got the stump holders.
15:47 Speaker 05 We found that.
15:59 Speaker 00 Back in love day, news of the war filtered through to Koike.
16:03 Speaker 02 News. The Japanese army landed at Lay in New Guinea. Motsby was bombed. It was time for lights out. However, the moonlight was so bright that I could not go to sleep. I could not help thinking of my home country, and I sincerely wished that I would be free to go home soon.
16:27 Speaker 00 On some days, Koike's diary consists of no more than the single-line jottings of intense boredom.
16:45 Speaker 02 The 4th of May, 1942. Fine. I spent all day in the tent, playing cards.
16:56 Speaker 02 14th of April, a clear sky.
17:02 Speaker 02 30th of June, the distribution of underwear.
17:09 Speaker 02 7th of July, I weighed 59 kilos.
17:14 Speaker 00 An exchange of Japanese and Allied prisoners occurred, but Koike was not selected. His diary is stoic about it.
17:22 Speaker 02 29th of July 1942. Of those who are summoned, 240 people were officially informed that they could return home. Unfortunately, Mr. Sasamura and I were the only two from the Yokohama Specie Bank who were not selected.
17:41 Speaker 01 He should have been on the list. There was a lot of confusion about who's who. The names were wrongly spelled, so they missed out.
17:55 Speaker 02 After that day, I was forced to live a dreary life here in the camp for another three and a half years.
18:13 Speaker 00 Over those years, Koike's diary continues to detail the repetitions of life in detention and the coming and going of the seasons, with just a few hints of the war.
18:25 Speaker 02 9th of October 1944. I received a wire from the Yokohama Specie Bank. "Your family members are all well. We pray for your health. We continue to do our best to achieve your earliest return home."
18:42 Speaker 00 But they were hiding the truth from him. In fact, both his father and his son had died, and Japan was now being bombed.
18:51 Speaker 01 It's the family's compassionate consideration, because Mr. Koike was the only one away from home and didn't want to make him sad.
19:05 Speaker 00 Finally, news came of the end of the war.
19:08 Speaker 02 The fourteenth of August, nineteen forty-five. When the roll call was made in the morning, the commander of the camp confided to the compound leader that he had heard radio news about the surrender of Japan. As the days passed by, so-called "Kachigumi" emerged, who could not accept Japan's defeat and stubbornly believed in Japan's victory in the war.
19:36 Speaker 03 He was a peacemaker there. He exercised those diplomatic skills, I think, also with those who didn't want to accept that the war had ended. But he's the realist and recognizes a need to leave the war behind and to commence afresh, even though he also recognizes that in returning to Japan, there will be huge challenges to confront. He and the other Japanese detainees were finally able to leave Love Day in February of nineteen forty-six.
20:14 Speaker 00 On the repatriation boat home, Koiki gave wise counsel to a young fighter pilot who was mortally ashamed to be returning in defeat.
20:24 Speaker 02 I told him that the attitude towards prisoner of war would be different to that in the past. Furthermore, I told him that I would explain the situation to his parents if need be, and I would ask his parents to celebrate his safe return home.
20:44 Speaker 00 At last, Koiki arrived back in Japan.
20:49 Speaker 02 The thirteenth of March, nineteen forty-six. At dawn, the ship dropped anchor off the coast near Uraga.
21:02 Speaker 03 He looked forward, most of all, to meeting his wife again. And that at least occurred successfully. But by the same token, his father had died in the meantime. He discovered that his child had perished. And he found that Japan was totally devastated. This was not just because of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but you know, because of the intensive bombing of many parts of Japan. This was a Japan that was a kind of a wasteland and coping psychologically with the reality of defeat.
21:53 Speaker 02 Many children were lost. I became very aware of the shortage of food.
22:04 Speaker 00 After reuniting with his wife in Tokyo, they caught the night train together back to their home in Nagoya.
22:25 Speaker 02 Almost 11 years had passed inside of Japan. I was indeed an unfeeling son who had returned home, not knowing my own father's death.
22:38 Speaker 02 The train was heading due west in the darkness. On the way, I was pleased Seimant Fuji, as beautiful as ever, greeting me, a poor, repatriated person.
23:11 Speaker 00 Koike went back to his same job in the bank. His Love Day internment diary, written on little pieces of paper, lay dormant in his desk drawer until he retired.
23:22 Speaker 01 And his son knew that he had all these pieces of paper. And he said, "Well Dad, why don't you put together into a book form or something?" And that probably a trigger for him.
23:40 Speaker 01 Mr. Koike's diary is one of the first told by overseas internees. This diary is a very important historical document.
23:59 Speaker 02 Finally, to all the people who sadly died in the remote land of Southern Australia, I would like to tell you that our motherland recovered quickly from defeat and became the second strongest economic power in the world. Please watch over the progress of our motherland and rest in peace. At the age of 82, the author, Miyakatsu Koike.
25:00 Speaker 01 He died at age of 93 from a heart attack. His wife, Humiko, died during his funeral. So they're both buried in Mr. Koike's birthplace in Kifu Prefecture.
25:23 Speaker 04 Love Day was closed in 1946. After the war, the attorneys were released back into the community or sent back overseas. The buildings were sold off. The mess huts were transported all around South Australia. The only thing that's left there is the general headquarters and that's in the care and control of the Barrie Barmer Council.
25:53 Speaker 00 And this is the Love Day Camp, headquarters, in the old hall.
26:06 Speaker 00 Where my grandfather did the peace service in 1945.
26:22 Speaker 00 Oh blimey.
26:28 Speaker 00 Very derelict now.
26:34 Speaker 00 Just seems to be a...
26:39 Speaker 00 Home for pigeons.
26:49 Speaker 00 Jeez.
26:51 Speaker 00 Looks like they've fallen through the floor here.
27:08 Speaker 00 Here's the main hall.
27:11 Speaker 00 And covered in pigeon crap. But there's the stage.
27:21 Speaker 00 This is where dancers were held and services functioned.
27:34 Speaker 00 Just the chairs at the side of the wall, eternally waiting for the next dance.
27:42 Speaker 03 The history of Love Day reminds us of the impact on people's lives of prolonged detention. People who were detained for no fault of their own, they'd committed no crime, they hadn't been through any kind of legal process. They just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. For civilian internees, as for people in offshore detention, they find themselves in a situation where they don't know when it's all going to come to an end. You know, in some cases for very long periods, Kauikai was behind barbed wire in Love Day for about four years. And for a person at any stage of their life, that's an essential injustice.
28:30 Speaker 00 And that was the final episode of the Love Day trilogy. Excerpts from Mr. Kauikai's diary were read by Tets Kimura. Thanks also to historians Peter Montieth, Rosemary Gower and Yuriko Nagata. And to my guide to the Wulunook logging camp, Ian Shobha. Sound engineering and original music by Tom Henry. My undying gratitude to that man. The series was produced by me, Mike Ladd, for Rewind, Radio National's home for compelling stories from the past.
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