Japan Capitulates

When the war finally did end, we were, our shift was done, mine at the ten, at the time and we knew something was up. We all gathered for, ready to, to get in the cars to come back to the surface and this was fairly early in the shift and one of the Korean guards told us, "Senso Warai." Senso Warai in Japanese could mean either, the track is broken, or the war is over. We could hardly believe that it was the war was over, so we thought it was the track was broken. This time while we were waiting for the gin saws to bring us back up to the top, Ishagowasan (sp) gave me his pipe and tobacco and I had a smoke. We got back up, we found out that the war was over, we didn't really know whether to believe them or not. Whether it was a trick, ‘cause see what would happen, what would we do, what would happen or anything, and the next day our camp commandant, who previous to this had always spoken to us through the interpreter, got up in front of us, and he started off with, "My boys," and then he went on with, "the day that we have all, at long, long, longed for, at long last has arrived. The war is over and our Emperor has capitulated to the Americans." And he ended up his little speech by saying, "And of course tomorrow, you'll go back down in the mine." So, we promptly asked him, "Who the hell won the war and who lost it? " He was quite emphatic that we should go back down and the American doctor is saying that no way we were going back down and we did decide that we wouldn't go back down. And there was certain guards in camp that, some of us met, went to the American doctor and got him to go to the camp commandant and tell him strictly that if these guards were left in charge that he couldn't be responsible for them and to get them the hell out of there. That they'd been too bad, too rough on us and so they were taken away and the good bosses and the guards that weren't half bad they, they were kept around.