701.0090/3414
Mr. William R. Langdon, Departmental Representative on Board the M. S. “Gripsholm,” to the Secretary of State
[Received December 15, 1943.]
Subject: General Report of Second American-Japanese Repatriation Operation—Section Two.
Sir: Continuing my report of September 21, 1943 under the same caption I have the honor to report hereunder the progress up to October 23 of the present American-Japanese repatriation operation.
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(c) Attitude of Japanese repatriates.
The absence of indications of hostility toward the Americans on board among the Japanese repatriates continued to the end of the journey. On October 15 the Spanish delegate, Mr. Danis, invited the members of the “United Local Leader Council”, Mr. Burch, myself, Mr. Smith and Mr. Yamagata, the former Japanese Minister to Chile, to a gathering to thank the “Council” for its cooperation in making the voyage so free from any difficulties or unpleasantness, and in the course of this meeting the several officers of the “Council” formally acknowledged the perfection of the arrangements made for this operation and asked me to convey to the Department the passengers’ appreciation of the Department’s correctness in all matters affecting them. Mr. Yamagata, emphasizing that he was speaking in a personal capacity, added his tribute to the operation. The distinct impression was received that confidence in our Government’s fairness in all matters affecting Japanese repatriates has increased as a result of the operation, and it may have been a manifestation of this confidence that $165,000 were turned in to Mr. Danis by the repatriates against his [Page 943] receipts (to be redeemed in yen by the Japanese Government) as compared with some $23,000 on the first exchange.
(d) Arrival at Marmagão;60 the “Teia Maru”; Transfer of repatriates and cargo.
Mormagão. The Gripsholm docked at Marmagão in the early afternoon of October 16, a day behind schedule. The Teia Maru had docked the day before. All things considered, Marmagão appears to be an ideal place for exchanging prisoners and internees. There is adjoining berthing space for the exchange ships, there are traveling cranes and rail facilities for moving relief cargo and baggage from one ship to another, there are cool and clean sheds right on the pier for use as temporary offices and waiting rooms, and Marmagão is isolated from any population center where passengers or crew may get into trouble or be lost or catch disease. In fact Marmagão is nothing more than a pier with railroad docks and traveling cranes, a single large building (erected in the sixteenth century) used as a hotel and as a temporary home for shipping agencies, and a cluster of small police and administrative buildings.
Contact was established with the Teia Maru following docking. The appearance of the American repatriates was shocking, although their physical condition according to the medical officers of the Gripsholm was not bad. Most of the repatriates looked exhausted, if not ailing, emaciated and haggard, their appearance no doubt reflecting the grimness of the camps and areas from which they came. The first sight of the Americans on the Teia Maru drove home to us on the Gripsholm the urgency of bringing home as rapidly as possible remaining Americans in the Far East.
Teia Maru. The conditions on the Teia Maru, which is somewhat smaller than the Gripsholm and has a normal passenger capacity of 425 (Gripsholm normal capacity is 500) no doubt also contributed to the exhausted and woe-begone appearance of the repatriates. Only about a fourth of the passengers had cabin accommodations, the rest being quartered in improvised “double decker” dormitories in the ship’s public rooms and in unventilated holds between decks. In daytime there was not even sitting capacity for all so that many persons had to sprawl on deck or lean against bulkheads in order to rest their bodies. The stewards who were boys for the most past [part] and undersized even for Japanese were not in sufficient number to keep the ship clean, and the passageways, decks and latrines were filthy and cluttered with litter. On the foredeck there was a pile of decaying [Page 944] squash, beets and other vegetables, presumably for the passengers’ tables. There had been no change of linen on the voyage and what linen had been originally supplied had been nowhere near enough to go around. The food was said to be bad and far from sufficient, and the rice and cereals were full of weevils. The ship’s plumbing had broken down and there was difficulty in getting drinking water, let alone water to wash with. A number of repatriates who by some device before sailing had with them more money than others immediately upon boarding the ship began buying favors from the stewards, so that in a short while the stewards had a mounting price for every service. Rackets quickly developed and at length the already short rations of food were partially withheld by the table boys and peddled all over the ship to those with money. The experiences of the repatriates on the Teia Mara are no doubt being reported by repatriates and need not be dwelt upon here.
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Very respectfully yours,
- The Gripsholm arrived at Port Elizabeth on October 4, 1:45 a.m., and departed for Marmagão the same day at 5 p.m., both South African standard time.↩