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Brutality of War


This article is taken in its entirety from W.H. Stewart's


Many Americans were interned on Dublon Island, Truk Lagoon by the 41st Garrison.  Some were shot out of the skies over the lagoon and many more were transferred to the island from other areas of the Pacific.  One such Marine Corps pilot was Colonel “Pappy” Boyington, whose exploits would be depicted on television forty years later in a series known as “Baa Baa Black Sheep.”  His unfortunate arrival on Truk coincided with the attack of February 17th.  Just as the transport carrying him set down on an airfield in the lagoon, it came under fire from American planes.

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United States fighter and bomber pilots were not the first Americans to get a firsthand look at the naval installations Japan had constructed since taking over the islands at the beginning of World War I.  Possibly Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan may have seen these facilities in 1937, but certainly several members of the U.S. submarine Sculpin were taken to Truk some three months before “Operation Hailstone” under the most unwelcome circumstances.  The fact, however, would do U.S. Naval Intelligence little good, as the visit would go unrecorded until after the war.

On November 19, 1943, the submarine Sculpin was under severe attack by the Japanese destroyer Yokohama and became inoperative as a fighting machine.  The captain ordered the submarine to surface in the vicinity of the attacking Japanese and gave the order to abandon ship.  The crew had little time as the vessel was to be scuttled before it could fall into the hands of the Japanese.  Forty-two members of the Sculpin were picked up by the Japanese and taken to Truk.  The captain of the Sculpin was not among them, having elected to remain aboard the sinking submarine.

The survivors of the Sculpin arrived on Truk on November 20.  Thirteen were placed in a small cell on Dublon and subjected to constant beatings by rifles and clubs and were denied medical treatment.  Three Americans underwent amputation without anesthesia.  One was forced to stand at attention for forty-eight hours.  After a brief period of imprisonment at Truk, the survivors were divided into two groups and placed aboard the escort carriers Chuyo and Unyo bound for Japan.  On December 3, 1943, just a short distance from Tokyo, the Chuyo was sent to the bottom by torpedoes from the American submarine Sailfish.  Those American prisoners aboard the Unyo, joined by the single American survivor of the Chuyo, would work in labor camps in Japan until the end of the war.