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Tortured Trukese, Page 2
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When my father heard that they had been caught, he hurried to Mwan Village to see Reiung.
This man, Reiung, was a Trukese “chinke” who worked for the Japanese army and, according to what my mother and father told me, wore an IJA uniform and was quite cocky about his standing with the IJA. He evidently acted as sort of a coordinator between the Trukese and the IJA, but generally took the side of the Japanese in any dispute.
My father asked Reiung if he could take the beating that Faustino and Bermanis had been sentenced. Reiung went to the Japanese, and they agreed to the exchange.
The two boys were freed and my father was bound with his hands behind his back and a wooden stick under his arms. For two days the Japanese beat him. The first to beat him was Reiung, the man he went to for help. I can remember the scars on his back. They looked as if his back had been sliced all over with a knife.
When my brother and cousin were released by the Japanese, my brother came to our house and told my mother what had happened and what our father had done. He took our mother to Mwan where they witnessed the two days of my father's torture.
After the US occupied Truk, in late 1945, Reiung hid for quite some time. I think he was both afraid that the US would arrest him for aiding the enemy and that he would face beatings, or worse, from his own people who felt he had betrayed them.
My dad did exact some revenge. A few months after the US occupation, my father caught Reiung alone and beat him up - not as badly as Reiung and the Japanese had beaten my father, but revenge nonetheless.
 An old Japanese pillbox in Mwan Village near where my father was beaten
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