February 21, 2009
Under the big banyan tree at Gangshan Air Force Academy, Taiwan
Levi Xun, eighty-nine years old
Of the fifty-seven "eight hundred strong men", twenty-one died, leaving thirty-six.The names of the Eighty-sixth Army, the New Fourth Army, and the underground guerrillas are vividly remembered.I thought to myself: These survivors finally returned to the motherland in 1948, but the motherland was in the midst of a fiery civil war, devastated, and then the great division and mass displacement; some of them must have made it to Taiwan, and, There may still be someone alive, but the sea of people is so vast, how can I find this person?
Two days after the "Lost Search Order" was issued, I received a call saying, "Mr. Levi Xun has been found, and he is really in Taiwan."
In the writing room of HKU, I couldn't help but scream.
What kind of time and space, I was in Hong Kong in 2009, crossing mountains and seas, crossing clouds and crossing roads, I really found out that in the winter of 1942, I was sent to Rabaul by the Japanese army from the Nanjing Tiger Bridge Concentration Camp. A guerrilla leader battalion to do slave labor.
"Is he conscious? Can the language express it?" I asked anxiously.
"It's very clear, and," said the voice from the other end of Taipei, "I explained to him that you were looking for him, and Mr. Li said a word."
"How did he say?"
"He said, I know why my comrades-in-arms died in Rabaul, but I, Livi Xun, have survived to this day alone. I am waiting for today's call."
"Oh……."
hell ship
Long: How did you get sent to the Rabaul prisoner camp?
Li: When the Songhu War broke out in 1937, I was seventeen and my school was closed, so I joined the Loyalty and National Salvation Army founded by Dai Li.At that time, the Kuomintang and the Communist Party were robbing young intellectuals in the Jiangnan area.
Long: You were included in the mixed team, what kind of training did you receive?
Lee: Bombing, intelligence, arson, assassination.
Long: In 1942, on April 20th, the 31st year of the Republic of China, you were arrested for bombing the Japanese army in Shanghai?
Li: We don't have long guns, only short guns. We can't do long-distance attacks. We can only throw grenades, which probably destroyed four or five large material warehouses.We were attacked the next morning.Later I sneaked into Shanghai, and the Japanese military police came that night.
Long: Tell me about the situation in the Nanjing concentration camp.
Li: The Nanjing Concentration Camp is at Tiger Bridge, and the No. 1 Prison is where Wang Jingwei's wife, Chen Bijun, and Zhou Fohai were imprisoned after the war.Laohuqiao No. 1 Prison usually maintains 1,500 to 2,000 people. The Japanese army sent prisoners to three places every day to do hard labor, dig coal mines, build airports, etc., which was very hard.The concentration camp is self-governed by the prisoners. When I went there, Shangguan Zhibiao of the "Eight Hundred Heroes" was the commander-in-chief.
Long: After Shangguan Zhibiao came to Taiwan, he served as the head of the military service section in Tainan; what happened afterwards?
Li: About 400 people went in on the same day as me. At that time, I made up the captain of the 16th team.Basically, we were the coolies in the Nanjing Concentration Camp, like animals, two hundred coolies equaled two hundred horses and two hundred cows.
Long: How did you get to Rabaul?
Li: Depart on December 25, 1942, and arrive on January 24 of the following year.You don't know where you're going when you get on a boat - you're treated like an animal and don't tell the animal where it's going to be taken.
When we got out of the concentration camp, we boarded a stuffy tank truck with no windows, everyone went in, and locked it from the outside.The next morning, we arrived at Wusongkou, got off the bus, and boarded the boat like this.A few weeks before boarding the ship, it was fine.In the cabin on the bottom floor, as you can imagine, those of us have been locked up for several months, and some have been locked up for a year or two. We miss cigarettes, biscuits and candy.The Japanese were the richest and most proud at that time. The candy and cigarettes that the Japanese soldiers could not finish eating were thrown under our boat, and you can imagine the scene of people swarming up to snatch them.
Long: More than a thousand people are at the bottom of the boat?
Li: No, more than a hundred people, because he divided many boats.
Anyway, there are more than 100 people in my bilge.As soon as I went there, there was a situation of snatching cigarettes and candy, which was embarrassing.I couldn't figure out which one was the squad leader and platoon leader, but I was so angry that I said, "Don't rob!" At that time, the nationalism was really strong. If I scolded, I didn't grab it anymore. I said put it away, and the squad leader came. point.Then I went up to find the Japanese, but I didn't understand the language, so I talked with a pen.I mean, it's kind of you to give candy, you give cigarettes, we appreciate it, but it's insulting for you to throw it away like this.We can come up, you give us well.The Japanese understood, he said okay, and stopped the action.
Long: Did that boat go all the way to Rabaul?
Li: There is a book called "Hellship", have you read it?I can not see.
More than a hundred of us arrived at Rabaul, and we changed boats in the last week.Entering a bilge, there are already more than 300 people in it.Think about it, what is the situation with more than 400 people stuffed into the bottom of a boat that can only accommodate 100 people?
Long: Not enough air?
Li: The unventilated bilge is very hot.Not enough air.At the end of the boredom, I can only tell you that among the four hundred people, none of them wore clothes or underwear, and their heads and bodies were covered with lice.
Long: What about urinating?
Li: Where do you go to the bathroom?There was a staircase going up on each side of the bilge, but four bayonets were guarded at the top of each staircase. He said that five people could go up at a time, and after those five people got down, they could put another five people up.
So at the bottom of the stairs, it was full of people. "Sir! I want to defecate!" "Sir! I want to urinate!" They ignore you, and when they are in a hurry, they urinate, and those who are close to you and lying down under you will scold.No matter how urgent it is, the stool will come out.
Long: For example, defecation, how do you deal with it yourself?
Li: I just tore the sheets.
Long: Is there anything to eat?
Li: There is something to eat, but no water to drink, no water to drink.Some people drink their own urine, but because of lack of water, they don't even have any urine.At that time, it was very difficult to commit suicide, because the bayonet was there, and you could not even go up the stairs.It was like this for a week.
Just imagine: more than 400 national soldiers, all naked, with feces and urine flowing on their bodies, and their heads are full of lice.It really is a hell ship.
Long: When you landed in Rabaul, many people carried you down?
Li: Whoever lifts them all walks down.
Long: The other boats were said to be too weak. They were shot dead by Japanese soldiers as soon as they landed on the pier. Do you know that?
Li: I have never heard of this, at least not on our ship.
no red potion
Dragon: Such a hellish voyage, no one dies?
Li: All the physical strength was exhausted, but no one died. No one really died.When does death start to die?Let me tell you, when you land on the shore, start working ten days later, and only when you die will the real start.
Long: How to say?
Li: We were organized into several brigades, called "China Special Labor Team", and we went out to work separately.In a brigade of more than 500 people, two-thirds died in the end, leaving only more than 100 people.Their work is harder than ours.When the U.S. military came to bomb, they rushed to repair the airport day and night. When the bombing was broken during the day, they had to repair it at night. less than the sun.My team is doing dock loading and unloading.
Long: So during the whole process in Rabaul, have you ever seen Taiwanese Japanese soldiers?
Li: Yes, they are military men from Taiwan. There are a few who can still talk.
Long: You Chinese prisoners, how do you feel about the surveillance of these Taiwanese soldiers?What is your relationship?
Li: What do you think we can talk about? Can we encourage him to have national thoughts?No, everyone agrees with each other.
On the first day we went to work, a brother came back to me in the evening and told me, Captain, today I met many young people from Taiwan who are also doing hard work.Soon, we found that there were thousands of young people from Taiwan working in Rabaul, and more than a thousand strong men from Guangdong and Hong Kong.
Long: At that time, the embassy of the Republic of China in Australia sent documents to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that there were more than 6,900 "Taiwanese young men" in Rabaul who needed to be repatriated to Taiwan.Including some old and weak women and children, there may be more than 8,000 in total.
Li: Let me tell you, our embassy is very poor. After the war, Taiwanese did not come back through the embassy.It was the Allied ships that sent them back home like Japanese soldiers.
Long: Uncle Li, were you seriously abused by the Japanese soldiers in the Rabaul concentration camp?Did you just say that death really begins after Rabaul?
Li: I have to tell you to understand this.Ten days after going ashore, we started work. At that time, we were exhausted, and we didn't know each other very well, and we had never cooperated.For example, if you lift a box and one person is too weak to lift it, two people need to lift it; two people can lift it up, but if you put it down, if you don’t put it down at the same time, your feet may be scratched, or your hands may be scratched, or you may be injured. The nail is hooked.You work this afternoon, as long as you see blood, you are guaranteed to die for five days.
Long: Is it because there are no medical supplies?
Li: He has medical supplies. Next door to our camp is the health materials department. They have everything in there, but they don’t give them.
Long: Not even the red potion?So a small wound will kill you?
Li: Not even the red potion.Very scary, you scratched it this afternoon, a small wound, nothing, the next morning the place was already hard.Of course, everyone still goes out to work for one day, and can still work the next day; when you wake up the next morning, the place is festered.Maggots were born on the fourth day.
Long: No one will take care of maggots?
Li: Yes, the Japanese are here.He set up a "medical and sick company" at the top of the camp.The patient is dragged there to lie down, which is equivalent to a "sick cell".The day before the Japanese soldiers took us outside to dig a big hole.The next afternoon, he went to the "sick cell" to see. For the first time, he picked out twenty-nine that he thought would not survive, carried them out, pushed them into the pit, shot them again, and covered them with soil.
Long: That - isn't it buried alive?
Li: It's like being buried alive.Twenty-nine were buried alive in this way the first time.
Long: How many days have passed since you went ashore?
Li: About fifteen days.About five days later, another 20 were buried alive, and the third time there were about a dozen. In total, I know about 60 or so who were killed in this way...
At that time, I thought, I only have 80 days to live.Because, I led four hundred people, and several people died like this every day. Even if five people died a day, it would be my turn in eighty days.
Long: The Japanese army also conducted human experiments on Australian soldiers. Didn't this happen in the prisoner camps in China?
Li: I see only this kind of one: He picked twenty of us with the best physical strength, and picked them out. What was the experiment?It is to let you eat only one catty of vegetables, two catties of sweet potatoes and so on every day, and see how hungry you can be and you can still live.
I remember that there was a "eight hundred heroes" named Xu Yougui who was arrested for experimentation.One day he was so hungry that he couldn't bear it and escaped back. After he escaped, he begged for food with the cook.
