Kawasaki, Maruyama Park - Japan
Kawasaki, Maruyama Park – Japan
This camp at Maruyama Park was about 8 miles from Kobe House in a northwest direction in the foothills of Kobe. The reason it is also known as Kawasaki Camp is because it housed members of ‘C’ Force from Singapore who were engaged in work at Kawasaki shipyards.
The camp consisted of 100 foot long fibrolite and wooden huts with tarred canvas roofs. Food was poor and in short supply, it consisted of a basic diet of rice and vegetable stew. Water was carried from a stream 1/2 mile away. The troops worked in go-downs on the wharf which was a walk of several miles. The IJA administration tried to move the camp closer to the wharves, but most of the buildings in the area had been destroyed by the US Air Force.
The days of “free for all” at the dockside warehouses was well and truly over. Almost all the POWs who had not by this time been sent to camps further away from Kobe and out of harms way, were now at Maruyama Park.
Following the incendiary raid on 5 June the remaining POWs at Kobe House were evacuated to Kawasaki Camp. Peter Omiridis WX12156 was one of the 2/4th in this group.
On 12 June a group of 50 POWs which included some ‘C’ Force, departed for Fukuoka sub-Camp No. 26, and on 21 June, 50 men from this group, the remnants of Kobe now moved to Wakinohama Camp.
Soldiers that were in this camp
Location of Kawasaki, Maruyama Park - Japan
