I swung, as customary, into the consulate's rear entrance and found the Japanese employees huddled in the semi-gloom of drawn shades. Mr. Suzuki, in halting terms, said that war had started between Japan and America. Mary Ogawa, our receptionist and phone operator, confirmed this, and I raced upstairs to the consul's office to find [Consul] Arthur Tower and [Executive Officer] Jerry Warner in a quick huddle. Tower was staying in Jerry's house, both had heard radio news that morning of American installations in the Philippines being bombed, and had come prepared for the worst. Jerry had simply grabbed a tooth brush.

I n Kobe I had affiliated with a Masonic lodge, and after monthly trips to Yokohama I received the thirty second degree. As lodge secretary one of my current actions was to place the large wooden box of lodge records in a filing cabinet among my personal papers. After the war, the reopened lodge was the only one whose records were intact.

I finished my portion of the destruction and had gone through my personal papers before I was told that the gendarmerie or kempi authorities had arrived. I locked the file cabinets in my area, and joined the others upstairs. This was about 11:00 a. m., two precious hours for needful steps, despite our earlier efforts to strip files and equipment to the minimum. It always takes longer than one might think. While I had been busy burning, Colin had come and left some traveler's checks, which he hoped I could pass to his mother in England. We shook hands and he left, shortly to be imprisoned, then interned with other foreigners, and finally freed.

Late in the afternoon we were bundled into cars and taken to the Tor Hotel, the second of Kobe's two European-style hotels and up the hill from the commercial area. Here we were in separate rooms off a first floor corridor, each with black-out curtains. The next several days I was confined to my little hotel room with its bath; three times daily a guard would bring food, and that would be it. My room was bare except for a bed and a small table with a box of matches, so I spent hours making wooden fences and designs and counting wall patterns while huddled under a blanket, for it had turned cold.

Jerry's house was sizeable, with four bedrooms, one a sleeping porch. I had the latter, while next to me was Jerry, and down the hall on the same side were Arthur and Scotty. Across from them was Mary. There were also two bathrooms, one opposite mine and Jerry's. Downstairs was a large general reception entrance with a fireplace and four guards, two on each twelve hour shift duty around the clock. This was house arrest. Jerry and Arthur converted a small, first floor storage room into a food and liquor storage area for shipments that only the week before had come through Japanese customs, a cache that proved a lifesaver in supplementing some meager fare. Our major base though, was the large living and dining rooms with a door into the big entry area. Scotty's cook was permitted to work for us, while Jerry's housemaid continued. Mary was in charge of them, and in one meal each day she prepared an American dish for five. The expenses were split four ways among the men, and for a period I was on credit, on the cuff as we joked, until the Swiss were able to allocate funds.

Details remain sharp. A small space along the side of the house, about 20-25 feet wide, had a path down the center 26 steps long and wide enough for two. Since Jerry was tall, it took him 24 steps. We had the numbers exactly. In the adjacent rear was a tennis court as part of the grounds of the British consul general. Later with routine established, we had the chance to talk with them briefly through the fence when their guards and ours were not around. Finally, we got permission to watch Jerry play tennis with them. We had no visitors or radio, but simply the Japanese press and three English language newspapers, the Japan Advertiser, the Osaka Mainichi (English edition), and Kobe Chronicle, wherein nothing cheered us as the tide of war swept the U.S. back throughout the Pacific. We could recognize that Singapore and Java had fallen, and in the Philippines, Corregidor too. Obviously staged, there was a photo of the tunnel at Corregidor lined on both sides with typewriters, but there was enough truth in this impression of bureaucracy to irritate.

What proved to be our only dissension was brought on by developing strains. Isolated as we were, Jerry and Scotty pressed Arthur to demand that we see the Swiss, our protecting power. Arthur resisted, not wanting to ask the Japanese military, asserting the Swiss were taking every practical way to reach us. In a climactic evening Mary sensibly retired and I, disturbed the difference could disrupt our unity, did my best to follow a lighter perspective, apparently bridging the two views, as Jerry later confided. Nevertheless, the frustrations of our internment remained significant.

When the Swiss did get to us, we had various difficulties to overcome with the Japanese for ordinary living arrangements, such as finances and the disposal of home effects. Three times all was supposedly set for an exchange and three times it was indefinitely postponed. While it finally took on the fourth attempt, to our knowledge, we were not optimistic that we would leave Japan. We certainly believed the United States would win the war, but we also knew enough elementary Japanese psychology to expect that after heavy bombing of the fragile cities and impending military defeat there would be small chance for any diplomatic exchange. A scorched earth, military dominant mentality gave little ground for comfort.

Among the five of us we worked out an unspoken live and let live philosophy, realizing that we were in the same boat and had to get along. Each of us was entitled to his share of bad days and, again unspoken, two people could not have the same bad day. In this way we accommodated and found the qualities in each other. After all, we were together virtually every waking hour, so by June 1942, when we left Kobe, we had the equivalent of several years in a normal family. Arthur and Scotty I came to think of as uncles, Jerry as an older brother, and Mary as the lady of the family. The test came when on the exchange ship all four men ate together, and Mary couldn't because women had a separate seating.

Arthur Tower tended to be reticent, a leader of our little group. In some ways he showed the strain more than the rest of us, but he had a quiet sense of proportion, his tensions were greatly relieved by the exercise, and he was a man I respected. Jerry Warner was a good companion, who did his reading, took his diversions in schnellbach and tennis, and studied his Japanese some six hours a day. He was a Japanese language officer, but he was striving to become more proficient to use it after we were exchanged. I liked his temperament.

Two memorable forays came about because of our combined campaign. First, we insisted on church at Easter and second, that each of us have a physical examination before leaving Kobe. The kempi finally agreed, and we went to a nearby Catholic church for the service. The guards stayed in the back of the church, while we split up and sat among the congregation. A young Eurasian woman I knew sat beside me, and we had an animated conversation without the guards knowing, during which I learned what was happening in the foreign community and gave her news of us. Then came individual visits to the doctor, a Czech. He gave me full marks, and when I told him of the strenuous physical routine, he shook his head.

There was a third sortie, this time to Shioya, where I made final disposal plans. The house was silent as somberly I surveyed it with a guard. On the stairway, by an impulse, I removed the only two articles I retained. They were Interport championship pennants that I could not leave, but hoped someday to deliver to [British businessman] Jackie Tarr, who had put them there. I succeeded.

Here I must recount Jackie's saga. After training in India, he joined a Gurkha regiment that was captured at Singapore. He escaped and tramped the length of Sumatra to be picked up by a British destroyer that took him to Ceylon (Sri Lanka). He joined a second Gurkha outfit, fought through southeast Asia as a major, and was with the British during the Allied Occupation of Japan as a colonel. After resuming his shipping career, his last assignment was the Hong Kong office before retiring with his wife to a country cottage in his home county, Somerset. A married brother, also a retired colonel, lives nearby.

After some time the Swiss succeeded in visiting us infrequently, but became more regular when an exchange seemed definite and we prepared to leave Kobe. The day arrived, and we entrained for Yokohama under guard, being joined in Osaka by its four consular Americans. They had an easier time than we, and had even been allowed to go on outside forays.

Finally the promised day came and in mid-June we were taken to the Asama Maru, the exchange ship. There we were joined by our embassy crowd and other official personnel from the Western Hemisphere, by numbers of missionaries and their families, as well as by some businessmen. American officials and businessmen had been without their families, who left in November 1940. The missionaries had steadfastly refused to part with theirs, and it grated on some to see them all coming aboard, for the missionary component, we were told, had been an obstacle in the exchange. There were a few hitches that kept us in the harbor about a week but on June 25 we started for Lourenço Marques in Portuguese East Africa, now Mozambique.

We learned of the harsh treatment that numerous Americans received as prisoners supplemented by accounts of those shipped on at other scheduled stops. Our Tokyo embassy people told tales of the sweeping actions by the Japanese authorities on our embassy grounds and the delaying tactics that were used on press messages, in effect, to invoke a complete censorship. The bulk of our non-official Americans told of prolonged prison and military interrogations. Psychologically many were conditioned not to hope for any release or exchange for Japanese in the Western Hemisphere. There were, of course, treatment inequities on both sides in the course of the war, such as our mass relocation of Japanese-Americans, but their own experiences were vivid to our internees. Many years later, a Dutch national on a world cruise recoiled when he saw the seated line of uniformed Japanese immigration officials at our cruise port. The memories of his Java prison were too strong, he said, and he remained aboard.

At that time members of the Service were accused of being out of touch with America, whereas this idea was not broached for respected Americans who had long professional residence abroad. Early on the ship I had a conversation with a missionary who was quite concerned about the ability of Americans to meet with equal vigor the fighting qualities instilled in the Japanese. Hiding my resentment at his thinking and feeling he was brainwashed by years of Japanese propaganda, I told him forthrightly that we could bank on our Americans to do the job.

The ship was very crowded and, aside from ambassadors and most senior officers, we were housed in compressed steerage compartments of eight bunks each. Adjacent steerage sections held people like Charles (Chip) Bohlen, the Second Secretary in Tokyo, who became an outstanding career ambassador. When we picked up those in Hong Kong, Joe Alsop, the later well-known columnist, shared my transformer for our electric razors. The food was deliberately terrible, causing digestive problems, and one acquaintance, a Maryknoll priest, used to close his eyes and stab with his fork. There was no empty space, even on deck, but the weather was good.

From a distance, Hong Kong was a shattered hulk as the result of the fighting, and our men there, including Bob Rinden [previously assigned in] Montreal, had some hard stories. At one point the consular staff had been lined up in the belief they were to be shot. In the Saigon River we took on more passengers, including my Fletcher [School of Law and Diplomacy] friends, Harlan Clark from Bangkok and Kingsley Hamilton from Saigon. We were told that the Asama Maru, after adding our repatriates from Hong Kong and Saigon, had about 900 passengers and our companion ship, the Conte Verde, carried about 600, so both ships were crowded. Yet we were all United Nations nationals, so despite the known presence of police agents among the crew, we were comfortable to be with our compatriots.

Every life has exceptional days, but a personal best was July 23rd [1942], when we entered the harbor at Lourenço Marques. The first sight was an American flag freighter (later sunk, we heard) near the entrance. It blasted its whistle and we all cheered, because we felt near the end of a trying period. The Japanese and Italian ships docked end to end, and ahead of us waiting was the Swedish ship, Gripsholm, with its Japanese cargo from America. The time was not long, but it seemed so the next day as we collected our gear. Single lines went down the gangplanks, the Allied contingent walking on one side of a long warehouse, while the Japanese took the other. Our people were only able to take what they could carry, but we were told the Japanese had been given generous limits, including refrigerators.

In the midst of this there was a small scene. Japanese youngsters from the stern of the Gripsholm and American children from the bow of the Asama Maru, began talking to each other to compare notes on the food aboard. This is what interested them as they talked to their peers.

The time came for the Gripsholm to leave, and in the prior evening I searched the ship, finding each of my surrogate family. On reaching home I later learned of our group's various assignments. Arthur performed war-related work in the Department. Scotty, in San Francisco, had a like Treasury mission. Jerry followed Japanese activities from a post in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Mary, on Jerry's strong recommendation, worked for G-2 of the Army upon Pacific order of battle intelligence.

For the present, from the cliff beside our hotel and with a new Foreign Service group, I silently watched the ship's morning departure. My mood reflected a vagrant Churchillian aphorism: