Item Description
Original Items: One-of-a-kind set. Captain Walter R. Ross (ASN 13080846) was the bombardier in the 5th Bomb Squadron, 9th Bombardment Group, Fifth Air Force aboard the B-29 NIP CLIPPER which was shot down near Hiroshima on August 8th, 1945. He survived, with 10 of his crew, on open seas for a week and was rescued by a Japanese fishing boat. He was taken as a POW and was one of, if not the, first American to personally witness the devastation left by the Nuclear bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6th. He wrote a book about his experience which was published in 1995, it is called Courage beyond the blindfold: The last P.O.W.s of WWII.
Below is an excerpt from American POWS in WWII website located at this link.
On August 8, 1945, of all the 273 planes that departed Tinian for the attack on Yawata City, only the B-29 Nip Clipper was downed. The Co-pilot was Second Lieutenant Carlton Holden, twenty years old, and he had already completed sixteen bombing missions. The Nip Clipper had a crew of eleven members, and the target for the day was the industrial city of Yawata. Along with the other B-29s, they flew a long distance to reach Yawata. While releasing its bombs, the Nip Clipper took a hit to one of its wings, near the third engine. The wing caught fire. They decided to fly towards Okinawa, praying to reach there safely. However, in spite of the efforts made by the crew, it dropped down emitting smoke. 2nd Lt. Holden decided to parachute down first. He bumped his head on the hatch and was knocked unconscious, but came to before he landed in the sea. Other members of the crew followed. The captain, George Keller, also parachuted down to the sea; however, his plane was in a vertical spin, fell on him, exploded, and he was killed. The ten surviving members floated on the sea for seven days. They rode separately in eight lifeboats, and the only food was just a cake (hard candy) named ‘Charm’ for each one, which they ate half at a time. For the the duration, they survived on just a small amount of water. On August 15, they were saved by fishing boats along the coast, and were held by the Military Police Headquarters of Hamada. The bombardier, Second Lieutenant Walter Ross remembers the awful anger of the Japanese people, it being right after the announcement of Japan’s surrender, which was made by the Emperor of Japan. A guillotine and baskets had been set up, and it seemed certain they would be beheaded the next day.
The man who saved them was Mr. Nobuiti Fukui of the Military Police. (He was nicknamed the “The Tank”, so he might have been a stout man.) He was fluent in English. On hearing that fishermen were capturing American soldiers, he hurried to the scene of the arrest. Just in time, he saved them and put them onto the train and took them to Hiroshima. They arrived in Hiroshima on August 17. Second Lt. Fukui of the Military Police said, “Let me show you what the US Forces have done,” and on the way to Ujina Military Police Headquarters, he stopped the truck in front of the Red Cross Hospital, and made them view the wreckage of the city and streets. They were the first Americans who visited Hiroshima after the atomic bombing. Fukui went on, “Look hard what had been done with only one bomb, only one…” There was nothing moving on the streets, no dogs, nor cats. No one was seen walking in the streets. Holden recalls, “What I saw was just two barber chairs sitting in the middle of the town. Every part of town was just wreckage.”
July 26, 1995 The Sun Newspapers
The Last POWs
50 years after he was captured - just before Hiroshima - vet remembers captivity & man who saved him
Adrift on a life raft in the Sea of Japan in August, 1945, 1st Lt. Walter Ross had only a vague idea that just days earlier, the U.S. had obliterated the Japanese city of Hiroshima with a sort of super bomb. When Ross and his comrades from the 9th Bombardment Group heard a spectacular explosion on Aug. 9, two days after their B-29 Superfortress was blown out of the sky over Yawata by Japanese forces, they had no way of knowing that America had just dropped a second atomic bomb, this time on Nagasaki. They also had no way of knowing that within days, they would become forced visitors to the devastated city of Hiroshima — the last American POWs of World War II. Ross talked about the physical abuse and psychological torture he and his comrades suffered at the hands of an angry Japanese military and citizenry 50 years ago, as he and wife Lucille relaxed in their fashionable Lenexa home. The two also discussed their just-released book, "Courage Beyond the Blindfold: The Last POWs of WWII." "Am I a hero?" Ross said. "No, I just did what I had to do. What you'll find threaded throughout this book is that we were completely lucky." The circumstances in August, 1945, were anything but lucky, however. For the better part of seven days, the crew drifted, wary of sharks, on life rafts linked by shoelaces, subsisting on three mints and a few sips of water a day. It was early evening on the seventh day when the crew was spotted by relatively friendly Japanese fishermen, and taken to a fishing village, sort of a suburb of Hiroshima on the island of Honshu. Ross recounted the crew's welcome: "As we docked we were met by a group of villagers which by this time had grown into a large body of hostile people. The fishermen kept us on their boats while the villagers clambered on board. 'Americans!' they shouted, kicking the sides of the boat, beating us with large sticks. One man who looked like a member of the military smashed his large stick down onto my wrist, which split the skin wide open. Blood trickled down my wrist and down to my fingers. A huge gash opened between my thumb and wrist. Women threw rocks at us. Children gathered spiders and shoved them down the back of our necks." Shortly after that, members of the Japanese armed forces arrived, their modern weapons complemented by Samurai swords. The American crewmen were ordered to kneel and bow their heads. Recalled Ross: "I glanced at the knees of the men on either side of me, thinking I should remember who was beside me when I died. One of the officers ran his cold, shiny silver Samurai sword across the back of each of our necks. It sent the civilians into a wild cheer ... I was sure he was waiting for the right moment to decapitate us all." Instead, Ross and his comrades were jerked to their feet, tied together, and marched — blind-folded and bare-footed — about four miles to a military post. Eventually, the prisoners were to be transported to a camp in the rubble that had been Hiroshima. Ross and his crew mates prepared to board, but were interrupted by a speech being broadcast over loudspeakers. It was only later that they would learn that the speaker was Japanese Emperor Hirohito, announcing the Japanese surrender. On Aug. 17, with the war officially ended, Ross' future benefactor, Lt. Fukui, a Japanese Christian, appeared at the installation where the POWS were being held. It was Fukui who convinced a Japanese colonel to release the American POWs, and it was Fukui who loaded the prisoners onto a flatbed truck and drove them into the city of Hiroshima. As they entered the city, Fukui told the Americans to remove their blindfolds. Ross was stunned at the devastation. "The place looked like a giant steam roller had rolled over it, like a vacant lot in the U.S. when all of the buildings had been torn down and then bulldozed...There was no noise, not even a dog barking, not a sound, only quiet. Silence." In 1985, Walter Ross returned to Japan to visit Fukui, an encounter detailed in the book. "I made my peace with Japan by visiting my former captor," Ross said. "I recognize that the Japanese were not all brutal." But, Ross said he still harbored resentment for the treatment of American POWs. "I have no hatred towards the Japanese, but I hate the things they did - the decapitations, the brutality, the torture, the medical experiments..." Ross said of the 33,850 Allied troops taken prisoner by the Japanese, 12.500 or 37 percent, died during captivity and only nine percent are alive today. By contrast, of the 96,614 POWs captured by the NSDAPs, 1,121 died, and 50,000, or 51 percent are still alive.
This items in this grouping all belonged to Capt. Walter R. Ross and includes hundreds of pages of original documents, research, and much more. Taped interviews, uniform pieces, medals, dog tag and so much more, please see photos to know exactly what is included. Of particular note are original letters between "Tank" Fukui and his family and Ross. An incredible grouping from one of the last American POWs of World War Two.
Below is an excerpt from American POWS in WWII website located at this link.
On August 8, 1945, of all the 273 planes that departed Tinian for the attack on Yawata City, only the B-29 Nip Clipper was downed. The Co-pilot was Second Lieutenant Carlton Holden, twenty years old, and he had already completed sixteen bombing missions. The Nip Clipper had a crew of eleven members, and the target for the day was the industrial city of Yawata. Along with the other B-29s, they flew a long distance to reach Yawata. While releasing its bombs, the Nip Clipper took a hit to one of its wings, near the third engine. The wing caught fire. They decided to fly towards Okinawa, praying to reach there safely. However, in spite of the efforts made by the crew, it dropped down emitting smoke. 2nd Lt. Holden decided to parachute down first. He bumped his head on the hatch and was knocked unconscious, but came to before he landed in the sea. Other members of the crew followed. The captain, George Keller, also parachuted down to the sea; however, his plane was in a vertical spin, fell on him, exploded, and he was killed. The ten surviving members floated on the sea for seven days. They rode separately in eight lifeboats, and the only food was just a cake (hard candy) named ‘Charm’ for each one, which they ate half at a time. For the the duration, they survived on just a small amount of water. On August 15, they were saved by fishing boats along the coast, and were held by the Military Police Headquarters of Hamada. The bombardier, Second Lieutenant Walter Ross remembers the awful anger of the Japanese people, it being right after the announcement of Japan’s surrender, which was made by the Emperor of Japan. A guillotine and baskets had been set up, and it seemed certain they would be beheaded the next day.
The man who saved them was Mr. Nobuiti Fukui of the Military Police. (He was nicknamed the “The Tank”, so he might have been a stout man.) He was fluent in English. On hearing that fishermen were capturing American soldiers, he hurried to the scene of the arrest. Just in time, he saved them and put them onto the train and took them to Hiroshima. They arrived in Hiroshima on August 17. Second Lt. Fukui of the Military Police said, “Let me show you what the US Forces have done,” and on the way to Ujina Military Police Headquarters, he stopped the truck in front of the Red Cross Hospital, and made them view the wreckage of the city and streets. They were the first Americans who visited Hiroshima after the atomic bombing. Fukui went on, “Look hard what had been done with only one bomb, only one…” There was nothing moving on the streets, no dogs, nor cats. No one was seen walking in the streets. Holden recalls, “What I saw was just two barber chairs sitting in the middle of the town. Every part of town was just wreckage.”
July 26, 1995 The Sun Newspapers
The Last POWs
50 years after he was captured - just before Hiroshima - vet remembers captivity & man who saved him
Adrift on a life raft in the Sea of Japan in August, 1945, 1st Lt. Walter Ross had only a vague idea that just days earlier, the U.S. had obliterated the Japanese city of Hiroshima with a sort of super bomb. When Ross and his comrades from the 9th Bombardment Group heard a spectacular explosion on Aug. 9, two days after their B-29 Superfortress was blown out of the sky over Yawata by Japanese forces, they had no way of knowing that America had just dropped a second atomic bomb, this time on Nagasaki. They also had no way of knowing that within days, they would become forced visitors to the devastated city of Hiroshima — the last American POWs of World War II. Ross talked about the physical abuse and psychological torture he and his comrades suffered at the hands of an angry Japanese military and citizenry 50 years ago, as he and wife Lucille relaxed in their fashionable Lenexa home. The two also discussed their just-released book, "Courage Beyond the Blindfold: The Last POWs of WWII." "Am I a hero?" Ross said. "No, I just did what I had to do. What you'll find threaded throughout this book is that we were completely lucky." The circumstances in August, 1945, were anything but lucky, however. For the better part of seven days, the crew drifted, wary of sharks, on life rafts linked by shoelaces, subsisting on three mints and a few sips of water a day. It was early evening on the seventh day when the crew was spotted by relatively friendly Japanese fishermen, and taken to a fishing village, sort of a suburb of Hiroshima on the island of Honshu. Ross recounted the crew's welcome: "As we docked we were met by a group of villagers which by this time had grown into a large body of hostile people. The fishermen kept us on their boats while the villagers clambered on board. 'Americans!' they shouted, kicking the sides of the boat, beating us with large sticks. One man who looked like a member of the military smashed his large stick down onto my wrist, which split the skin wide open. Blood trickled down my wrist and down to my fingers. A huge gash opened between my thumb and wrist. Women threw rocks at us. Children gathered spiders and shoved them down the back of our necks." Shortly after that, members of the Japanese armed forces arrived, their modern weapons complemented by Samurai swords. The American crewmen were ordered to kneel and bow their heads. Recalled Ross: "I glanced at the knees of the men on either side of me, thinking I should remember who was beside me when I died. One of the officers ran his cold, shiny silver Samurai sword across the back of each of our necks. It sent the civilians into a wild cheer ... I was sure he was waiting for the right moment to decapitate us all." Instead, Ross and his comrades were jerked to their feet, tied together, and marched — blind-folded and bare-footed — about four miles to a military post. Eventually, the prisoners were to be transported to a camp in the rubble that had been Hiroshima. Ross and his crew mates prepared to board, but were interrupted by a speech being broadcast over loudspeakers. It was only later that they would learn that the speaker was Japanese Emperor Hirohito, announcing the Japanese surrender. On Aug. 17, with the war officially ended, Ross' future benefactor, Lt. Fukui, a Japanese Christian, appeared at the installation where the POWS were being held. It was Fukui who convinced a Japanese colonel to release the American POWs, and it was Fukui who loaded the prisoners onto a flatbed truck and drove them into the city of Hiroshima. As they entered the city, Fukui told the Americans to remove their blindfolds. Ross was stunned at the devastation. "The place looked like a giant steam roller had rolled over it, like a vacant lot in the U.S. when all of the buildings had been torn down and then bulldozed...There was no noise, not even a dog barking, not a sound, only quiet. Silence." In 1985, Walter Ross returned to Japan to visit Fukui, an encounter detailed in the book. "I made my peace with Japan by visiting my former captor," Ross said. "I recognize that the Japanese were not all brutal." But, Ross said he still harbored resentment for the treatment of American POWs. "I have no hatred towards the Japanese, but I hate the things they did - the decapitations, the brutality, the torture, the medical experiments..." Ross said of the 33,850 Allied troops taken prisoner by the Japanese, 12.500 or 37 percent, died during captivity and only nine percent are alive today. By contrast, of the 96,614 POWs captured by the NSDAPs, 1,121 died, and 50,000, or 51 percent are still alive.
This items in this grouping all belonged to Capt. Walter R. Ross and includes hundreds of pages of original documents, research, and much more. Taped interviews, uniform pieces, medals, dog tag and so much more, please see photos to know exactly what is included. Of particular note are original letters between "Tank" Fukui and his family and Ross. An incredible grouping from one of the last American POWs of World War Two.
- This product is available for international shipping.
- Eligible for all payments - Visa, Mastercard, Discover, AMEX, Paypal & Sezzle
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE
