Massacre at Betio
A Last Secret 11
Seventeen New Zealand radio operators and soldiers were tied up to coconut trees in front of Commander Keisuke Matsuo house on Betio. The missionary Sadd, New Zealand trader McArthur, Reg Morgan, Cleary the dispenser and blind old Isaac Handley were there too. Occasionally, under armed guard, the men would be untied and fed. Joe Parker was asked if he would like to have his binds loosened as his hands had become swollen. A local constable, Frank Highland, heard Parker's reply: ‘No, you tied them tight, you can leave it as it is.’
After three days they were moved to an enclosure reserved for ‘native lunatics’ at the nearby Tarawa Central Hospital. Cleary wrote a letter asking for sugar or locally made molasses, tied it to a stone and threw it over the fence to Highland. A guard rushed at Highland and tried to hit him with a stick, but Highland walked away and quickly burnt the letter. He left Betio for another island, Eita, where he stayed for a few days. When he returned he had sugar and two bottles of molasses. Morgan suggested to Highland that he send a local girl to distract the guard. As it took place, Highland climbed the fence and handed over the molasses. Sadd, watching what happened, somehow obtained some biscuits and threw them over to young boys with Highland, telling them to keep them. A guard tried to push the coastwatchers back from the fence but one of them refused to allow a Japanese soldier to lead him by the arm. The soldier then presented his bayonet at which point the unknown coastwatcher calmly asked for a drink.
Sadd was cheerful and taught the others hymns and led singing. The prisoners were made to work on building a wharf, under the supervision of the Japanese civilian labourers – mostly Koreans. Others enslaved on that work were the pupils of KGV School.
‘All you thought about was your life,' pupil Fakatene Pili told Peter McQuarrie years later. ‘We were so weak, only one bowl of rice a day ... They didn't know English; they spoke with the bayonet. Pointed the bayonet at you, then pointed where you were to go.’
The Samoan pastor lupeli had not been detained and was allowed to live with a local family. Catholic Bishop Octave Terriene was allowed to stay in the presbytery. He asked Matsuo to allow him to visit the prisoners but was refused.
Around 2pm on 15 October 1942 something happened. What exactly it all was has been contested – and will be here – if only because most of the people involved were dead, some quickly, others a little later. By some accounts a passing American warship shelled the island and two aircraft attacked Japanese ships in the lagoon. WPHC official David Wernham conducted an official investigation later and said the cruiser USS Augusta opened fire on the island. It was said later that one of the prisoners offended the Japanese.
‘There was a story that when a warship came and shelled the island one of the prisoners escaped and ran down the beach,’ Catholic nun Mary Olivia, who was on Maiana Island at the time, says.
Another story was that during the air raids the prisoners clapped their hands. A nun on Abaiang, Sister Helena, said she had heard that Cleary had taken his shirt off and waved it at the American plane. Terriene said one of the prisoners had escaped and said a gang of labourers, armed with axes and knives, had gone to his house looking for him. Mikaere recalled the searchers going to the church.
‘One Japanese came to the bishop's fence and showed him his sword which was stained with blood. It was fresh. The Japanese said the European who had run away was dead.’
Mikaere could not identify the Japanese man but said he was not a soldier but a man who worked in an office. Colonel Joseph H Alexander of the US Marine Corps, who later wrote an account of the Battle of Tarawa, said Matsuo had become furious at the prisoner's reaction to an air raid.
‘He immediately ordered all prisoners brought before him, then drew his sword,’ Alexander writes. ‘Some of the native Gilbertese witnessed the consequences. Alfred Sadd stepped forward to offer himself as a sacrifice for the others, but he simply became the first to die.’
At around 5pm Mikaere said he heard a lot of noise and when he looked out he could see the white men standing in a line about 40 metres away.
‘While I was sitting in that house I saw all the Europeans sitting down in line in front of the first house inside the lunatic enclosure. There were a lot of Japanese coolies inside the enclosure.’
Presumably coolies was a reference to the Korean workers.
Mikaere said as the men sat on the ground another white man was pulled out of the house and laid down in front of the coast watchers. He believed it was Handley.
One story had it that Handley had called out; ‘They are going to kill us all, be brave lads’.
Mikaere did not see the first killing, but witnessed what followed.
One Japanese stepped forward to the first European in the line and cut his head off. Then I saw a second European have his head cut off and I could not see the third one because I fainted.’
Another witness was Pastor lupeli who, his granddaughter said years later, was also expecting to die that day.
‘I can remember my grandfather telling me that the Japanese tried to make Mr Sadd walk over the Union Jack. He refused to do that so they killed him.’
Ian Speedy can remember being told, without knowing where the information came from, that his grandfather Leslie had been among the last to die that day. Joe Parker, one account has it, was not beheaded but suffered a mortal slash from his neck to armpit and was kicked into his grave.
Time-Life correspondent Robert Sherrod who landed on Tarawa during the battle took notes on the executions and listed five names, including Sadd.
‘Postmaster Frank said all tied up and killed after stringing them up - with swords cut heads off - brought natives in to see execution.’
Stan Brown made several visits to Tarawa following the American landings and spoke to a number of people on Betio. He said eye-witnesses told him that when the aircraft flew over a prisoner tried to flash a message using a small mirror as a heliograph, outraging the Japanese who made them dig their own graves.
‘One story is that the Union Jack taken from Colony Headquarters was spread out before the shallow grave and the captives were told to wipe their feet on this flag before kneeling down,’ Brown said. ‘Reverend Sadd had always been a joke among the coast watchers since they first met him, when the stations were first being built. On this occasion he stepped forward, warned the others that they were about to die, and that none should give their captors the satisfaction that they would show fear. He then picked up the flag and kissed it.’
The family of Robert Hitchon believes that a Japanese labour corps officer carried out the first executions.
Mikaere, the man who fainted as he watched the beheadings, recovered as the Japanese were cleaning up.
‘When I came to, I saw the Japanese carrying the dead bodies to two pits on the west side of the lunatic enclosure.’
The pit, he said, was about 200 metres from the enclosure. Bodies in one babai hole, heads in another and the lot were covered with sheets of corrugated iron and coconut branches. An attempt was made to bum the bodies. Mikaere then related an odd detail about the men's effects.
‘When I was lying in the house, a Japanese coolie ran past and fell down close beside, with a tin full of European clothes. He took the tin of clothes and went back to the bishop's house. I informed the bishop about the death of the Europeans. The clothes were taken from me by other natives, except for one pair of shorts and one shirt.’
A couple of days later Frank Highland came back to Betio and with Constable Takaua said he looked later and the bodies were all partly burnt.
‘I lifted one body with just an arm burnt and showed it to Takaua,’ Highland said. ‘There were no heads on the bodies. I saw another heap in the pits and under the iron were the skulls.’
The bodies had probably been put into a babai pit nearby. A number of other local people, mainly boys, saw the executions from a distance, watching from up coconut trees. They fled and went to nearby Bairiki Islet and told of what they saw. Later in the day a plume of smoke was seen over the island and the people believed the Japanese were burning the bodies.
These were the dead that day. Ray Ellis of Ponsonby thought going to a warm climate would stop his knee playing up. Farmer Robert Hitchon was known for his severe shyness. Thames remembered Dallas Howe who built the convent there. Reg Jones was the oldest of the soldiers, the cabinet-maker from Ponsonby who had lived with his big Catholic family until war called. Claude Kilpin had never wanted to leave the farm at Manuwaru. Rod McKenzie of Kopaki was nearly blind in one eye, but he fooled the army to get in. Jack Nichol was fluent in Maori and on the Te Puke farm he had been a skilled horseman. Charles Owen of the Wairarapa would never see his Tiare not yet born. Matamata's Joe Parker too had found love with Taate who, too, was carrying a child. The teenage son of Les Speedy of Otahuhu would not be seeing his dad again.
The dismembered bodies of the radio operators lay scattered about Arthur Heenan had grown up in Middlemarch and wanted to get a tailor made suit in Suva on his way home. Rex Hearn had blazed a trail of memories. John McCarthy from Auckland had left a waitress dreaming of him. Arthur McKenna was a West Coast miner's son, a smiling lad from Big River. Tom Murray from Picton had gone to war with a tuxedo. Cliff Pearsall came from Wetherstones had been part of the group who loved parties. Allan Taylor from Waimate had not wanted the duty at all.
Other blood stained Betio too. Hospital dispenser Basil Cleary had been murdered. Australian Reg Morgan could have got out with the other Europeans on Tarawa. Captain Isaac Handley stayed too. Retired trader A M McArthur had a daughter who would for years puzzle at the senselessness of that day. Legend has it Tony Sadd sang Onward Christian Soldiers as he died.
Charles Owen was among the dead too. Way off to the south, his older brother, Corporal Jack Owen, had life-or-death control over hundreds of Japanese prisoners-of-war.
There was a footnote to the death of the New Zealanders that day. During the Carlson Raid nine American soldiers had been left behind on Butaritari, along with 18 dead Marines. The men hid for 14 days before they surrendered to the Japanese. They were taken to Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands, part of the same command structure that controlled Tarawa, and were held as POWs. The day after the executions on Tarawa the nine Americans were taken outside and beheaded.
©Michael J Field