Life in Seoul following Pearl Harbor attack in 1941

Life in Seoul following Pearl Harbor attack in 1941

Japan staged a campaign to recruit Korean soldiers, below photo, during the Japanese colonial period (1910-1945). The top photo shows a district for Japanese resdients in downtown Seoul in the early 1940s. / Korea Times file By Robert Neff When Harold Barlow Quarton, the new American consul general in Seoul, arrived in Korea on Nov. 28, 1941, there was little doubt in his mind that war was in the air. On a trip from the United States to Japan, he spotted a large fleet of Japanese warships steaming east ― in the direction of Hawaii. When he arrived in Japan, he was conveyed to Korea by “devious routes” aboard ferryboats and trains ― the windows covered with cardboard blinds to prevent him and his fellow passengers from observing military movements and installations. In Seoul, the tension between the Japanese officials, whom he described as being extremely polite, and the Westerners living in Korea was at a dangerous level. Nearly three quarters of the American community in Korea had left the previous year but those who remained ― mostly missionaries and businessmen ― were viewed with suspicion and treated with barely-concealed contempt by the Japanese. Yes, war was in the air, but he never expected it to begin so soon. Early in the morning on Dec. 8, Quarton was awakened by a missionary who telephoned him seeking confirmation that war between the United States and Japan had begun. He had heard nothing about it so he immediately called Gerald Phipps, the British consul general, for verification. Phipps acknowledged that he, too, had received a telephone call from Ethel Underwood, an American missionary, who claimed that Pearl Harbor had just been attacked by the Japanese. He told Quarton that he could not verify the validity of Underwood’s news. Verification was soon made when the Japanese police arrived at the gate of the British consulate and delivered an order for Phipps to appear at the Foreign Affairs Bureau at 2:30 p.m. The situation at the American consulate was a little different. “I got the report on my shortwave radio, and at 9 a.m. we were handed a ‘special notice’ in Japanese which stated that ‘the imperial army and navy fell into a state of war with Great Britain and the U.S.A.,” recalled Quarton in a newspaper interview with Wisconsin State Journal. Both consulates spent the morning burning most of their confidential documents and preparing to be searched. Even though the war between Japan and the allies had begun with an attack upon American soil, the Japanese in Korea seemed to harbor a greater hostility toward the British diplomats. The British were warned not to attempt to leave the compound or use their telegraph. For emphasis, a truckload of Japanese gendarmes guarded the compound. This may have accounted for Quarton’s belief that the British consulate was raided that morning when in fact it took place later that afternoon. According to Donald N. Clark’s book, ``Living Dangerously in Korea,’’ the raid upon the British consulate took place following Phipps’ appointment at the Japanese Foreign Affairs Bureau. “Plainclothesmen then descended on the British compound to enforce house arrest, beginning with a thorough search during which the British staff were made to stand, shivering, in the garden. The police took the radio, cutting off their contact with the outside world, and by 5:30 p.m., after a ‘harrowing afternoon,’ the compound had become a prison. ‘We are in an impenetrable fog,’ wrote Aline Phipps in her diary, ‘where we hear no one nor make ourselves heard.’” The raid on the American consulate took place at about the same time. Quarton claimed that “about 350 little brown boys (Japanese soldiers) swarmed the place, scaling the walls, running everywhere, inspecting everything. Radios, reports, account books, maps, and firearms were confiscated.” The Japanese soldiers were thorough with their search, even going so far as to squeeze the toothpaste out of their tubes to verify the contents. They were also somewhat destructive; knocking off locks from trunks and even cutting open unsecured bags. After the search, most of the buildings on the consulate grounds, including the consulate general’s office and the Seoul Club, were locked and sealed. Quarton and his two assistants (vice-consul Arthur Emmons and interpreter William R. Mayers) were then confined to their quarters. To ensure that the men stayed in the compound, a Japanese guard post was set up in a building that once served as the marine barracks at the turn of the century. Throughout Seoul, male Westerners, with the noted exception of the Germans, were rounded up, interrogated and then confined. Many were not allowed to return to their homes and families for several weeks while others, less fortunate, were confined for months. Many of these men were tortured by the Japanese police or their Korean underlings. The most popular torture was the “water cure” or as the Japanese called it, a “drink of water.” According to Quarton, naked prisoners were tied up with their hands and knees drawn to their chests and then a large diameter rubber hose was forced into the victim’s mouth. Water, poured from five-gallon tea kettles, was forced down these tubes causing water to “spurt from the prisoner’s eyes, ears and nose.” When the prisoner lapsed into unconsciousness, he was beaten with rubber truncheons and hoses on the head, feet, shoulders, and back. Often the torture would be repeated five or six times. Quarton insisted that the torture was not fatal but did lead to other serious complications such as pneumonia and tuberculosis. Clark notes that the most notorious torturer was a Korean named Song Kap-chin. He was later convicted of war crimes and sentenced to 10 years of hard labor. For the most part, the diplomats were well treated. During an intense search of the consulate on Christmas day, the Japanese demanded Quarton open the vaults and safes which still contained some documents, but, despite a gun pointed at him, he refused. Dumbfounded at his obstinacy, the Japanese relented. Recalling the incident, Quarton scoffed: “The Japanese admire fat people and they treated me pretty well.” But, by the time Quarton was repatriated to the United States, he was 34 pounds lighter ― part of the reason was the low quality and quantity of food. When the consulate was seized it had only a single trunk full of canned goods and a limited amount of funds to purchase food. A strict rationing was implemented. Breakfast was often no more than a “wormy apple” and lunch consisted of a mere fish cake. After the fall of Singapore in February 1942, the Japanese presented the Americans with 250 eggs. Quarton worried that the eggs would spoil and offered to take only 100. The Japanese warned him that whatever he did not take would be given to the British. “The Japs tried very hard to treat us better than the British,” explained Quarton. Also when Singapore fell the Japanese brought the Americans a bottle of saki so that they could help celebrate the Japanese victory, but the Americans refused to cooperate. “We refused to open the bottle; they tried to take back the bottle and we refused to give it back. We saved it and celebrated Washington’s birthday [with it].” It wasn’t only food that the American consulate lacked. The Korean winter of 1941/42 was relatively a mild one but the consulate was very short on fuel. When the coal was exhausted they were forced to cut down one of the trees on the compound. This additional fuel supply barely allowed them to heat one room and small amounts of water. The British, however, had a large supply of coal and Quarton considered asking them for some but was afraid of the Japanese reaction. On March 23, he and his staff were moved to the American consulate in Yokohama, Japan, where they remained under confinement. Supplies quickly ran out and the diplomats were allowed to eat, under guard, in the barroom of a second-class hotel. “We couldn’t eat at the better hotels because that would ruin their patronage,” explained Quarton. While in Yokohama, he witnessed Doolittle’s bombing of nearby Tokyo. The raid, which occurred on April 18 at about noon, caught the Japanese completely off guard. “They just couldn’t believe it was true,” recalled Quarton. Finally, on June 17, the American diplomats were placed aboard a ship filled with American and British citizens being repatriated back to the West. Quarton, along with hundreds of other repatriated Americans, arrived in New York on Aug. 25, 1942 ― weary and thinner from his long “unbelievable” ordeal in the Far East.