thedrifter
05-12-06, 07:01 AM
Posted on Fri, May. 12, 2006
WWII photos showed POW abuse by Japan
TERENCE SUMNER KIRK | 1916 - 2006
By DOMINGO RAMIREZ JR.
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER
BURLESON -- The stark photos of malnourished U.S. Marines graphically depict Terence Sumner Kirk's life in Japanese prison camps during World War II.
It was a four-year existence that Mr. Kirk didn't want the world to forget.
Risking a certain death sentence if he was caught by Japanese soldiers, Mr. Kirk built a pinhole camera from scraps of cardboard and used smuggled-in photo supplies to snap priceless photographs of prison life so the horrors could not be forgotten.
"He placed the photographs in oilcloth and buried it in the latrine," said Roger Mansell, director of the Center for Research Allied POWS Under the Japanese in Los Altos, Calif. "He feared that if Japan would be invaded, they would kill everyone in the prison and no one would know about them. He hoped at least someone would find the photographs."
Mr. Kirk and other surviving Marines, however, walked out of the Fukuoko No. 3 prison in Japan in 1945 after soldiers there announced that the war was over.
Mr. Kirk kept his secret for 38 years after signing what was in effect a gag order with the War Department prohibiting prisoners held by the Japanese from telling their stories without government permission; his wife and children weren't even aware that he had been a prisoner of war.
But in 1983, Mr. Kirk, convinced that the gag order no longer applied, released his memoirs and prison photographs in his book, The Secret Camera, and lectured all over the country about the Marines in the Japanese prison camps.
The lecture tour continued until his death Wednesday.
Mr. Kirk died at his home in Burleson after suffering a heart attack. He was 89.
"He was very open about what had happened to him in those prisons," said stepdaughter Carolyn Noonan of Bosque County. "He never once said he didn't want to talk about it because he believed people needed to know what happened."
Born in Harrisburg, Ill., Mr. Kirk was one of seven siblings raised in an Illinois orphanage. He joined the Marines in 1937 and was later sent to China and assigned to a security detail at the U.S. Embassy. He was captured on the day the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.
He spent the next four years in a series of prison camps, used as slave labor in the steel mills and to pull carts full of dead men to Japanese crematoriums.
It was at his last prison, Fukuoko No. 3, that Mr. Kirk built the camera. A Japanese interpreter smuggled a glass plate for the camera and other photo supplies to Mr. Kirk.
"Other Marines would stand guard as he shot the photographs," Noonan said.
Mr. Kirk shot eight photographs, but he managed to develop only six showing the sick and dying prisoners.
Initially, the city where the prison camp was located was slated to be the primary target for the second atomic bomb dropped by the U.S., Noonan said, but it was later switched to Nagasaki.
Mr. Kirk remained a Marine after the war, serving for 30 years and retiring with the rank of master gunnery sergeant. He later worked as a technical adviser for the FAA and retired in July 1976.
But Mr. Kirk never stopped lecturing about his experiences as a POW. He was awarded the Purple Heart in 2004, a six-decade delay because of bureaucracy.
"He was very straightforward, without any bitterness," said Helen McDonald, director of programs at the Admiral Nimitz State Historic Site -- National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg. "He would tell his audiences this is what happened and how important it was to remember it."
A memorial service for Mr. Kirk will be held at 1:30 p.m. today in the Dallas-Fort Worth National Cemetery in Dallas.
Domingo Ramirez Jr., (817) 685-3822 ramirez@star-telegram.com
Ellie
WWII photos showed POW abuse by Japan
TERENCE SUMNER KIRK | 1916 - 2006
By DOMINGO RAMIREZ JR.
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER
BURLESON -- The stark photos of malnourished U.S. Marines graphically depict Terence Sumner Kirk's life in Japanese prison camps during World War II.
It was a four-year existence that Mr. Kirk didn't want the world to forget.
Risking a certain death sentence if he was caught by Japanese soldiers, Mr. Kirk built a pinhole camera from scraps of cardboard and used smuggled-in photo supplies to snap priceless photographs of prison life so the horrors could not be forgotten.
"He placed the photographs in oilcloth and buried it in the latrine," said Roger Mansell, director of the Center for Research Allied POWS Under the Japanese in Los Altos, Calif. "He feared that if Japan would be invaded, they would kill everyone in the prison and no one would know about them. He hoped at least someone would find the photographs."
Mr. Kirk and other surviving Marines, however, walked out of the Fukuoko No. 3 prison in Japan in 1945 after soldiers there announced that the war was over.
Mr. Kirk kept his secret for 38 years after signing what was in effect a gag order with the War Department prohibiting prisoners held by the Japanese from telling their stories without government permission; his wife and children weren't even aware that he had been a prisoner of war.
But in 1983, Mr. Kirk, convinced that the gag order no longer applied, released his memoirs and prison photographs in his book, The Secret Camera, and lectured all over the country about the Marines in the Japanese prison camps.
The lecture tour continued until his death Wednesday.
Mr. Kirk died at his home in Burleson after suffering a heart attack. He was 89.
"He was very open about what had happened to him in those prisons," said stepdaughter Carolyn Noonan of Bosque County. "He never once said he didn't want to talk about it because he believed people needed to know what happened."
Born in Harrisburg, Ill., Mr. Kirk was one of seven siblings raised in an Illinois orphanage. He joined the Marines in 1937 and was later sent to China and assigned to a security detail at the U.S. Embassy. He was captured on the day the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.
He spent the next four years in a series of prison camps, used as slave labor in the steel mills and to pull carts full of dead men to Japanese crematoriums.
It was at his last prison, Fukuoko No. 3, that Mr. Kirk built the camera. A Japanese interpreter smuggled a glass plate for the camera and other photo supplies to Mr. Kirk.
"Other Marines would stand guard as he shot the photographs," Noonan said.
Mr. Kirk shot eight photographs, but he managed to develop only six showing the sick and dying prisoners.
Initially, the city where the prison camp was located was slated to be the primary target for the second atomic bomb dropped by the U.S., Noonan said, but it was later switched to Nagasaki.
Mr. Kirk remained a Marine after the war, serving for 30 years and retiring with the rank of master gunnery sergeant. He later worked as a technical adviser for the FAA and retired in July 1976.
But Mr. Kirk never stopped lecturing about his experiences as a POW. He was awarded the Purple Heart in 2004, a six-decade delay because of bureaucracy.
"He was very straightforward, without any bitterness," said Helen McDonald, director of programs at the Admiral Nimitz State Historic Site -- National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg. "He would tell his audiences this is what happened and how important it was to remember it."
A memorial service for Mr. Kirk will be held at 1:30 p.m. today in the Dallas-Fort Worth National Cemetery in Dallas.
Domingo Ramirez Jr., (817) 685-3822 ramirez@star-telegram.com
Ellie