A World War II Story: A Vicious Japanese Prison-Camp Guard and Catholic Nuns

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When the Japanese conquered the Philippines during World War II, the Americans there were put into prison camps. One of the guards, Konichi, was terrible. The report below is from a priest from America who was a prison-camp prisoner.

"The hatred of Konichi grew so strong that one internee said: 'I would gladly give my life, if only I could get a chance to kill Konichi.' We wrote a song about Konichi, and sang it for the internees around the campfire. We could not use his name in the song, because the Japanese guards were listening... So in place of 'Konichi' we sang "Da dee dee."...

This is the song:
  Who's the boy
  Fills us all with joy?
  Clever, kind and coy--
       Da Dee dee!

 Live in Three,
 Bosses you and me...
 We'll hang him from a tree!
      Da dee dee!

Your starvation causes him no pain...
Why if our army wasn't here, he'd do it once again!

In ninety hours
That boy will be ours!
We'll put him in the cawas!
   Da de dee rah, rah, rah!

“The cawas were the big metal pots we used for cooking the rice.” (The guards lived in Barracks 3.)

  "The only ones who prayed for Konichi were the nuns. They were alarmed by the intensity of the hatred which they could see in the internees.They were trying to live by the beautiful words that our Lord said on the hillside in Galilee during the Sermon on the Mount: 'Love your enemies! Do good to those who persecute you!' So they prayed for Konichi that the Virgin Mary would persuade her son to save him from the wrath of the internees, and rescue him from the power of the devil.
 "By the time of our liberation came, the hatred of Konichi had grown to include all of our Japanese guards."
 Unexpectedly near the end of the war, American paratroops and Filipino guerrillas attacked the camp to free the prisoners, and they quickly killed the 200 Japanese guards.
 "This did not satisfy the hatred of the internees. When the great Amtracks smashed over the barbed  wire, and roared into the camp, the internees began to drag the dead Japanese in front of them, so that their bodies would be crushed by the sharp steel cleats of the caterpillar treads." But the Amtrack drivers would not drive over the bodies.
 "Konichi was not among the dead. He was smart. As soon as the air raid began, he escaped." Then he continued his war crimes.
"Eventually he was captured and tried. He was suffering from tuberculosis, so the Americans were hurrying his trial. They did not want him to die a natural death. And Konichi asked to become a Catholic! He was instructed in the faith during the last days of the trial. Eventually he was convicted and sentenced to hang by the neck until he was dead.

“On the morning of the execution–very early, while it was still dark–he was brought down to the gallows, right there in Los Banos in the exact place where we were during our days in the prison camp! At the foot of the gallows he was baptized, and received his first Holy Communion.” Then he was hung.
"Baptism forgives all sin, and all the temporal punishment due to sin, even without confession. So Konichi went straight to heaven without even a stopover in purgatory.
"The nuns prayed for Konichi. They begged the Virgin Mary to save him from the wrath of the internees–which she did! They asked her to rescue him from the power of the devil–which she did! She really listens to every prayer, and then goes into action on D day, zero hour.
"That is why I am grateful whenever anyone says to me: ‘I am praying for you!’ If prayer could save Konichi–prayer could also save me…
“I think that Konichi is safe with our Lord and with the Virgin Mary, forever because of the prayers that were said for him by those nuns in Barracks 20.”

–from “Mama Mary and Her children,” by James B. Reuther, S.J. (Mandaluyong City, Philippines: Anvil Publishing, Inc, 2008), pp. 49-52