Transcript
This area, Kobe. We called it Kobe House. We thought, "They must have known we're a prison camp here. They missed us." That wasn't right, though. We were just about ready to go to work, and 7:00 o'clock in the morning, and the air raid sirens were going, and you could hear the planes coming. They sound a lot closer. Then, all of a sudden, we heard, the bomb was coming down. The 500 pound oil bomb hit our building.
As I say, it was a three story building, with an attic up top. The attic, it was stacked with all the winter clothes, blankets, grey coats. It stopped the bomb from coming right through on us. We'd all gone down. The guys on the top floor come down to the first floor. Our floor was packed. We couldn't get out because two big steel doors, padlocked on the outside, so we were locked in, and we were ablaze. Well, the English, they were in a warehouse next to us. We were only separated by the width of a car. Being in two warehouses together. They were lucky. The bomb blew a wall out. They were able to get out, and they made the Jap guard unlock us and let us out. Otherwise, I would never be here.
