Twilight of the Gods: War in the Western Pacific, 1944-1945 (The Pacific War Trilogy Book 3)

by Ian W. Toll

More than 3,000 liberated Western civilians, emaciated but elated, began streaming out of the gates. But Hayashi had ordered the remaining 221 internees into a single large building near the center of the campus, intending to hold them as hostages and to bargain for their lives. Fearing a massacre, the U.S. commanders offered a ceasefire and parley. Hayashi agreed to free the internees in exchange for a guarantee of safe conduct to Japanese lines. In a scene that was not repeated at any other point in the Pacific War, Hayashi led his prison guards out of the building and through the university’s main gates, directly past the glowering stares of thousands of American soldiers. Civilian internees hurled verbal abuse at the Japanese as they marched. “Small bands of men and women followed them through the encampment jeering and hooting—the women loudest of all—until the Japanese plodded out of the camp and the gates clanged shut.”16 But the contract was honored. No shots were fired on either side, and Hayashi’s men were permitted to head south, where they would join the main concentrations of Japanese ground forces. As they parted ways with the Americans, each Japanese officer and soldier either saluted or bowed.