One night I had the occasion to go outside my hut. I just went as I slept, naked. Because of the lice, bedbugs, and fleas which I tried to keep out of my garments. I passed a sentry and half asleep gave him a bob of the head. I had only gone a few paces when he shouted “KOO DA,” and brought me to a stop and to attention. He was a squat quarrelsome fellow who possibly, bored with his turn of sentry duty had determined to pass the time by baiting one of the Prisoners. This happened to be me. Luckily it was summer and a fairly warm night. The Jap jabbered and I understood that he was not satisfied with my bow. Sleep was still in my eyes. He then and there, out of the goodness of his shriveled heart, decided to give me a lesson in Japanese etiquette … how to be polite in the middle of the night, naked, and on the way to a necessary errand.
He drew himself up to his full five feet, put his bandy legs and splayed feet as closely together as possible, brushed imaginary dust off his tunic, which even at night I could see was filthy, dropped his hands to his sides and bowed to me form the waist about half way to the midriff. Then he recovered gave a satisfied smirk and said, “You bow!”
Shivering and miserable I kept bowing. He was not satisfied and repeated the performance. This went on for an hour. If torments there are in hell this must be one of them. This perverted tormenter had the power of death over prisoners and a false move or a blow on my part and I would not only die but also in all probability be tortured to death. This did happen to some of the prisoners in the camps.
Finally he tired and escorted me to the Guard House, There I was told to report to the Sergeant of the Guard for goodness knows what. The bowing one remained outside in the shadows. I went to the Guard House and found the Sergeant much annoyed at being disturbed. He wanted to know what I had done. I acted as dumb as I felt, shrugged, “ I do not know,” and taking him to the door pointed out the sentry peering from the shadows. The Sergeant spoke to the sentry and by the sound of his voice gave him a reprimand for disturbing the guard. He returned to me and admonished me for running around without clothes, this being disrespectful to constituted authority, that is, the Sentry. The next time I made sure I wore G-string and stopped to bow to the sentry in the middle of the night and while it was raining. Such is the importance the Japanese put on bowing.
Tom Marsh - Chapter 11 - The Other Sex
We saw very few of the women of Japan. As I have stated, on such times as we marched through the crowed districts to and from work, as in Yokohama, all civilians scuttled out of the way of the soldiery. If they did get in the way they were likely to be beaten. That is why when the Americans arrived it took some time to for the civilians to feel they were safe to line the curb. They are afraid of all soldiers.
I saw an amusing incident along these lines. We were being marched to work under a particularly obnoxious guard whom we called Moose Face and who, to us, seemed a little crazier then the others. He was one of the fortunate ones who had returned from active service abroad where possibly he had been wounded. To attract attention, when there were plenty around to observe him, he would spring out on the camp compound and go through extraordinary gymnastics, jumping around on all fours and springing into the air, finally standing erect and patting himself on the chest. Obviously he considered himself really something. The boys had a name for him but it is not printable.
