Ed Ichiyama, 522nd Field Artillery Battalion

Ed Ichiyama

522nd Field Artillery Battalion

Ed Ichiyama describes the terrible conditions he encountered inside of a camp. (Run time: 1:45)

So, that night after we stopped, some of us entered the camps, and let me tell you that the stench, the stench was so terrible. After, I don't know, one to two minutes, the stench of feces, urine, the acrid smoke of burning flesh, I mean, indescribable, unbelievable. I couldn't stand it much longer, so I went out retching after a minute, two maybe. But, the amazing thing is some of these guys with stronger constitutions leisurely roamed around the compound, and you know what they found? They found huge ovens, still warm, and next to the huge ovens they saw lots of 50 gallon drums filled with ashes. Now, nobody is saying these are human ashes because we don't know, but you can only surmise. And, these are huge ovens, not ovens to bake loaves of bread. Huge, huge, long ovens. Now, guys with even stronger constitutions went behind the compound, and there was a railroad siding over there. And, because this was in late-April, early-May, it snowed, still cold. They saw what they thought were neatly stacked cordwood in the boxed car or the railroad car, but upon close scrutiny these were corpses.