Death at Papago Park POW Camp

A Tragic Murder and America's Last Mass Execution

Jane Eppinga

• Publisher: The History Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781467135764
• eBook ISBN: 9781439660867
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World War II
• Index: History

This WWII true crime history reveals a shocking story of murder inside an Arizona POW camp—and the U.S. military's controversial response.
 
Though Arizona was far from any theater of battle during World War II, the grim realities of combat were brought home with the construction of POW camps. Located outside Phoenix, Camp Papago Park became famous for its prisoners' attempted escape through the Faustball Tunnel, but it also had a dark reputation of violence among its prisoners.
 
One casualty was Werner Drechsler, a prisoner who supplied German secrets to U.S. Navy authorities. Nazis held at Papago Park labeled him a traitor and hanged him from a bathroom rafter. Controversy erupted over whether the killing was an act of war or murder. Some also questioned the lack of protection Drechsler received for aiding in espionage. Ultimately, seven POWs were hanged for the crime. Author Jane Eppinga examines the tangled details and implications of America's last mass execution.

CHAPTER 1

DAY OF INFAMY

In 1939, Columbia Pictures produced a film based on Clarence Kelland’s book Arizona, set during the Civil War in Arizona Territory, at Old Tucson Studios near Tucson. The Fox Theatre, a grand Art Deco movie theater, was originally designed for vaudeville and silent movies. It was the site of the world premiere of the film Arizona starring William Holden and Jean Arthur. To economize during the Depression and onset of World War II, Columbia filmed the movie in black-and-white rather than color. By 1939, Americans were coming out of the Great Depression, but World War II was on the horizon. Adolf Hitler and his Nazis were wreaking devastation in Europe. His attack on Poland started World War II, and by 1941, Germany occupied much of Europe and North Africa. Japan saw its attack on Pearl Harbor as a preventive action to keep the U.S. Pacific Fleet from interfering with Japanese military actions in Southeast Asia against overseas territories belonging to Europe and the United States. Arizona’s contribution to the war effort included new airbases, resulting in the birth of Arizona’s aviation and manufacturing industries. After the war, the state experienced a population explosion when many veterans returned to live permanently in Arizona. World War II became a watershed in Arizona history, separating its existence as a Wild West frontier from a state with cities making use of the latest technical innovations.

Arizona was chosen to house prison camps for Japanese, Italians and Germans because its mild climate facilitated compliance with rules of the 1929 Geneva Convention. While its warm winter climate was pleasant enough, nothing was stipulated about keeping prisoners cool in the summer. However, it was the courage of its people that really marked the state. Lieutenant Colonel Barry Goldwater, a future senator and Republican presidential nominee, forced his way into military service in spite of his poor eyesight, and Arizona politician Ernest William McFarland is considered to be a father of the GI Bill, which provided education for Arizona veterans. He is the only Arizonan to serve in all three branches of Arizona government—two at the state level, one at the federal level. He was a democratic senator from Arizona from 1941 to 1953 (majority leader from 1951 to 1953) before serving as the tenth governor of Arizona from 1955 to 1959. Finally, McFarland sat as chief justice on the Arizona Supreme Court in 1968.

The beautiful old Fox Theatre has been restored to its glory days. Courtesy Tucson Chamber of Commerce.

Jean Arthur starring in the movie Arizona. Courtesy Old Tucson Studios.

Eight Arizonans perished on the day of infamy during the terrible explosion on the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor at Hawaii. Communications was a problem, but Japanese cryptographers had become adept at breaking military codes, which resulted in extensive loss of American lives. Philip Johnston, a civil engineer who had lived on the Navajo Indian Reservation, where his parents were missionaries, spoke Navajo with his playmates. He introduced the idea of the Navajo code talkers to the military, and a code book was developed for new initiates. At the Battle of Iwo Jima, Major Howard Connor had six Navajo code talkers working around the clock during the first two days of the battle. These six marines sent and received over eight hundred messages. Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian, would help the marines raise the flag on Mount Suribachi.¹⁵ Hayes, never comfortable with his fame, descended into alcoholism after his service. He died of exposure to cold and alcoholism after a night of drinking on January 23, 1955, and was buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery on February 2, 1955.

During World War II, air bases sprang up all over southern Arizona. Fort Huachuca had been created in the 1880s when soldiers arrived to protect settlers from Geronimo and his Apaches. It became the home of the buffalo soldiers and during World War II was staffed with black WAACs (Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps). Arizona women also played important roles in the Red Cross, both on the homefront and abroad.

Almost immediately after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the Hawaiian consular staff was transferred to the Triangle T Ranch in southern Arizona. An Italian POW camp was set up near Florence, Arizona, and Camp Florence welcomed its first Italian prisoners of war on May 4, 1943.

Senator Barry Goldwater was a longterm Arizona politician and World War II pilot. Courtesy Library of Congress.

Congressman Ernest McFarland was instrumental in getting the GI Bill of Education passed. Courtesy U.S. Senate Historical Office.

Ira Hayes was an Arizona Pima Indian who helped raise the flag at Mount Suribachi. Courtesy Library of Congress.

The all-black Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps was responsible for the maintenance of military equipment at Fort Huachuca during World War II. Courtesy Fort Huachuca Military Museum.

The destruction of the USS Arizona marks the day of infamy, December 7, 1941. Courtesy Library of Congress.

Both the army and the local farmers were desperate for manpower. The Italians performed menial labor, freeing American soldiers for military duty; but at the same time, Arizonans were uncomfortable because they lived near sensitive military operations. While the army tried to separate hardcore fascists, it was difficult because they intimidated POWs. The War Department decided that all POWs would have to be rescreened, and the Fascists were banned from Italian Service Units (ISUs). Camp Florence was considered to be the best example of how POWs anywhere should be treated.

On May 1, 1944, Captain Francis Beckman of Seattle arrived to take charge of the Twenty-Eighth Italian Service Unit, which would be based at Seattle’s Fort Lawton. The companies were assembled by combining soldiers with a mix of useful skills. More than two hundred men—thousands of miles from home, sick with worry about their families after years of fruitless battle, anxious about an unknown future for an uncertain period of time—were leaving Florence. On May 18, the train pulled out along the Southern Pacific spur at 4:38 p.m.¹⁶

Japanese Americans, whether born in the United States or in Japan, were rounded up and sent to internment camps for the duration of the war. The internment forced relocation and incarceration of approximately 120,000 people. President Roosevelt ordered this incarceration shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Members of the Japanese diplomatic corps were held at the Hampstead in New Hampshire until they could be repatriated. The exception was the Honolulu consular staff, which was held at the Triangle T Ranch in southern Arizona. These were the Japanese who had given the orders about when and where to drop the bombs on Pearl Harbor. In 1929, the Triangle T had come into the possession of Catherine Tutt as the result of a breach of a contract to marry suit. She designed the buildings we see today and named it the Triangle T. Dignitaries including John F. Kennedy, General John “Black Jack” Pershing, the Rockefellers and the Vanderbilts stayed at the ranch.

At Honolulu, U.S. naval personnel could only stare in horror as the blazing battleship USS Arizona emerged through the clouds of the Pearl Harbor inferno on Sunday morning, December 7, 1941. At their headquarters, Japanese officials listened to the radio above the crescendo of exploding torpedoes and bombs. Twice they heard three words: “East Wind, Rain,” in what was otherwise a routine weather report. This phrase signaled that Japan had gone to war with the United States. They knew that their country was ready to sacrifice them and that they would be arrested and probably killed by the Americans. They could not have known that they would spend four months at the Triangle T guest ranch in southern Arizona. When the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrived at the consulate, Honolulu police captain Benjamin Van Kuren had already stopped the Japanese from burning coded documents. Consul Nagao Kita and Vice-Consul Otojiro Okuda knew that Pearl Harbor would be attacked but not the exact date, and so they had arranged to play golf on December 7. Their cab driver arrived and was told that his services would not be required. No mention was made of a later date. For many months, the United States had suspected the Japanese consulate in Honolulu of espionage. The 400 toritsuginin, or “persons able to handle matters,” and 730 Japanese language schoolteachers in Hawaii had no consular status but were by reason of intellect and education ideal for espionage.¹⁷

Consul Nagao Kita and Vice-Consul Otojiro Okuda knew that Pearl Harbor would be attacked but not the exact date, and so they had arranged to play golf on December 7. Courtesy National Archives, Washington, D.C.

The late Rhea Robinson recalled the day when a U.S. Border Patrol agent told her husband, Reed P. Robinson, to be ready to go on assignment in thirty minutes. Weeks later, she received a letter from him, postmarked El Paso. She did not know that he had been on a special detail at the Triangle T, just twenty minutes down the road from their home in Benson.¹⁸

In Hawaii, the officials of the Japanese consulate remained under house arrest until they were placed in the custody of the U.S. Navy. When they arrived at San Pedro, California, Robinson and border patrol agents guarded the entourage in airconditioned Pullman staterooms to Dragoon, Arizona, where they were transferred to the Triangle T. State Department special agent Thomas F. Fitch had been given forty-eight hours to find accommodations for the Japanese. He and Arizona postal inspector Harry H. Smith scouted Arizona and settled on the Triangle T. In the spirit of patriotism, Smith used his own transportation so there would be no charge to the government. This operation was shrouded in secrecy because no harm must come to these prisoners if an exchange for Americans in Japan was to be negotiated. All in all, twenty-three consulate members included Nagao Kita, consul general; Otojiro Okuda, vice-consul general, his wife, Sadako, and their children Kazuhiro and Masahiro; Sainon Tsukikawa, consul secretary; Kyonosuke Yuge, consul secretary, his wife, Kiyoko, and their daughters Kazuko and Ayako; Kohichi Seki, consul secretary, and his wife, Michiko; Takeo Yoshikawa, aka Tadasi Morimura, chancellor; Kita’s servants, Takeo and Hana Kusanobu; Setsuko Yamada, Okuda’s maid; Sadako Kojima, maid; Saburo Sumida, gardener, his wife, Kaneyo, and their two sons, Robert Hiroyoshi and Herman Minoru; and Rokuro Fukushima, gardener, and his wife, Teruo.

Otojiro Okuda served as consul in Hawaii until Pearl Harbor Day, when he was captured and sent to the Triangle T Ranch in Arizona. Courtesy National Archives, Washington, D.C.

On April 15, 1942, FBI agent Fred G. Tillman arrived at the Triangle T to interview the Japanese. Tillman, an Asian expert, received an appointment from General Douglas MacArthur to serve with Army Counter Intelligence Corps while stationed at Manila. Tillman worked with the corps’ internal security section on postwar Japanese. Ultimately, he would participate in the Pearl Harbor hearings in Washington.

At the Triangle T, separated by barbed-wire fence, Tillman was not allowed to interrogate the Japanese until his request had cleared with the State Department. President Roosevelt wanted to keep Consul General Nagao Kita incommunicado from the other diplomats. Kita served nineteen years with the Japanese Foreign Office. A widower devoted to his work, the affable, stocky diplomat enjoyed golf. Kita described his duties as routine consular work. Otojiro Okuda served as consul until Kita arrived. It was a breach of protocol that he did not notify the U.S. State Department when his duties officially terminated on June 25, 1941, serious because he no longer had diplomatic immunity. He remained at the consulate, presumably to commit espionage. At Dragoon, he refused to discuss consular business but became very “agitated” when Tillman pointed out his lack of credentials. J. Edgar Hoover sought permission to prosecute him, but Assistant Secretary of State Adolph Berle responded, “Quite likely the Japanese consul deserves to be shot but we should undeniably risk the life of one of our men, without gaining very much save abstract justice.” O...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1. Day of Infamy
• 2. Divebomb to Hell
• 3. Sunday in the Park
• 4. Confessions and Court-martial
• 5. Conviction and Appeals
• 6. Execution
• Appendix A. Articles of War
• Appendix B. Crew List of the U-118
• Notes
• Bibliography
• About the Author