Services held near Sasebo for
POWs who died building Soto Dam
By Greg Tyler, Sasebo
bureau chief
SASEBO NAVAL BASE, Japan — Sailors and other members of the base
community gathered Sunday to honor 55 American prisoners of war who died while building
the Soto Dam during World War II.
The annual Soto Dam ceremony is a Memorial Day observance held near
Sasebo at the dam site in nearby Yunoki Village.
About 100 people attended the event, organized this year by Chief
Petty Officer Edith Byrd, from the U.S. Naval Pacific Meteorology and Oceanography
Detachment in Sasebo.
The base’s Chief Petty Officers Association, Bluejackets
Association and the Kyushu Military Retired Association sponsored the ceremony, which is
designed to pay homage to the Americans and 14 Japanese who died working on the dam
between 1941 and 1944.
During World War II, Sasebo City had a limited supply of fresh water.
Yunoki Village, on the southern slope of Mount Kunimi, proved an ideal location to
construct a dam, which trapped the fresh water running to the sea.
With Japanese labor scarce due to the war effort, prisoners of war
from a nearby interment camp were used to build the large dam across a mountain ravine.
In April 1956, then-Sasebo Mayor Yamanaka Tatsujiro dedicated the
Soto Dam memorial. The names of 32 known Americans and 14 Japanese workers who died are
inscribed on the structure. Another 23 Americans died there, but their names are not
known.
Sailors placed a ceremonial wreath at the memorial Sunday, and the
observance ended with a traditional 21-gun salute and the playing of “Taps.”
Back to May stories
Page Two news roundup
Stories from April, 2001
Stories from March, 2001
Stories from February,2001
Stories from January, 2001
Stories from December, 2000
Stories from November, 2000
Stories from October, 2000
Stories from August and September, 2000
Stories from June and July, 2000
Home |
