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70 years later, POW camp horrors are still fresh

The end of World War II arrived in eerie silence for Tony Gargano, a prisoner of war who had endured nearly three years of beatings and cruelty at the hands of his Japanese captors.

“Where is everybody?” Gargano, now 95 and living in Spring Grove, remembers thinking when he and his fellow prisoners woke on an August morning to discover their guards had abandoned the prison camp on the Japanese island of Hokkaido. “We got up and moving, and there was nobody around.”

A squadron of American B-29 bombers flew overhead, dropping crates of food for the starving prisoners.

“That's how we knew the war was over,” Gargano says. He says all the prisoners were so hungry, “we even ate the wrappers off the Hershey bars.”

Victory over Japan arrived officially with a formal surrender on Sept. 2, 1945. Gargano will mark the 70th anniversary of that original V-J Day by traveling with Honor Flight Chicago and other World War II veterans on Wednesday to see the monuments in Washington, D.C.

The youngest of seven children born to Italian immigrants Ralph and Ida Gargano on Chicago's West Side, Gargano dropped out of Crane High School after his father died. “I was working on the side so my mom would have money to buy groceries,” he says.

On Dec. 7, 1941, Gargano's 22nd birthday, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. Gargano enlisted in the Navy on Feb. 24, 1942. Assigned to one of three ships masquerading as merchant vessels, Gargano survived an attack by German submarines.

“One was torpedoed. You could see there were bodies in the water,” Gargano says. “We were able to get through for some reason. God was on our side.”

Gargano's ship made it to Iraq, where Russian allies unloaded a cargo that remained secret.

“We were disguised,” remembers Gargano, who says no one wore Navy uniforms or carried identification. They also had no weapons, and their ship had no guns. They left Iraq and made their way into the Indian Ocean on the night of Nov. 29, 1942, when their ship came upon what appeared to be another merchant ship from Europe about 400 miles southwest of Madagascar.

“After they got close enough, they dropped their sides. When they did that, they started firing on us,” he remembers.

“Our ship didn't last long. It split in half and blew up,” says Gargano, who jumped into the cold water already littered with the dead and wounded. The carnage attracted sharks.

“There was no lifeboat,” Gargano says. “There were bodies all over. They (Germans) were firing at men in the water. I'd rather they kill me now than have the sharks eat me up.”

But the Germans did haul in some Americans as prisoners of war.

“We were the last four to get onto the German ship,” Gargano says, adding that the prisoners received medical attention. “One had a hole in his stomach. He had his stomach in his hands. Another had his face shot off. They took care of us very well, the Germans. They saved our lives.”

Gargano remembers eating lots of lentil soup and being assigned to scrape paint off the port side of the ship.

“I want you to know we're not Nazis,” the German captain told the Americans. “I'm fighting just like you are for my country.”

Still disguised as a merchant ship, the German vessel sank more boats and took in more prisoners. Gargano met one young sailor from Eastern Europe who found out his home village had been destroyed.

“He came over to me because I made the sign of the cross and said my prayers before I went to sleep,” remembers Gargano, who maintained his Catholic rituals every day of the war. That night, the man committed suicide by intentionally running into a steel beam, splitting open his skull.

“He died in my arms,” says Gargano, who notes that the Germans held a service and buried the man at sea.

Running low on food and water, the ship tried to return to Germany but couldn't get past an Allied blockade. So it headed to Singapore, and a Japanese base.

“The Japanese said they didn't have enough food for us,” Gargano says. “They said the only thing they could do was put us against the wall to face the firing squad.”

Refusing to submit his prisoners to execution, the German captain hit the open sea. Out of food and still unable to return to Germany or get food from German submarines, the captain was forced to return to Singapore, where he reluctantly handed over the prisoners to the Japanese.

“They beat the daylights out of us,” Gargano says of the Japanese troops. “They told us the next day we were going to face the firing squad.”

A last-minute change of plans had Gargano and his fellow passengers loaded onto six wooden ships bound for Japan.

“The Americans were waiting for us, thinking we were Japanese soldiers,” says Gargano. U.S. forces sank four of the ships but let the other two pass after realizing the bodies in the water were Americans.

“We sailed all the way standing up. We were like sardines,” remembers Gargano, who says men relieved themselves and slept while leaning against others packed into the space. Those who died were thrown over the side of the ship.

They arrived to an even harsher fate at the Hakodate prison camp on an island north of mainland Japan.

“They beat the hell out of us. If you fell and couldn't get up, they'd use you like a football,” Gargano remembers. Prisoners slept on the floor in a cold building and were given just 8 ounces of water and 5½ ounces of steamed rice a day.

“The rats were by the hundreds,” Gargano says, explaining how he grew to regard the rodents as mere pests. “Whoever was wounded, the rats would be licking the blood off the person's body. You'd pick it up and throw it down, just like mosquitoes.”

Gargano worked in a crew of six loading 100-pound buckets of coal onto ships. They also worked in a coal mine, where cave-ins were frequent. He remembers one roof collapsing on the Japanese guards.

“For us to get out, we had to crawl over their bodies,” Gargano says.

Sick and covered with fleas, lice and sores, prisoners occasionally were injected with unknown drugs. Sometimes, after a beating, a Japanese soldier would hold a knife to a prisoner's neck, pushing hard enough to draw blood. Gargano says he didn't react, figuring that if the knife slit his throat, the suffering would end.

Having lost 50 pounds off his nearly 6-foot frame, Gargano remembers the day another prisoner caught a fish with his bare hands. Knowing he'd be killed if the fish was discovered, the prisoner hid it in his pants all day and shared it with the crew that night.

“We ate it raw,” says Gargano. “We used to eat worms, too. They'd be crawling in the spoiled rice. We'd add seaweed and we'd make a soup out of it.”

Then came the announcement that Japan was surrendering.

“We were more or less surprised,” Gargano says. “But we knew that because they left us at the last minute, the war was over.”

And so were the beatings and starvation.

“A lot of the guys were crying,” Gargano says. “It's hard, believe me. You just do the best you can.”

Awash in relief at the arrival of the Red Cross, the prisoners were far from free. Their clothes were burned. They were sprayed with disinfectants. Even after arriving in the United States, the prisoners were quarantined for weeks. Gargano was prohibited from contacting his family, who had heard nothing since an initial telegraph explaining only that he was missing in action.

“When I came home, I found out that my ma died. My mother, she was my first love,” Gargano says. “She died brokenhearted. They thought we were dead.”

He came home, married Julia Elliott, the love of his life, worked six days a week as a maitre d' at Elliott's Pine Log Restaurant in Skokie, watched his son and daughter grow up, and enjoyed the arrival of five grandchildren and five great-grandchildren

“He's the toughest man I've ever known,” says his son, George Gargano, of Chicago. “But he's also the kindest and gentlest. He made it possible for me to have a wonderful life.”

Daughter Lexi Gargano, who lives next door to her father, says he didn't reveal most details of his wartime ordeal until recently.

“It was heartbreaking listening to it,” she says. “You just wonder how he survived all of that.”

The veteran Gargano merely marvels at his good fortune.

“There were others who had it much worse. The people we should honor are the ones where the white crosses are,” Gargano says. “Those are your heroes.”

But he can't erase what happened.

“It stays with you. When I first came home, I'd be sleeping and jump out of bed, thinking about what went on. But you try to fight it off,” says Gargano, who says he did that with the help of his wife, whom he often called Jule. “I had a good wife, 60 beautiful years. I miss her every day.”

The horrors he faced in war can't trump the joys of his life.

“I believe in being kind. I don't like mean people. Hate is a sickness,” Gargano says. “There is nothing like feeling love in your heart. Love is beautiful.”

When this ship was torpedoed and sunk by German submarines during World War II, Spring Grove resident Tony Gargano, now 95, remembers coming down from the crow's nest. He spent the next three years as a prisoner of war. Courtesy of Tony Gargano
In spite of all the cruelty and horrors he endured as a prisoner of war during World War II, Tony and Julia Gargano built a wonderful life full of love and joy, says Gargano, now 95 and living in Spring Grove. His wife died in 2008 after they celebrated 60 years of marriage. Courtesy of Tony Gargano
  From his Spring Grove home, former prisoner of war Tony Gargano, 95, remembers the horrors of his time as a prisoner of Germany and Japan during World War II. John Starks/jstarks@dailyherald.com
  This telegram received by the mother of Tony Gargano announced only that he was missing in action during World War II. His mother died without learning that he survived three years as a prisoner of war. John Starks/jstarks@dailyherald.com
This 1944 photograph shows Tony Gargano, wearing dark clothing and standing at the far left in the second row from top, with his fellow prisoners of war. Now 95 and living in Spring Grove, Gargano endured beatings, rats and other horrors during his time at the Hakodate prison camp in Japan. Courtesy of Tony Gargano
  Framed with several of his medals and patches from World War II, Tony Gargano's official Navy portrait was taken before he was captured at sea and became a prisoner of war. Now 95 and living in Spring Grove, Gargano only recently has begun to talk about the horrors he endured. John Starks/jstarks@dailyherald.com
  A deeply religious man known for his gentle nature and love of life, 95-year-old Tony Gargano of Spring Grove learned about the end of World War II when his Japanese captors abandoned the camp where he was a prisoner of war. To mark the 70th anniversary of V-J Day, Gargano will fly to Washington with Honor Flight Chicago to see the World War II Memorial. John Starks/jstarks@dailyherald.com
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