Grenadier


Monday, September 4, 2000
From pain to gain
By Hwa Mei Shen
Copied from The Star Online

Its a classroom unlike any other found in the country. A list of names is etched on the walls and a wooden door panel. A nifty model of a submarine, a faded postcard and a photograph of a group of elderly Caucasians accompany the etchings on the wall.

This classroom in Penang's Convent Light Street holds a grim tale of what befell a group of 76 American submarine officers and crewmen who were held prisoners of war (PoW) at the convent during World War II.

It was the morning of April 21, 1943; the USS GRENADIER SS-210 was severely damaged when it was bombed off the coast of the Malay Peninsula "approximately 300 miles north of Singapore," according to a secret diary written by crewman Thomas R. Courtney in a PoW camp in Fukuoka, Japan.

Some of the men from the USS GRENADIER. Photograph believed taken in the mid-1980s. Among them are Ben `Steamboat' H. Fulton (back row, left), Albert J. Rupp (back row, second left) and Robert W. Robert (back row, second right). 

Valiant efforts to restore propulsion came to naught. With the imminent approach of Japanese ships the following morning, GRENADIER captain Lieutenant Commander John A. Fitzgerald decided to abandon ship and scuttle the submarine rather than let it fall into enemy hands.

As the flooded GRENADIER slid under the waters, the crew were picked up and taken to the convent which the Japanese had commandeered.

And, in the words of Courtney, thus "began a living hell for the members of that crew" lasting until Aug 15, 1945.

Most of the crew were interned at the convent for more than three months until Aug 5 before being transported first to Singapore and then to Japan, arriving at Nagasaki on Oct 10. From there they were moved to various PoW camps.

A few, among them Lt Cdr Fitzgerald, were flown directly to Japan.

Those months in Penang, spent first in three classrooms and later in small cells holding four to five people each, were marked by extremely harsh treatment. Crew members recalled how the Japanese tortured them in a bid to extract information on their submarine and the location of other submarines.

The punishment meted out to the men could perhaps be due to their status as submarine crewmen. From all accounts, the submarine unit of the American Navy had inflicted untold damage on Japanese ships during World War II. According to a source, while less than 2% of American sailors served on submarines, the unit accounted for more than 55% of all enemy ships destroyed.

Courtney wrote in his diary on their arrival in Singapore on Aug 10, 1943: "Beaten terribly before leaving ship for being submarine sailors."

Hunger was the order of the day.

The youngest of the crew was Albert J. Rupp who had volunteered for service using doctored documents when he was just 15. He ended up spending his 17th birthday in a PoW camp in Singapore.

Rupp put the memories of those two terrible years into a book in the 1980s, and his Threshold of Hell contains repeated references to the shockingly inadequate meals.

Of the time in the convent, Rupp recounts his excitement on spotting a breadfruit tree when let out of his cell for exercise one day. As he tells it, "(on) one of the stouter branches was a large, well developed, breadfruit."

Given the miserly meals, it was not surprising that Rupp and his friends plotted hard to get their hands on the breadfruit. In the end, they never did.

It was during their incarceration in the three classrooms that the men in one of the rooms scratched their names on two sections of a wall and one of the wooden doors.

Those faded names have been carefully preserved until today, marking another chapter in the school's history.

Over in the United States, the strong bond forged by their shared experience eventually brought the submarine crew together again.

In the early 1970s, several of them gathered the names and locations of their fellow crew members and one of them put together an occasional newsletter.

Ex-yeoman Robert W. Palmer started a monthly newsletter in mid-1981, and the GRENADIER 'family' also began to organise reunions.

Near the submariners' etchings in Convent Light is this display of USS GRENADIER memorabilia.

In the meantime, the convent community remained in the dark over the fate of the crew until two of them visited the school about 20 years ago.

In 1982, the men began sending money to the convent to support its work, and Palmer started writing to former principal and subsequent school board chairman Sister Francis de Sales.

Wrote Francis in her reply to Palmer:

"For many years 'the writing on the wall' which we regard with such reverence was, to a certain extent, shrouded in mystery. All we knew was that these brave men were the crew of an American submarine, who suffered cruel torture on our premises at the hands of the Japanese. Now for a few years it has come alive for us, beginning with the visit of Al (Alfred J.) Toulon and (Carlisle W.) Herbert ..."

These initial contacts sparked off an exchange of letters between Francis and the crew, in particular Palmer, as well as their family members. Palmer made it a point to include Francis's letters to him in the newsletter.

As ties between the crew and the convent grew, other things made their way across the oceans.

One of the ex-PoWs sent a first-day cover issued on July 8, 1941, to commemorate the GRENADIER's deep dive test and another, a model of the submarine. These items, deeply valued at the convent, were promptly displayed in the classroom where the crew had etched their names, and remain there today.

Over the next decade, up till the mid-1990s, the men remained faithful to the convent, sending funds every now and then. At times, the donations were made in memory of their fellow crew members.

The money was certainly put to good use. From Francis's letters, the beneficiaries included poor students at the convent, Salvation Army boys and residents of an old folk's home.

What this link up meant to GRENADIER's men is perhaps best summed up in Palmer's letter to the sisters at the convent: "To evolve from the hazards of a submarine in wartime to the agonies of being a prisoner of war, then to be able to touch hands with someone and something related to that experience, well, it is both exciting and soul-satisfying."

Another crew member, Ben H. Fulton, wrote that the contact with the sisters led to closer family ties.

He added: "The children look on their parents with new pride and respect. I've witnessed a new gleam of admiration in (the) eyes of the children when they look at their father (s)."

There is no doubt the GRENADIER legacy has left a mark on many students at the convent.

"I remember how reverently the nuns would tell us to pray alike for all those concerned--from the US soldiers to their captors. Indeed, it was the one part of my education I never forgot ..." wrote Christine Khor in a letter to Palmer and the crew in 1984.

Christine, incidentally, is the daughter of Khor Cheang Kee, former editorial consultant and columnist of The Star.

With the march of time, many of the players in the GRENADIER saga are now gone. Rupp passed away on Jan 12, 1989, Fulton on Nov 18 of the same year, and Francis on July 24, 1998. The flow of letters between the United States and Penang has since dried up.

And things are a little different at the school these days.

"We are trying to revive an awareness among the girls as we want them to be familiar with the school's heritage," says principal Chan Gaik Ngoh.

Chan is hopeful that a video of the school's history, produced by a team of students for this year's speech day, will generate a new wave of interest in the convent's past.

Be that as it may, the etchings and other displays in the classroom will remain a poignant reminder of what went on in the convent grounds during the war and the remarkable good that came out of that episode in the years that followed.

History buffs, for one, will help to ensure that the memory of the GRENADIER lives on in Penang.

"Visitors to the school are very interested in the etchings and displays. All of them, including a good number of Japanese tourists, want to see the room," says Chan.

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