made under this legislation will come from the war claims fund and not out of the Treasury of the United States.

The Committee on the Judiciary, Senate report on S. 541, identical word for word with H. R. 4422, July 6, 1953, as follows:

The committee believes that the employees of contractors should be paid the additional money to which they are entitled. There seems to be no valid reason why this class of persons should be required to wait longer for payment.

The Senate bill was passed by the first session of the 83d Congress and is now pending before the House Interstate and Foreign Commerce Commission.

Many of these workmen are disabled and the death rate is increasing rapidly each year. I urge the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce favorably report this proposed legislation without further delay as it has been in this committee since the first session of the 83d Congress.

The American Federation of Labor is greatly interested in these employees, as most of them were building tradesmen and members of the several building trades unions affiliated to the American Federation of Labor.

Mr. HINSHAW. Are there questions? Mr. Schenck.

Mr. SCHENCK. Did I understand you to say that these were to be paid out of war funds?

Mrs. WARD. The impounded funds of the enemy.

Mr. SCHENCK. And not out of the Treasury?

Mrs. WARD. That is correct, sir. As the other prisoners, the civilian internees in the South Pacific have received their $2 a day, and the military also have received $1 and then $1.50 a day, making a total of $2.50, and these people have received their full salaries through legislation, but they have not received their full salaries through legislation, but they have not received anything found directly from Japan for the forced labor which they were forced to perform.

Mr. HINSHAW. Mrs. Ward, what are the amounts that were paid to these people?

Mrs. WARD. They have received, Congressman Hinshaw, the benefits. The contract stated from the time the man left the mainland until he returned to the port of embarkation. During that time their contracts were in full effect. There were no war clauses.

Wake Island was considered the most undesirable land to work on and they received a service bonus after the third month. It started with $15 a month and then it increased in the ninth month to where that bonus was a total of $90. Each man's contract was for 9 months and if he stayed his complete 9 months on Wake Island, the 9 months would have given him a $90 bonus.

On Guam the total bonus at the ninth month was $45. In the Philippines and Cavite, they were not entitled to any bonus or subsistence as the men's salaries were larger in the Philippines and they paid their own maintenance and of course they were able to get housing and things of that kind that they could not get on the smaller islands, so the men have received just what their contracts called for.

The contracts were canceled 9 days after war was declared, although previously, all during the attacks on the islands we were informed by the Bureau of Yards and Docks and by our President, that these contracts would not be canceled.

They were canceled on December 31, 1941, and that meant that these families were left destitute. We had no means of support unless we were fortunate enough to have funds. I speak clearly on that because my husband was one of these men captured on Wake Island. That is why I first started to get an interest in this thing, and so I know practically all of these families and the men as well and I know what they have received.

Congress in 1943 when it was adjudicated by the Bureau of Employees' Compensation that paid $108.33 a month the same as the old longshoremen bill. Then that was amended by later legislation until by three pieces of legislation they finally received their full salaries, whatever the contract called for.

Mr. SCHENCK. Even though the contract had been canceled?

Mrs. WARD. That is correct. The salaries were not exorbitant on the islands. Many people have that idea because in looking at the average checks they were very high, but that was because of the overtime. However, the man of course received no overtime during the time he was captured.

For instance, in the case of a carpenter, the carpenter's salary was $200 a month. A truck driver's salary was $150 a month. A day laborer's salary was $135 a month. A plumber's salary was $225 a month. An operating engineer received $200 a month. For a crane operator it was from $265 to $270.

Mr. SCHENCK. You mean that is based on 40 hours a week?

Mrs. WARD. Yes, sir. The reason many of the men went was because they could get all of the overtime. It was a rush job and they could work 7 days a week and up to 10 and 12 hours each day. That is why many of them did receive large salaries.

Then, they did receive what their contract called for. If they were carpenters they received $200 a month, and after the third month this bonus started in, so that actually they were receiving their bonus on Wake and the same on Guam but not on the Philippines.

Then the Navy with the help of the Bureau of Employees' Compensation Commission set a subsistence on that island at $45 a month. The contract called for subsistence so that is what they received.

Each island varies. That is why it makes it a little difficult what men received. Other than the Philippines, Public Law 896 paid the men on the other two islands their bonus. That paid the balance that they had not received under their contracts, but these people in the Philippines received nothing. The contract employee received nothing. They did not receive their $2 a day.

With respect to 1 or 2 cases where the Bureau of Employees' Compensation Commission had not paid the full salary that the contract called for, I know that in the case of the superintendent he was only allowed $700 by the Bureau of Employees' Compensation Commission, and under Public Law 896 it said that he should receive what his contract called for, which was $750, and so there was an adjustment. However, there were only 1 or 2 adjustments for those people. Through the War Claims Act, Public Law 896, they received anything their contract called for that they had not been paid previously, but nothing directly from the Japanese.

Mr. SCHENCK. Mr. Chairman, I wonder if Mrs. Ward will tell us, if she knows, how many people are involved?

Mrs. WARD. Approximately 1,500 was the total amount on the islands. I asked Mr. McCauley, who is the Director of the Bureau of Employees' Compensation Commission, for a little rundown on this figure and he sent this memorandum to me on June 16:

The record of the Bureau shows at the present time there are 78 contract employee disabled cases on the roles, including 58 cases classified as permanently and totally disabled for life and 118 fatal cases in which benefits are being paid to 147 dependents.

Our death rate and the rate of deaths that occurred in prison camps runs well over 300, around 400, but all of these people were not accepted as dependents. For instance, in the case of many of the parents unless we could prove and show that the parent was completely dependent upon this son, the parent was not accepted as a dependent, and the same applies if the widow remarries, of course, she gets no further benefits.

That is why they are only paying the benefits to 118 cases. He says: It is not possible, without a review of all closed cases to determine the number of cases in which benefits were terminated and permanent partial disability cases on the payment of $10,000 maximum. It is my recollection that employees at Cavite were not entitled to a wage bonus or subsistence allowance under their contract of employment.

There may have been 4 or 5 cases of top supervisory personnel who were entitled to such allowances.

WILLIAM MCCAULEY, Director.

Mr. SCHENCK. You think there are about 1,500?

Mrs. WARD. Yes sir. I am sure that it is not that amount now because many of the men have died who did not have dependents. There are cases where there is not anyone to even leave the money to. Two of the men who were killed on the island we have never been able to find.

Mr. SCHENCK. Would you have any idea of the average benefit to which these 1,500 would be entitled under this bill?

Mrs. WARD. $2 a day, sir. They were imprisoned 45 months. The group that returned were imprisoned 45 months.

Mr. SCHENCK. Was that the average?

Mrs. WARD. Yes. They were all interned approximately the same length of time, 45 months.

Mr. HINSHAW. That would be about $2,500 a person.

Mrs. WARD. Yes sir, and then of course one-third of these men died or were killed by the Japanese of the 1,500 and their relatives would only receive, or their dependents, would only receive from the date of the outbreak to the time of their death.

We had 98 of our men that were lined up on Wake Island and shot and buried in 2 graves. That was on October 7, 1943, so that was quite a large group. The Japanese kept them there to rebuild the island and they rebuilt the airbase and then on October 7, 1943, in the late evening they were lined up. Their hands were wired behind them and they were mowed down and buried in two graves.

One man escaped. That is in the Japanese confessions in the hearings of Public Law 896. The Navy Department sent that over, I think, to Mr. Hinshaw at Mr. Hinshaw's request and they said that 5 days later they found this one civilian who had escaped and they beheaded him.

They had beheaded two men previous to that time. I know my husband witnessed one of them, and it was for stealing medical sup

plies for the hospital. They gave quite a sermon and made the others watch them.

The island was captured 2 days before Christmas and then in late January they sent all of the military and the day laborers, and the elderly men to Shanghai and imprisoned them, but they kept 376 of the keymen on the island. They went all through the records. For instance, they would keep a number of engineers, and rollers, and patrol operators, and plumbers, and they kept one doctor and a dentist. That was to rebuild that island and maintain it. A great portion of the work was finished on September 30, 1942. They were so in need of trained workmen in Japan that they sent 276 to build a large dam in Japan and that winter 90 of the 276 of these men died. They were all able workmen, but they worked them up to 36 hours. They were building a large dam 200 feet in height and everything was done by hand.

They had no medical care. They had no interpreter. They had nothing but tropical clothing that they wore over there. This was a place high in the mountains. The Bureau has paid them for frozen fingers and frozen toes.

When you take 276 able-bodied workmen and 90 die within a period of 4 months, you know the conditions are pretty bad.

We find that of the men who are home and I think I know each and every one of them personally-as I visit the hospitals and I know of their cases and studied the records on them-75 percent of these men were not able to go back into the regular jobs that they were holding before the war. They had to take lighter work. Our death rate is increasing very rapidly and the rate that the men are becoming totally and permanently disabled is increasing very rapidly. It is quite frightening the way they are dropping and passing out.

Mr. SCHENCK. Mr. Chairman, we are talking about a relatively small amount of total overall money, are we not?

Mr. HINSHAW. I should say $3 million.

Mr. SCHENCK. Yes, but we are talking about a tremendous amount of personal and human suffering.

Mr. HINSHAW. That is correct.

Mrs. WARD. It would be a wonderful thing if we could only get the benefits from this bill, Mr. Chairman, because the widows have had only a small amount. They receive $79.63 a month. With respect to the men who have reached age 65, our people have no benefits of social security that they paid in previous to their internment because the social security law says that you must pay in so many consecutive weeks a year, so when they came back they found that all their social security benefits were gone.

They had to start all over.

To this disabled man and to these widows and to the children that are trying to get through school, this money would assist them in their education and it would assist many of the disabled in just getting a little start again. It is a small amount. Certainly considering the many lives that were lost and the condition of these men, they do deserve some consideration. They were in slave labor and were considered as military prisoners of war, though they have not beer treated as such since they have come home.

Mr. HINSHAW. Mr. Beamer.

Mr. BEAMER. I was wondering, Mrs. Ward, are these people called civilian internees?

Mrs. WARD. No; civilian prisoners of war.

Mr. BEAMER. Will you distinguish those two categories for my benefit.

Mrs. WARD. Sir, I asked the Bureau of Yards and Docks where they got this distinction and they said from the Japanese. The State Department told me that they judged the men as the Japanese did, and the Japanese judged all of them on the islands of Cavite and the Philippines as civilian internees. They were civilian internees over there. They were not judged as prisoners of war there.

Mr. BEAMER. In other words, to be a prisoner of war, they had to be members of the military service?

Mrs. WARD. No. They were not members of the military.
Mr. BEAMER. No; I mean to be a prisoner of war.

Mrs. WARD. Military prisoner of war, but the Japanese judged these as civilian prisoners of war. As you know, many of these men were veterans of World War I that were captured and on Wake Island, as a matter of fact, they were giving the men military training at the time war broke out. Major Devereux had a trainee class which had started in September and he was training these civilians in gun positions and training them for military service, you might say, before war broke out.

Mr. BEAMER. I was interested because I noticed that in the last report of the War Claims Commission dated March 13, 1954, that a large number of claims have been disallowed; I think more than 11,000.

Mrs. WARD. Our people have never made any claims to the War Claims Commission at all because under Public Law 896, where we got these benefits, under the War Claims Act, it said that the Bureau of Employees' Compensation Commission would adjudicate our claims, so we have never received any benefits actually from the War Claims Commission itself.

Mr. BEAMER. Perhaps the Bureau of Employees' Compensation? Mrs. WARD. Mr. McCauley, the Director, is here this morning and it is the United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Employees' Compensation.

Mr. BEAMER. Did the Bureau of Employees' Compensation make the claims in behalf of these civilian internees or the prisoners of war? Mr. HINSHAW. I think there is some confusion, Mr. Beamer, that I might straighten out. The civilan internees were taken in the Philippines and they were ordinary citizens-schoolteachers, businessmen, and that sort of thing.

Mr. BEAMER. And workmen.

Mr. HINSHAW. And workmen, yes.

Mr. SCHENCK. Who were not employees of the Government?

Mr. HINSHAW. Who were not employees of the Government, as were these employees on Wake, Guam, and Cavite. They were employees of the Navy Department, building fortifications, gun emplacements, and all that sort of thing. They were declared by the Japanese to be prisoners of war and not internees. Internees is an entirely different subject.