Dave Bartruff, World Traveler

David Bartruff 1933 – 2021 Longtime Marin County resident, devoted husband, and loving father, Dave Bartruff passed away in his home on Thursday, September 16, 2021 in San Anselmo, CA surrounded by his family…

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Japan’s Untold WWII Tragedy of “Titanic” Proportions

Survivor–heroine Tsuneko and doomed ship display.

On August 22, 1944, at the height of World War II in the Pacific, the Japanese tramp steamer Tsushima Maru sailed out of the port of Naha, Okinawa, a 1,000 miles south of Tokyo, with a precious cargo of non-combatant civilians bound for a “safe haven” in the heartland of Japan.

Throughout the South Pacific, fierce battles were raging on land and at sea…Guadalcanal, the Marianas and Iwo Jima. The Tojo-led Japanese military machine was in retreat, but determined to fight to the very last man with its indomitable, time-honored samurai spirit laced with classic kamikaze suicide fervor.

But then a mercy ship was dispatched by the Japanese authorities to evacuate the youngest and oldest members Okinawa’s native civilian population off their home island prior to the forthcoming U.S. invasion. The Battle for Okinawa would become the final and deadliest campaign of World War II.

More than 1,600 islanders were now aboard the 6,745-ton merchant ship on their voyage to safety. But just 28 hours later at sea, more than 1,500 aboard would descend into a watery mass grave in the dark of night within 12 minutes after being hit by three torpedoes from an American submarine, the USS Bowfin.

Thus the tragic toll of the Tsushima Maru was comparable to that of the famed SS Titanic known worldwide from best-selling books and Hollywood movies ever since it sank in 1912. The Titanic’s toll was 1,513 lost with more than 700 saved. The Tsushima Maru’s: more than 1,500 lost, just 177 saved.

The sunken vessel with its entombed victims now sits in such a forbiddingly deep ocean trench it can never be retrieved.  Whereas the world immediately learned of the Titanic tragedy, no one in Japan was aware of the Tsushima Maru catastrophe, for all mention of the incident was immediately suppressed by the Japanese wartime authorities.

Survivors including crew were prohibited from revealing the tragedy under threat of severe punishment. Besides, no official inquiry was ever launched and the fate of the passengers: dead or alive were never revealed to their families. It was only in the 1950s that the disaster was brought to light in Japan and the long sorrow of silence broken.

On the American side too, it took more than a decade for the crew of Bowfin submarine and the American public to learn of the Tsushima Maru’s horrific loss, especially of the 767 children aboard.

Terror at sea for Tsushima Maru survivors.

Just 59 children did survive, less than one in ten. One of these was pretty, bright-eyed 13-year-old Tsuneko Maria Miyagi, but it took a high order of courage and heroism for her to make it through to rescue.

Blown overboard and wounded by the initial torpedo explosions, she would spend four nights and three days submersed in the ocean with only her head and shoulders above water clinging to debris from the doomed ship.

Initially she was one of about 25 survivors clinging to a large piece of floating debris. Tragically, by the time of her rescue only four had survived.

With bleeding wounds to her head and body, the teen’s heroics began early in her ordeal. She recalled in the wee hours of her first night adrift at sea, she felt something submerged brush her legs. She was terrified it was a shark for the waters were teeming with them; attacking and killing survivors at will.

However, Tsuneko took a chance and reached down to catch hold of the arm of a small child, not knowing if the youngster was dead or alive or even a whole being. But her courage paid off as she brought to the surface a four-year-old boy, waterlogged but still alive, and placed him atop the floating debris to which she was clinging.

Sixty years later, to the very day in 2004, Tsuneko and the boy she rescued, Hisashi Teruya, were reunited in Naha, Okinawa during the opening ceremonies of the Tsushima Maru Memorial Hall and Museum.

Extended family of child survivor Hisashi Teruya and 14 family members and Tsuneko.

Along with Hisashi were 14 members of his family spanning three generations.   A photo was arranged to be taken of his family along with Tsuneko. Later, I as the photographer pondered the group photo, it hit me that if it were not for the teenager’s heroism four decades earlier, the picture would just be a portrait of Tsuneko herself alone.

By Day Three of Tsuneko’s 1944 ordeal adrift at sea, hope was turning to despair for the dwindling numbers of her fellow survivors.  But as darkness fell, a vision of redemption and hope suddenly appeared through the lens of her Christian faith for the weary believer.  Walking on the water she saw a bright and shining figure approaching. “I couldn’t recognize exactly who,” she said, “Jesus or the Virgin Mary or God Almighty. But just the same I understood it was the promise of hope that God was still with us.”

By noon the next day, Tsuneko’s vision did come true as a Japanese patrol boat sighted and rescued the teen of faith and her four companion survivors.

However Tsuneko’s wartime ordeals were not yet over. After a month of rest and recuperation on the island of Kyushu, the original destination of the ill-fated vessel, she was sent in harm’s way again to labor in an aircraft factory near Tokyo where kamikaze suicide bombers were being built.

Both the factory and her residence were eventually destroyed in air raids, but again she rode out the wartime storm of adversity, this time on land: the ultimate survivor.

Tsuneko’s American husband addresses inaugural audience.

Prior to the opening of the Tsushima Maru Memorial Hall and Museum in Okinawa in 2004, she published a book of her ordeal at sea. A poem she composed, Tsushima Maru Requiem, was set to music and played during the opening ceremonies.

And a 1,000-voice choir sang her composition as well nationally on NHK, Japan’s national television and radio broadcasting network.

The inaugural ceremonies of the new Memorial Hall ended with the presentation of a Peace Poster created by American Sunday School children from a California church. It was Tsuneko’s church as well as her husband of 52 years, the author of this account.

Author’s Note: In 2000, fate brought Tsuneko together at sea with Junichiro Koizumi, one of Japan’s most popular postwar prime ministers during the final sail-over ceremonies of the ill-fated vessel with its victims still entombed at the bottom a deep, unreachable ocean trench.

Then on September 21, 2008, Tsuneko was invited to Tokyo for a private audience with the Emperor and Empress of Japan. What was originally scheduled as a 30-minute visit lasted one and a half hours.

Her connection with the Imperial Family goes back to the days when her uncle, Professor Eisho Miyagi was tutor to the then Crown Prince Akihito, now Japan’s Emperor. After WWII, another uncle, Seisaku Ota, served as governor of Okinawa.

With his deep interest in Okinawa, the Japanese Emperor composed a Japanese waka poem based on the Tsushima Maru tragedy for his annual Year-End Presentation to the Japanese people in 1997.

Japan’s Imperial Palace where Tsuneko was invited to meet the Emperor and Empress.

Then in 2014, on the 70^th anniversary of the WWII maritime tragedy, Tsuneko again met the Emperor and Empress of Japan in Okinawa to be honored as the oldest living survivor of the Tsushima Maru.

Memories from the Korean Front 1956

US Army Unit Commander, Lt. Bartruff, 1956

“Dear Diary,” This is the first Christmas that I’ve ever spent away from home and my family in Chicago, Illinois. So far it has been peaceful, thankfully for now any way. There’s an armistice in effect on both sides along the DMZ which is not far from my unit’s compound and all combat has ceased.

The DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) that runs all along the 38th Parallel now separates two warring Koreas from one another under a shaky armistice: the Korean Republic in the south and its Communist aggressor in the north.

Now after three years of combat and the loss of over a million military and civilian lives, the United Nations has negotiated a ceasefire agreement ending the fighting. Just the same, tensions still remain high.

In the unit I command as its lone officer, directing some 30 communication specialists, last night’s Christmas Eve was not exactly a “Silent Night” since my unit works on a 24-hour-a-day, around-the-clock intelligence gathering mission.

It is a mission that “Never Sleeps” collecting information on the enemy’s communications and troop movements by sophisticated location-finding technology even during this fragile armistice.

But now, for the entire month of December, my men and I have been storing up food rations and assembling toys to be distributed to the hundreds of Korean youngsters who live in the neighboring village and surrounding countryside and who attend the local primary school; our next door neighbor.

Christmas Day village youngsters

It’s now early Christmas morning and we khaki-clad American “Santas” leave our compound to distribute gifts to the local children on the school playground.

On arrival, we are overwhelmed to find hundreds of the children already present and amassed in tight military-style formations that would make any U.S. Army drill sergeant proud.

To receive their Christmas presents, the children begin to parade in columns (on their own!) to the front steps of their school to stand patiently by. Then one by one, each receives their gifts from the smiling and spirit-filled GIs now serving as Santa’s happy helpers.

Gift-giving GI Santa

And Christmas has become a blessing to both provider and recipient alike. After the joyous schoolyard celebration, all we “Santas in Khaki” return to our compound, each to his own assigned duty station.

But I now must place all the accolades for the success of our unique Christmas gift-giving celebration into the hands of my beloved Korean houseboy: Kim Hyung Tae.

At age 44, Kim is twice my senior. Born in Karaebi, Kim was responsible for all the planning and implementation of our unit’s entire Christmas gift giving celebration.

Houseboy Kim unsung celebration director

Besides, being a devout Christian himself, Kim put his whole body, mind and soul into the celebration honoring the birth of his beloved Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Immediately upon my arrival in Karaebi months earlier, a close bond of fellowship was formed between Kim and me. And it continued to flourish long after my tour of duty ended and my return home to Chicago and back to civilian life once again.

But providentially, just six short months after returning to Chicago, I crossed the Pacific once again landing in Tokyo to begin work as the Far East Correspondent for the Army-Navy-Air Force Times publications.

In 1959, a press assignment took me back again to Korea. It afforded the miraculous opportunity to not only reunite with Kim in the Korean capital of Seoul, but return north with him to our beloved Karaebi.

This time I had the honor to visit his humble country family dwelling and meet his kin again face to face.

The years passed and I finally returned to the USA; this time to California. Still, for decades, Kim and I continued exchanging Christmas greetings until the last card I received from Korea was the announcement from his family of his passing.

In the true spirit of that first Christmas that brought Christ down to earth, I anxiously await a glorious reunion with Kim. This time, for all eternity in heaven above according to the faith we shared together long ago on Korea’s landmark DMZ.

Naxi-style pagoda below Jade Dragon Mountain

The True Shangri-la Discovered in Remote China

Story and photography by Dave Bartruff

“Very well, then, we’ll be off to Shangri-La. Wherever and whatever it is, we’ll try it.” – Lost Horizon by James Hilton 1933

Lijiang, China: Countless readers of the classic adventure novel by the British writer James Hilton have long been fascinated by the concept of some far off utopia of contentment; a paradise far removed from the cares and struggles of the real world of the here and now.

I was one of those readers, but as most, dismissed the idea of actually ever finding any such place. It was, after all, just make-believe.

But then, the opportunity to travel to China presented itself. And I discovered one of my destinations was Lijiang, the ancient spiritual capital of its ethnic Naxi inhabitants. Located in remote Yunnan Provence in southwest China, it faces mystical Tibet in the foothills of the great Himalayan Mountains.

Again I read in the pages of Lost Horizon: “But it was to the head of the valley that his eyes were led irresistibly, for there, soaring into the gap, and magnificent in the full shimmer of moonlight, appeared what he took to be the loveliest mountain on earth. It was so radiant, so serenely poised that he wondered for a moment if it were real at all.”

That, of course, was fiction but yet I still hoped to see if there wasn’t at least some glimmer of reality in the place that Hilton called, “ Shangri-La” when I reached remote Lijiang.

Centuries ago, nomadic Tibetan tribes settled here, and to this day have maintained their intrinsic customs, language and dress.

Arising before the sun my first morning in Lijiang, I witnessed dawn’s first light gently illuminate the jagged peaks of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain one by one. As with the character in Hilton’s novel, my first glimpse of Lijiang proved that there was a real Shangri-La after all.

Lijiang was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999 and its Old Town, or Dayan, dates back more than 500 years. It is a labyrinth of classic tile-roofed row houses, shops and cafes along narrow cobbled streets bereft of vehicular traffic. My exploration of the town first took me to the Dongba Research Institute. Here the Naxi religion (called Dongba) and its art crafts are displayed while artisans and crafts people work in age-old ways and dress.

From a brush painter copying classic Dongba scrolls, I learned that Naxi is the only remaining world language that is written in pictographs instead of alphabets or characters.

Further wandering took me to the Black Dragon Pool at the center of the town’s Jade Spring Park.   Here many exquisite antique Naxi-style architectural treasures take the form of pagodas and pavilions. While in the distance, adding further drama to the postcard scene: the backdrop of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain.

Outside of town I explored the tranquil valley settlement of Nguluko. Here, long ago, another seeker of his own Shangri-La arrived from afar and settled in 1922. It was the eccentric Austrian-born linguist, anthropologist, botanist and photographer, Joseph Rock. Rock lived out his dream here and by the time he departed in 1949, he had compiled the first dictionary of the Naxi culture. And he led the first field expeditions into the Himalayas for the National Geographic Society that departed only after his own portable bathtub and gold dinner service and other eccentricities were fully accounted for and secured on the backs of his expedition porters.

My last day in the Valley of Dragon Snow Mountain concluded with a visit to Baisha Village, the old capital of the Naxi Kingdom until AD 1271. By no means did it look like a place of importance any more. Its narrow dusty lanes were nearly deserted. But under the branches of a weeping willow tree growing in front of a ubiquitous shop front, I spotted a hand-drawn sign that read in English, “The Most Admired Man.”

I slid open the entrance door and there to greet me with a handshake and a cheery “Welcome” in English was a slight, white-bearded Naxi elder. He apologized for his “poor English” (although I considered it quite refined). He said he learned it during WWII from American airmen of the famed “Flying Tigers” based in Lijiang when he was a teen.

He wore a black wool stocking cap like sailors do when out on deck on a stormy sea and a white lab coat. He introduced himself as Dr. Ho Shi-Xiu, age 85, a native of Lijiang and a physician. He said this was his Jade Dragon Snow Mountain Chinese Herbal Medical Clinic.

The kindly Dr. Ho had tea served, and then spoke of his background: suffering from a complicated ailment after graduating from Nanjing University and finding no cure for it with Western medicine. Returning home he delved into the study of Chinese medicinal herbs. He not only cured himself, he said, but treated others with his natural remedies free of charge if need be.

Through the years, nearly a third of a million patients from more than 100 countries have sought his medical advice. Even famed medical institutions like the Mayo Clinic consult with him today about his successful treatment of leukemia using medicinal herbs.

As I was to depart, Dr. Ho took his calligraphy brush and with four bold strokes created a single Chinese character on parchment paper that he gave to me as a remembrance of our visit. I asked its meaning. With a warm smile, he said, “Kindness, my best prescription for good health.”

With Dr. Ho’s parting benediction I felt assured I had found exactly what I was searching for in the faraway “Shangri-La” of my dreams. Not perpetual youth nor profound wisdom, but a true sense of peace and a new commitment to being more of a blessing to others.

Napping Weddell Seal: “face to face!”

Story and photography by Dave Bartruff

As I ventured out on deck of my expedition ship at the start of another exciting day at sea, I was nearly blinded by the brilliant blanket of snow that coated its deck from the tip of its bow to the helicopter pad at its stern. What a surprise: this was the middle of summer! Summer in Antarctica!

Though the opportunity to throw a snowball or two was tempting, I knew there was plenty of adventure ahead on shore, and I didn’t want to miss any of it.

I could tell by the sound of the engines, we had reached our offshore anchorage. The anchor was about to go down, as well as the four rubber Zodiacs stored on the platform aft. These swift 16-foot-long landing craft carry 10-12 adventurers. Their 60 horsepower outboard motors speed you to shore where you finally set foot on the fabled White Continent for the first time, and your Antarctic dream becomes reality!

Gliding through a photographer’s paradise

I was aboard the Antarctic Dream, a small 2,180-ton polar iceboat with a reinforced hull built for adventure. Featuring just 39 cabins, (four of which are suites) for 78 passengers, the ship had an elite, mostly Chilean crew of 36 commanded by the legendary Swedish captain, Peter Skog. His long career at sea spans more than four decades. The congenial Swede has been navigating in Antarctic waters on more than 100 voyages since 1974, longer than any other ship master currently sailing here. Skog is also a master linguist, fluent in English, Spanish, German and Swedish.

Today’s first landing was at Port Lockroy, a place with a checkered past: beginning as a whaling station from the late 1800s to the 1930s. During World War II, the site became Great Britain’s secret “Base A” for monitoring German shipping movements. Abandoned after the war, the original station building has now been restored and turned into an historical museum and gift shop, with its wartime decor and trappings of the 1940s still authentically preserved.

It also affords adventurers the unique opportunity to have their passports hand stamped to authenticate their Antarctic visit. Talk about a conversation piece when you go through passport control on your arrival home or when sharing your unique travel experience with friends and neighbors. Incidentally, Antarctica belongs to no nation, but has various national scientific stations on its soil according to international treaty agreements.

In the short November through February Antarctic tourist season, (which is summer in the Southern Hemisphere), nearly 10,000 adventurers venture here. Only 350 each day are allowed to land at Lockroy, just 60 at a time so not to endanger the fragile environment.

Woman in Zodiac films summer ice-flows

From Lockroy, another short Zodiac ride lands you amidst a vast Gentoo penguin rookery at Jougla Point. Some 800 pairs of adult Gentoo and their chicks nest here. You’re virtually up to your knees in the little creatures when you step on shore. By moving quietly among the inhabitants, you pose no threat to them as they go about their nesting, and grooming activities.

Indeed, by just sitting down on an available rock for 5-10 minutes you become an object of their curiosity; and the penguins may actually come to you. So it was with fellow shipmate, Johanna Chang, an elementary school teacher from Taichung, Taiwan. It was fascinating to watch as a curious (or hungry) young Gentoo used its little beak to probe Johanna’s every parka pocket and fanny pack zipper as she sat serenely by. An adorable little “pick pocket!”

On the shoreline of the rookery, I found a myriad of century-old whalebones now colored green by algae. Nearby, a completely reconstructed whale skeleton lay on the ground. It must have measured a good 20 yards in length.

But my closest, and most rewarding encounter with Antarctica’s wildlife was just around the corner. It was nearly time to board the last Zodiac back to the ship, when an out-of-breath fellow passenger told me of his great discovery in the neighboring cove. In a flash, I clambered as best I could along the rocky shoreline towards the prize.

Closeup of seal napping on tiny ice-flow

At last I reached it: there stretched out on a patch of soft snow, was a sleepy nine-foot-long Weddell Seal. I approached him cautiously, but he was sound asleep. I got so close, I could have tickled his whiskers!   I didn’t though. There was just enough time to shoot some real close, close ups before racing back to the waiting Zodiac.

Several days earlier, we had made our first landing on the Antarctic Continent at Neko Harbor, at the head of a massive glacier and our first opportunity to meet and march amongst the penguins.

Five of the ten days on the Antarctic Dream’s expedition cruises are devoted to “boots on the ground” landings on the Antarctic Continent and its offshore islands via Zodiacs. Weather and safety play a big role in these landings. Up to three shore landings per day are scheduled during the long summer days. (One day the sun rose at 4:27 am set at 10:16 pm.) Altogether, we safely accomplished a total of eight landings without incident. Actually our whole first excursion day was lost due to high winds that prevented Zodiac movement. Instead, we went on whale chases rewarding us with many sightings and wonderful photo “Ops.”

What most amazed we first-time Antarctica adventurers were its intrepid penguins. “Imagine,” our expedition leader explained: “hatching out of an egg in mid-November and growing into a self-sufficient adult by March, when you then take off on your own to face the cruelest weather on the planet. Talk about real guts!”

The nearly 1,200 mile sailing aboard the Antarctic Dream included many other once-in-a-lifetime experiences like a zodiac excursion off Pleneau Island piloted through blue ice flows as tall as five and ten-story buildings. One floating marvel looked like a Greek temple with sculpted Corinthian columns, another like a transparent Oriental dragon. On flat snow flows that resembled floating tanning salons, we encountered up to a dozen seals at a time basking together in the brilliant Antarctic sunshine.

Another memorable moment was our entry into Deception Island, a spectacular caldera, remnant of a collapsed active volcano that last erupted in 1970. We sailed in through the caldera’s only entrance called, “Neptune’s Bellows,” a tricky, narrow passage, but one often negotiated by our own Captain Skog. Just a week earlier, however, a larger expedition vessel with 300 passengers aboard ran aground in these narrows. All aboard had to abandon ship and wait on shore for rescue. The incident attracted worldwide media coverage.

Once ashore by Zodiac ourselves inside the caldera, we hiked up to the top of its 1,500-foot-high outer rim for a panoramic view of the whole two-mile-wide volcanic remnant. Before our departure, we made a second Zodiac landing where a number of our group (male and female) stripped down to their bathing suits and dug themselves into the warm volcanic sands and waters that came to the surface. Then the heartiest of the hearty, including even women, finished off their Antarctic spa experience by dashing headfirst into the caldera’s icy waters to “cool down!”

By day’s end, our final shore landing took place in Maxwell Bay on King George Island, one of the South Shetland Islands. There at anchor lay the empty vessel disabled at Deception Island. On shore we visited both the Chilean and Russian scientific bases that are among eight nations located here year round.

Our return voyage ended in spectacular fashion as we approached Ushuaia, Argentina, the southernmost city in the world, where our voyage had begun just 11 days earlier. As we nudged into port in a light rain shower, suddenly the sun broke through and a rainbow covered the whole harbor with its brilliant halo. Truly we’d found our “pot of gold”… on board the Antarctic Dream, where dreams really do come true.