Featured WWII American POW Letters Found Behind An Old Photo Frame-American Civilian Captured By The Japanese

There was a discussion on the ephemera board about unusual things people found hidden and I told the story of what I found. Someone told me I should create my own thread so here I am.

Here's my story:

I really got interested in collecting antique Victorian cdv and tintype photos a few years ago. I never bother collecting photos that were taken after the 19th Century unless they are given to me for free as I find no interest in more contemporary photos. One night I was on a website called shopgoodwill.com. It is an online auction site similar to ebay where multiple Goodwill thrift stores all over America auction off their items instead of selling them in their brick and mortar shops.

I saw a listing for this photograph and almost hit the back button because it was contemporary. Then I spied on the handsome gentleman with the doe eyes and the shy smile. I thought he was handsome and felt drawn to him for some reason I could not explain. Maybe he was my type?, lol Back in the day I would have probably been swooning over him, ha ha. The auction was won by me and I was the only one that bid on it. Usually I get excited when I win auctions and can't wait for my items to arrive, but this time I was not really excited at all. When it arrived, the glass panel on the frame was filthy. When I went to slide the panel out to clean the glass, a bunch of letters and little photos came spilling out.

When I picked them up I saw that they were POW letters from Shanghai War Prisoner Camp in China. Also there were little photo booth photos of him and an old tattered calendar from 1938. I could not believe my eyes! How did they get in there? His heartbroken mother must have kept them safe for all those years behind the frame.

Apparently he was a civilian contractor on Wake Island helping to build an American Air Base along with the US Marines. He was taken prisoner along with the marines and spent his time in two POW camps, one in Shanghai and one in Osaka (Tsumori) Japan. Sadly he died there.

I was able to find two documents on his cause of death. One was an unclassified US Government file that said he died of cerebral malaria. Another document I found on a US Tsumori (Osaka, Japan), POW website said he died of pneumonia. I have enclosed photos of what was contained behind the frame.

His memorial page with all of his family's names listed are on findagrave:
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/66338575/charles-austin-moe

More info I found on him:
http://mansell.com/pow_resources/camplists/osaka/tsumori_13B/OSA-13_Deceased_RG24Bx6.pdf

I found his name on the findagrave website and added his picture to it in 2015. Someone (not a relative of his) had a memorial page up there for him. His parents names were on there and so were his siblings. I tried to do research to find living relatives of him, but do not have a paid ancestry.com account to get some more information. I am unwilling to pay $99 or more for them to release that information. In my opinion Ancestry.com pretty much holds family records hostage unless you pay up.

I had already made a youtube video showing what I found and sadly nobody has come forth with anymore information except for what I already have come across on my own. I am not good at research and do not even know what sites I would need to go to in order to get free information to do a little more digging. Genealogy research is not my forte.

Here is the information I have been able to get thus far, showing and reading his POW letters and seeing if posting it will help me obtain more information to try to see if I could locate living relatives of his to share this info with them. Maybe one of you can help me as I am sure at least one of you may have an ancestry.com account or be much more knowledgeable when it comes to researching.

I want to thank you all in advance for your help.
RIP Charles Austin Moe

 

After a quick search on Ancestry and another site, it appears he had many siblings, but I can't find a record of him marrying or having descendants. He was the baby of his family, so his siblings were older, some much older. There are 10 or so trees on Ancestry that he is in. I'm working out which tree owner is the closest relative. Some of the trees have your photo in them (probably from findagrave?). Some have this photo:


FamilySearch.org, which is NOT behind a paywall has this entry for him.
I was surprised to see that he is my wife's 9th cousin.

 

Smallaxe thank you so much. I cannot thank you enough for doing all of this for me. If they got that photo that I posted on findagrave, I am glad they found it. I wonder if they did find it on findagrave, why didn't they try to contact on me by clicking on my name and asking me how I got it? I do know that the same photo was put in a Morrison Knudson (his employee who had a lot of POW civilain employees) memorial book around 1945 so I think there were more copies of this photo out there.

I wonder how this photo got donated to Goodwill? Did his relatives give it away? That in itself breaks my heart.

 

I read his letter home and cried .

 

Aww! I know I did too when I found these. I got misty eyed again when I took the pictures to post here. I feel very angry at what happened to him. My heart breaks knowing that he was tortured, mistreated, starved and probably beaten like a dog. I wish I could have made it all better for him. God rest his soul.

 

Did any of you see the movie Unbroken? I saw it after I found these letters and cried thinking of what he must have went through.

 

He mentioned the "Kindness" of his captors ... just so his letter would get through, there was NOTHING 'kind' about them. ... Joy.

 

Yes, I agree. It was very disturbing to see how much he had to toot the horn of his Japanese captors. He also mentioned the wonderful dinner that due to the "Kindness" of the Japanese he was allowed to eat. I read somewhere that the Japanese guards used to confiscate the stuff that the Red Cross gave them. I bet he never got to eat that boiled chicken and hot cross buns. Makes me feel even more sadder for him.

 

Absolutely. When my husband's grandfather in a Japanese camp on Java was emaciated from starvation, the Japanese used the sunken spaces behind his clavicles as ashtrays. How warped can you be. They also jumped on the bellies of pregnant women, and after they miscarried, they used them as sex slaves. When a child cried from hunger, the mother was flogged.
I could go on and on, growing up in a country with many people who survived Japanese camps, I heard countless horror stories.

 

I also found the letters very sad. So far from the truth of how he was being treat and what he had to eat.

 

SYNCHRONCITY, you are amazing and so is this thread!!

 

Not sure if this is related but (Charles' sister)Ina's husband's name was E.J. Borjesson and she was a member of a group called NAVY MOTHERS. I found this site that is about shipwrecks and the owner of the ship bears the same name as her husband.
https://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?9844
Interesting, either way

 

Oh,how his poor parents must have wanted to believe his letters ! I can just feel the overwhelming hope it gave their hearts . I can imagine his poor mother reading them over and over , hoping and praying and wanting so desperately to believe . I can also imagine the pain when the truth was revealed . Who's cutting onions in here ?!?

 

This is so very sad.
I wonder if these were form letters that the prisoners just signed.
The wording seems so strange and impersonal.

 

Wow, what a story. I have a theory that each family clan has one historian for each generation, someone who really cares about the family history - enough to make a good tree etc...I hope you find that person who will share this story and pass it down to the next generations.

 

Oh God! That is so brutal. Anyone that survived must have had a lifetime of horrible nightmares. It is so sad.

 

Yes, I know. It is like he was trying so hard to paint a rosy picture so he didn't worry his family.

 

Thank you so much! That was so nice of you to say. I appreciate that.

 

Oh wow! That is some cool information. Thank you so much for that.

 

I know right? When he mentioned how it was cold, but it was nice there in one of his letters he was trying to give them clues I think. I read somewhere that it was one of the coldest years on record and the Japanese would only give them enough fuel to heat the barracks for only a few hours each night. The only way the prisoners laying on the wooden barracks boards could get warm is to embrace each other and hug. I heard that some of them froze to death. It really must have been awful there.