August 17th, 1945.   Selenus Valley, California. The canvas   sides of the military truck rattled as   50 Japanese women pressed against them,   their breath coming in short, terrified   gasps. Through the gap where the   tailgate met the frame, they could see   it. Water wide, slowm moving, glinting   under the merciless afternoon sun.

 

 The   Selenus River stretched before them like   a grave waiting to be filled. Before we   continue this remarkable story of   terror, misunderstanding, and unexpected   human dignity, hit like and subscribe.   Comment where you’re watching from.   Tokyo or Toronto, Manila, or Manchester.   These forgotten World War II moments   deserve remembrance, and your support   keeps them alive. The engine cut.

 

  Silence flooded in thick and   suffocating. Then someone screamed. A   young woman’s voice raw with absolute   certainty. They’re going to drown us.   The words tore through the group like   shrapnel. Within seconds, panic consumed   them. Women clutched each other, backed   away from the approaching soldiers, wept   with the knowledge that they had   survived the battle of Manala, survived   the Pacific crossing, survived 6 weeks   in captivity, only to die here beside a   California river where no one from home   would ever find them. But the American   soldiers weren’t pointing toward the   water. They were pointing toward a long   wooden building on the riverbank. Steam   rose from its roof. The smell of soap   drifted on the breeze. And in that   moment, when the women finally   understood what they were looking at,   everything they believed about their

 

  enemy began to crack. 3 months earlier,   these 50 women had been living what   remained of their previous lives in the   Japanese occupied Philippines. Most were   nurses, teachers, clerks, merchants,   wives who had followed their husbands to   Manila when Japan promised a greater   East Asia co-rossperity sphere.

 

 They   believed in the propaganda. They   believed in victory. They believed that   the emperor’s divine mission would   [clears throat] prevail. Then came   February 1945,   and the Americans returned to Manila   with a fury that turned the city into an   inferno. The battle lasted 37 days.   Artillery shells rained down without   pause.

 

 Buildings collapsed into   mountains of rubble. Fire consumed   entire neighborhoods block by block,   street by street. The women huddled in   cellars, listening to the thunder   creeping closer, knowing capture was   inevitable. They had been told what to   expect. American soldiers that learned   from government broadcasts showed no   mercy to Japanese civilians.

 

 Torture   awaited. Humiliation to death. The   propaganda had been constant, detailed,   absolute. When American forces finally   swept through their district on March   3rd, the women emerged from the ruins,   holloweyed and filthy. They wore   whatever tattered clothes they’d managed   to preserve. Their hands shook.

 

 Their   legs barely held them. They expected   immediate execution. Instead, young   American soldiers, some barely out of   their teens, search them for weapons,   confiscated military items, and loaded   them onto transport trucks. The women   waited for the gunshots that never came.   At a temporary processing camp, they   received medical examinations.

 

  real examinations, not interrogations,   disguised as medicine. They were given   meals, rice, and canned meat. Not much,   but more than they’d eaten in weeks.   Each woman received a numbered tag tied   to her wrist. One woman, Yoko, a former   school teacher from Osaka, kept a secret   diary on scraps of paper hidden in her   clothes.

 

 She wrote that first night in   cramped characters. her handwriting   shaking across the page. We are alive. I   do not understand why. The soldiers gave   us food. Real food. Is this mercy or are   they fattening us for some worse fate?   The journey from the Philippines to   California took nearly 3 weeks aboard a   military transport ship.

 

 The women were   held in converted cargo holds, cramped,   but not inhumanly so. They slept on   narrow bunks stacked three high, the   metal frames creaking with every roll of   the vessel. [snorts] Seasickness ravaged   them. The hold smelled of vomit,   unwashed bodies, and metallic fear.   Through port holes, they glimpsed   endless gray ocean.

 

 The ship’s crew   provided regular meals. Hardtac   biscuits, canned vegetables,   occasionally meat. After months of near   starvation in Manila, even these plain   rations felt surreal. Some women refused   to eat, convinced the food was poisoned.   Others ate ravenously, their bodies   overriding their minds suspicions. Yoko   noted the maddening contradiction.

 

 “If   they plan to kill us, why feed us? If   they plan to keep us alive, for what   purpose? We are enemy nationals. We have   no value to them. During the voyage, the   women formed tight clusters based on   where they’d lived in the Philippines.   The nurses grouped together. The   teachers formed another circle.

 

 They   spoke in hushed Japanese, sharing   rumors, fears, memories of home. Some   had children who’d been separated from   them. Sons and daughters sent to   different camps or facilities. The agony   of not knowing gnawed at them.   constantly. A few women had lost   husbands in the fighting. Their grief   was quiet, internal, dangerous to   express.

 

 When the ship finally docked in   San Francisco Bay in late June, the   women caught their first glimpse of   America. The sight staggered them more   than any interrogation could have. The   city rose from the waterfront completely   intact. No rubble, no bomb craters, no   burned out shelves of buildings. Street   lights glowed in the evening.

 

 Cars moved   along roads. People walked freely,   laughing, shopping, living. It looked   like a world untouched by war. One woman   whispered, her voice breaking, “How can   this be? We were told America was   suffering, starving, dying. This looks   like paradise.” From San Francisco, they   traveled by train to the Selenus Valley   about a 100 miles south.

 

 The train   windows revealed an America that seemed   impossible. Farms bursting with crops   under endless sun, towns with shops full   of goods, children playing in parks,   women in bright dresses laughing on   street corners. Every mile drove home   the same devastating truth. Their   homeland had lied.

 

 Japan was ash and   ruin. America was abundance in life. The   propaganda had been backwards,   completely, utterly backwards. The   internment camp at Selenus was housed in   converted farm buildings on the edge of   the valley. Barbed wire surrounded the   compound. Guard towers stood at the   corners, but the barracks were   weathertight and clean.

 

 Each woman   received a narrow crot, a thin mattress,   two wool blankets, and a foot locker. It   was sparse, institutional, but it was   shelter. That first night, lying on an   actual bed for the first time in months,   several women wept from the simple   relief of it. The camp commander,   Lieutenant Colonel Harrison, addressed   them the next morning through an   interpreter.

 

 He was a middle-aged   officer with gray at his temples and a   voice that carried authority without   cruelty. He explained the rules, roll   call twice daily, work assignments for   those who were able, access to medical   care, letters permitted once weekly. He   mentioned something called the Geneva   Convention, a term most of the women had   never heard.

 

 You are prisoners of war,   he said, his words translated into   Japanese by a young ni soldier. But you   will be treated with dignity according   to international law. You will not be   mistreated. You will not be starved. You   will not be executed. That is my   promise. The women did not believe him.   How could they? Everything they’d been   taught about Americans screamed that   this was temporary.

 

 the cruelty would   come. It always came. Which brings us   back to that August afternoon, 6 weeks   after their arrival, when the trucks   appeared without warning. No   explanation, no [clears throat] context,   just Curt commands in English and   pointed fingers toward the vehicles. The   women climbed aboard, hearts hammering.   This was it, the moment they’d been   dreading.

 

 Whatever kindness had been   shown was about to end. The ride seemed   endless, though it lasted less than half   an hour. The truck beds were hot and   airless. Canvas covers trapped the   august heat like ovens. Sweat soaked   through their camp issue cotton dresses.   Some women prayed silently to ancestors   they hoped could still hear them.

 

 Others   gripped hands so tightly their knuckles   turned white. Yoko pressed against the   side of the truck, tried to memorize   everything she saw through gaps in the   canvas. The orchards they passed, the   mountains in the distance, the color of   the sky. If these were her final   moments, she wanted to remember   something beautiful.

 

 When the trucks   stopped, the silence felt like a held   breath. Then came the sound that froze   their blood. Rushing water. Not a   trickle, but the steady, powerful flow   of a river. Through the canvas, they   could see soldiers moving toward the   tailgates. This was execution, mass   drowning. They’d heard of such things.   Prisoners waited down and thrown into   rivers where their bodies would never be   found. Quick, efficient, deniable.

 

 The   first scream came from Yuki, barely 22,   who’ worked as a telephone operator in   Manila. They’re going to drown us. Her   voice was raw, primal, utterly certain.   It triggered a chain reaction. Other   women began screaming, sobbing, backing   away from the tailgate. Some tried to   climb over each other, seeking the   illusion of safety at the front of the   truck bed.

 

 A nurse named Sachiko started   hyperventilating, her breath coming in   short, desperate gasps. The American   soldiers stopped, genuinely confused by   the sudden panic. One of them, a young   corporal from Nebraska, with freckles   across his sunburned face, climbed onto   the tailgate and held up his hands.   “Hey, hey, calm down.

 

 Nobody’s hurting   you. It’s just a bath. A bath house.   See?” He pointed toward the wooden   structure on the riverbank, but the   women didn’t speak English. Couldn’t   understand his words. saw only his   gestures toward the water. The panic   intensified into something close to   hysteria. An interpreter was summoned   urgently.

 

 A Japanese American soldier   from the 442nd Regimental Combat Team   who’d been assigned to the camp. He   climbed under the truck, speaking   rapidly in Japanese, trying to cut   through the terror. Listen to me,   please. You are not in danger. They have   built a bath house. A proper bath house   with hot water and soap. This is for   bathing. Nothing else.

 

 I promise you on   my honor you are safe. The words   penetrated slowly like light through   fog. The screaming subsided into   whimpers, then into stunned silence. The   women stared at the interpreter, trying   to process what he was saying. A bath   house for them, for prisoners, for the   enemy.

 

 Yoko was the first to speak, her   voice shaking with confusion and   disbelief. Why would they build us a   bath house? We are prisoners. We are the   enemy. Why would they waste resources on   our comfort? The interpreter smiled   sadly, as if the question pained him.   Because the Geneva Convention requires   it, and because this is how America   treats prisoners of war.

 

 With basic   human dignity, the women climbed down   from the trucks slowly, as if in a   dream. Their legs trembled. Some had to   be helped by others. They approached the   bath house cautiously, still half   expecting a trap, still waiting for the   cruelty to reveal itself. The building   was simple, but sturdy.

 

 rough cut   lumber, a sloped roof, windows along the   sides. Steam rose from vents along the   roof line, visible in the afternoon   heat. But it was the smell that hit them   as they neared the entrance. Soap. Real   soap, clean, fresh, and possibly   luxurious. The scent alone was enough to   make several women stop walking,   overcome by a sensory memory of a life   that seemed to belong to someone else.

 

  Inside the bath house was divided into   sections with the precision of military   planning, a changing area with wooden   benches and hooks on the walls, a   washing area with individual stations   equipped with buckets and stools, and a   large communal bathing pool filled with   steaming water. The design was   deliberately similar to traditional   Japanese bathous.

 

  Someone had researched their customs.   someone had cared enough to make this   facility culturally appropriate. This   detail hit some of the women harder than   anything else that had happened since   their capture. A female Army nurse,   Lieutenant Roberts, explained through   the interpreter how the facility worked.

 

  Her tone was matter of fact almost   bored. Each woman would receive a bar of   soap, a towel, and a clean camp dress to   change into after bathing. They would   wash at the individual stations first,   then soak in the communal pool. Their   old clothes would be collected, washed,   and returned the next day.

 

 To Lieutenant   Roberts, this was routine. To the women,   nothing about this was routine. For 6   weeks in the camp, they’d been washing   from cold water buckets in the latrines.   Before that, in Manila, they’d gone   weeks without proper bathing during the   siege. And now they stood in a   purpose-built bath house with hot water,   real soap, and clean towels.

 

 The   cognitive dissonance was paralyzing.   Yoko was among the first to undress,   more from shock than bravery. Her hands   trembled as she removed her dress,   folded it carefully on the bench. When   she picked up the bar of soap, white and   smooth, and smelling faintly of   lavender, tears began streaming down her   face. She couldn’t stop them.

 

 The soap   felt heavy in her hands, solid, real. It   was such a small thing, such an   insignificant object, but it represented   something she couldn’t name, something   that terrified her more than drowning   would have. Others followed her lead.   Soon the changing area filled with the   rustle of fabric, the soft sounds of   women crying quietly, the splash of   water.

 

 At the washing stations, they   poured buckets of warm water over   themselves. They worked the soap into   lather. They scrubbed away layers of   grime and sweat and fear. The water   turned gray at their feet, swirling into   drains. Some women washed themselves   three, four, five times, unable to   believe the water wouldn’t run out,   unable to believe no one would stop   them.

 

 The communal pool was large enough   for all 50 women, though they entered it   gradually, tentatively. The water was   hot, but not scolding, thoroughly warm,   heated by a system of pipes connected to   a wood-fired boiler someone had taken   the time to maintain. Steam rose in   gentle clouds. Women sank into the water   with expressions of pure disbelief.

 

 Some   laughed, high nervous laughter that   bordered on hysteria. Others simply sat   motionless, submerged to their   shoulders, eyes closed. Yuki, the young   telephone operator who’d first screamed   about drowning, floated on her back in   the center of the pool. She stared up at   the wooden ceiling beams.

 

 “I thought we   were going to die,” she whispered to no   one in particular. “I was certain this   was the end, and instead they gave us   this.” A nurse named Macho, older and   harder, responded bitterly. It’s a   trick. It has to be. They’re softening   us up before something worse. But even   she didn’t sound convinced.

 

 Even she   couldn’t deny the hot water surrounding   her, the soap in her hands, the clean   towel waiting on the bench. The women   soaked for nearly an hour before   Lieutenant Roberts indicated it was time   to finish. They emerged reluctantly,   wrapping themselves in the provided   towels, rough cotton, American military   issue, but clean and dry.

 

 They dressed   in fresh camp dresses, simple pale blue   garments that smelled of laundry soap.   As the women boarded the trucks for the   return trip, the terror that had seized   them earlier had evaporated, leaving a   stunned, breakable silence. They touched   their clean hair, rubbed their soap soft   arms, trying to reconcile the bath house   with everything they believed about   their capttors.

 

 Yoko held the bar of   soap she’d been allowed to keep, staring   at it as if it were an artifact she   couldn’t interpret. That night,   clustered in the barracks, the women   whispered about nothing but the bath   house. Some said it was propaganda.   Others wondered if the stories about   Americans had been exaggerated. A few   simply washed their hands over and over,   unable to process the contradiction.

 

  Yoko wrote in her diary, “I prepared to   die today. Instead, I was given hot   water and soap. If the enemy cares   whether we are clean, what does that   mean about all we were told?” The visits   became weekly. Fear lingered, but   gradually the bath house became a   strange comfort, something they   anticipated with guilty pleasure.

 

 Camp   life settled into its rigid rhythm.   Revly at six roll call breakfast that   felt absurdly ordinary oatmeal, toast,   terrible coffee. Work assignments   followed, each rewarded with tokens for   the canteen where impossible luxuries   waited. Chocolate, paper, lipstick. Yuki   saved for weeks to buy a Hershey bar,   sharing it square by Precious Square.

 

  Letters home arrived slowly, censored,   but life-giving. When Yoko finally   received one from her mother, thin,   warm, months old, it said only, “Knowing   you live gives me strength.” Yoko read   it five times, her untouched dinner   growing cold beside her. Then came the   news that shattered everything.   Photographs of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and   Allied Poes. Starved and skeletal.

 

  Arguments erupted propaganda or truth.   Yuki asked the question none could   answer. If they lied about everything   else, why would this be the only lie?   When repatriation was announced, some   women considered staying in America.   Yoko chose to return for her mother, not   her government.

 

 On their final Saturday,   she washed slowly, trying to fix the   memory of warmth and lavender soap in   her body. Satiko sat across from her.   They were going back to rubble, to   grief, but as different women. The war   is over, Yoko wrote that night. But the   battle inside me has just begun.