Captain Noboru Ando – The sadistic commander

Christmas Island District Officer and P.O.W. Tom Cromwell, wrote a report about Christmas Island conditions during the enemy occupation just weeks after the Japanese surrender in September 1945. In it he mentioned “Commander Ando” and also the severe beating he received under Ando’s orders. It appeared too, that word must have travelled to him of Ando’s sadism in Ambon as he also referenced him as “sadistic commander of Ambon”.

Ando, a marine captain, along with his troops arrived on Christmas Island on the 31st March 1942. He was in command for about a month before being replaced by a much older more amenable man who allowed the Island P.O.W.s some small freedoms.

For the first three days he [Ando] allowed his troops a free hand with the population. That meant anything from drunken soldiers taking wrist watches from any Malay or Chinese they met, to entering people’s homes and taking jewellery, bicycles, alcohol, cigarettes, radio or anything they fancied. Resistance was out of the question. Any show of reluctance was met with slaps or kicks. But despite the worst fears of the population, there was no repeat of the mass rape that had become notorious in China. Only one Chinese woman was raped – she was sick and bedridden and could not escape. She died a few days later.

“Suffering through strength, the men who made Christmas Island” page 184 – John Hunt

* The first entry in the Island death registry after the Japanese invasion is that of a 28 year old housewife, Lo Ah Mui. She died of beri-beri, 4 days after the invasion, at her home in Settlement. Was she the unfortunate rape victim?

Three days after the invasion, on the 3rd April, Tom Cromwell was severely beaten about the face and head with rubber shoe and tied to a tree over-night under Ando’s directions. Cromwell thought this was on account of partial demolition and damage of machinery etc. before the invasion. Jack Pettigrew also an Island P.O.W. gave this account:

Within a few hours the Japanese had set up headquarters at the manager’s house; then our little party, escorted by six soldiers, was marched to headquarters for interrogation.

The Japanese commander [Ando] was angry about the damage done to the phosphate plant and at first would not believe that the destruction had been caused by Japanese bombs and shells. After a few hours’ intense interrogation, beatings, and threats, the commander at last seemed to be satisfied that the damage had indeed been caused by the bombardment of the island and our little party was marched to the Asian clerks’ quarters and placed under guard.

Later various accounts of beatings meted out to P.O.W.s in Ambon, resulting in severe injuries and death, with Ando watching and directing make grim reading. With that knowledge, it’s fair to say that in comparison, the Christmas Island P.O.W.s got off relatively lightly.

So who exactly was this Captain / Commander Ando? Details are scant. Ando was Noboru Ando nicknamed “handlebars” to describe his huge moustache. This nickname was probably later given by P.O.W.s unfortunate enough to have been in his camp.

Ross McDonald, an Australian P.O.W. at the Tantoei (Tan Toey, Tan Tui) camp in Ambon, described him in an oral history interview.

McDonald: … did Jimmy tell you about Captain Ando?

Interviewer: A little but I was hoping you could tell me a bit about him?

McDonald: I don’t know much about him except he was a bastard. I mean, he was a dreadful fellow I think even to look at.

Well what did he look like to you? Oh well, short. He was Japanese. He had very cruel type of eyes and he had a bloody moustache that came out here and we knew something about him before he came into the camp. He’d actually been in charge of part of their army or navy that took Christmas Island. He would summarily execute a thousand natives for whatever. He was a bastard and he was … and whilst he was there a couple of times if he would speak to a bloke and the bloke didn’t answer him properly he had a cane and that sort of thing and he would welt the bloke across the face no trouble at all. And people, if he had people standing at attention for any length of time and somebody dropped and he wouldn’t take any notice of them. He would come over and kick them you know.

Interviewer: Are these things that you saw in front of you or stories that you have heard since?

McDonald: Oh I saw him crack a couple of blokes. Yeah, with his swagger stick. But we also, somehow we got information about that Christmas Island thing. I don’t think that was after the war.

Ross McDonald, 18th June 2003, Australians at War Film Archive (Archive No 496) http://australiansatwarfilmarchive.unsw.edu.au

Walter Hicks, another Australian P.O.W. from that same camp had the following to say:

… the island commandant was replaced by a Captain Ando who was a sadist. He came from a very high ranking family in Japan his family had for centuries made that ware where they put little brass things. [He points to something off camera.] He was only about five foot four and he was a little runt of a man but he had a samurai sword that was two thirds of his size and he was one of the most cruel vicious persons that you could ever imagine and he ordered the beatings of the Dutch. …

Walter Hicks, 24th September 2003, Australians at War Film Archive (Archive No 807) http://australiansatwarfilmarchive.unsw.edu.au

In April 1947 Ando was on a list containing the names of all Japanese suspected of having committed war crimes in the Netherlands East Indies or against Netherlands and Netherlands East Indies subjects.

As a deserter, he was on the run. But the list entry for Ando makes no mention of his ultimate fate.

On the same day Japan’s Emperor Hirohito announced the surrender of Japan to the allies in a radio address across the empire, Ando made his cowardly choice to escape justice.

Marines Captain Ando Noboru (‘Handlebars’), commander of the garrison force until November 1943, committed suicide with a drink laced with potassium cyanide, in Surabaya Harbour on 15 September 1945.”

Thesis – ZIARAH THE GULL FORCE ASSOCIATION PILGRIMAGES TO AMBON – Paul Anthony Rosenzweig 2000

Mention of Ando can also be found in a biographical list of Imperial Japanese Navy Flag Officers between the years of 1926-1945:

Ando
Captain: Commander of Tan Toey POW camp, Ambon Island, Moluccas; Ordered beating and ill treatment of prisoners, November 1942; Rear-Admiral by the end of war; Committed suicide at Surabaya, Java, September 1945.

Shōkan, Hirohito’s samurai by Richard Fuller

Lieutenant Commander Donovan, an American P.O.W. on board a Japanese cruiser after being removed from Christmas Island, would later tell:

… the Japanese on board told me that I was fortunate to be alive. They had seen the white flag, but they fired on the island anyway. Had anyone returned fire, the landing party had been ordered to kill everyone they found.

Knowing something of the nature of Captain Ando, he would have had no compunction about carrying out this order. In fact, it may even have been his.

As Ando meted out his punishments to Tom Cromwell and others on Christmas Island and elsewhere, secure in the knowledge of his absolute power, he could never have imagined the circumstances and nature of his demise just a few years later.

Some of the content above comprises the memories and reflections of P.O.W.s. It reflects the culture, language, and individual experience of a place or period of time, including the date of reports or interviews and the date that the events being recalled took place.

Explore Further

• Read more historic Christmas Island WW2 newspaper articles and stories.
• To discover WW2 and Japanese artefacts and other historical finds from Christmas Island, visit the Christmas Island Virtual Museum.