| In 1943 the Swedish SS Gripsholm was commissioned by the US government as a internee repatriation ship. Painted conspicuously in black & white and clearly marked, it was a dangerous undertaking in seas full of warships, submarines naval aircraft. |  |
| Above: the Gripsholm at a rendezvous for internee exchange with its Japanese equivalent, the Teia Maru, at an Indian port. In September 1943 some 1500 Allied internees (civilians and diplomats caught up in the wrong country at the outbreak of the Pacific war) were crammed aboard the Teia Maru in Japanese occupied China. It was the first of a number of exchanges. Former US Marine Fred Knauf was one of the lucky Weihsien camp inhabitants selected. Why the Japanese let a reserve US Marine out of their clutches is a mystery. Right: back in Knauf's hometown of Mosinee, Wisconsin, the local newspaper got some of its facts wrong in its reporting of the ship's progress. In fact Fred Knauf was arrested in Peking immediately after the attack Pearl Harbour and was in no way involved in the conflict in the Phillipine Islands. |  |
 | Left: a later edition of The Mosinee Times featured a decades old photograph of local-boy Fred. Knauf's brothers and sisters were expecting him to arrive home soon. But they were disappointed. Knauf wrote from New York explaining that he was taking some timeout to recover. The fact was that Knauf was intent on returning to China just as soon as he could. Back in Weihsien camp his friend and associate Wentworth Prentice remained incarcerated for the remainder of the war with their accuser, E.T.C. Werner. Pamela's adoptive father would regularly publicly accuse the dentist of her murder; Fred Knauf had done well to get onto the repatriation ship. |
RSS Feed
