The Marmot’s Hole

On September 1, 1923 - just before noon - one of the most devastating earthquakes in history struck Tokyo and Yokohama. The 8.9 earthquake lasted from four to ten minutes and although its destruction was unimaginable, it paled in comparison to the firestorms that raced through the cities. Nearly 142,000 people died from Mother Nature’s fury, but perhaps even more shocking was the outright murder of thousands of Koreans in the days that followed.

Many of you are probably aware that I buy and sell photographs dealing with Korea and Korean events. Here is one of the pictures that I purchased of Yokohama following the earthquake - and I am pasting a letter from a young Lieutenant named T.O. Cullins who was from Oklahoma and serving with the American Asiatic Fleet, to his parents. His ship, like several others, rushed to Yokohama and Tokyo to provide assistance and he thought that his family would like to know the real “dope” of the situation there. Although there are many mistakes in his letter I am sure that many of the readers of Marmot’s Hole might find it interesting.

Yokohama, Japan
Sept. 7, 1923
Dear Mom and Dad,
I suppose you want a little information on the disaster. It is the most horrifying thing that I have ever seen. And I hope that I never see such a sight again.
Very few Americans except the consul and his staff were killed, of the latter all except one were instantly killed. He is now on one of hte ships and is completely out of his mind. The tremendous loss of life had been with the natives. It is reported that looting and killing is very prevalent ashore. Several dead bodies have been drifting by in the few hours that we have been here and even now after three days one can stand on deck and count at least a dozen fires raging ashore. The water is muddy and everything has the aspect of death and disaster.
Several times we have endeavored to help the Japs, but they refused to discuss matters with us. This afternoon when our destroyers left on the duty assigned them they were immediately followed by Jap destroyers and even now they play their searchlights on us as if they thought we were endeavoring to do something wrong to them.
I have been talking to some people who were in it and have lost everything and have been doing a lot of digging around ashore. The Japs would take out all Japs and if they ran across a white person they would only cast him aside ot lay there and suffer and perhaps to die. One merchant skipper escaped down to the waters edge. The flames were pushing him and he decided to jump into the water seeing several Japs in boats and thought they would certainly pick him up. He swam to a dozen different boats and they utterly ignored him and would not pick him up and in every case they would roll away from him. He was finally rescued by a French boat. Another Jap ship went down to a little town to get some sort of Prince. There were about 180 whites there and they were stranded without food and water. This Jap ship took the Prince but would not offer any assistance to the whties at all. There are numerous cases of this kind of action on their part.
There is a British cruiser up from Shanghai and a French cruiser here and their skippers have called and placed their men and services at our disposal and are anxious to help in any way possible. It shows the differences in the people.
I just wonder what kind of news you are getting in the patpers. You certainly can’t be getting the right dope as all means of communications are destroyed. I imagine that are pasting it on heavy as the papers usually do in such cases. You are perhaps getting the right dope now as we are sending the straight dope out every night by radio to the International News Service. The cables are all broken and all railways are ruined. All telegraphic means of communication are wrecked for hundreds of miles around. We have to send by radio to Kobe where we have a destroyer stationed to relay all radio messaged and they send to Manilla where it is then sent by wire. It is the general assumption I understand that there was a big tidal wave which did most of the damage. This is not the case as there was no tidal wave whatsoever. Everything was caused by the earthquake and fire. The facts as I shall try to give them according to my notes were related to me by responsible people, Captains of merchant ships lying here at the time of the event, attaches, American businessmen and tourists on the various passenger ships.
The Empress of Australia, a large British passenger ship was scheduled to sail for Shanghai at noon Saturday. Hundreds of people were at the dock watching her shove off. They were all waving farewell, bands were playing, etc., when at three minutes of twelve, the dock suddenly shook very violently and the large portion of it sank below the water. Within a matter of one minute, half of the houses in Yokohama, a city of about 400,000 were flat on the ground. There were nine violent quakes to begin with and they lasted throughout the day. Official reports from the Navy Department at Washington have data to the effect that there have been some 17,000 earthquakes in the last 17 years here. There are on the average three a day and even now we can feel slight tremors every days. Scores were drowned immediately. Within five minutes the water was covered with oil from bursting oil tanks and huge tanks were on fire. Fire started up in the city at this time, to increas the terror a typhoon sprang up with a gale of 60 miles an hour and from the land out to sea carrying the flames thru the main district which was by this time down. Imagine such a vast area of land and water on fire. It was all the ships that were anchored here could do to keep from burning. As it was one American ship had a big hole torn in her from the force of the quake and she is now resting on the bottom. The “Empress” to add to her trouble had her propellers fouled with the fallen dock and all hands worked desperately to free her. Finally she was freed and she went out in the harbor and anchored. The captain himself told me that he had never in all his life seen anything so terrible. The flames roared hundreds of feet into the air. Within less than an hour one hundred thousand people were killed in Yokohama alone. Imagine one fourth of the city being dead in such a short time. It was ghastly to think of it. The final estimate of the dead here is three hundred thousand the fifty thousan in Tokyo. There are still pleaces that have been been dug into yet and it is known that there are a number of dead there but it is not known how many. The merchant skipper Iwas talking to lives here and his home was destroyed. His daughter was pinned down by a beam when the house fell in and he broke three saws trying to get her out and finally he had to get an axe and cut the beam. He finally succeeded in getting her out and just in time as the fire had already hit his house. I could relate other tales but this gives you a fair idea of it.
I went into the inner harbor this morning and I hope I never go again. The sights I saw were terrible. It is one mass of floating debris. The building are all crumpled up to a pulp and burned to the ground. The air is thick with smoke and is filled with a sickening odor of decayed matter. There are numerous dead bodies floating around in all sorts of distorted shapes, all beyond recognition. There are hundreds ashore lying on the ground that have not yet been done away with. They are piling them in heaps and burning them. There was one pile that contained some eight hudnred bodies and those that are still lying around are decaying and setting forth an awful smell. There are parts of bodies here and there and parts to have been burned off and leaving the rest of the body exposed tot he sun and flies. Just picture it all dear folks and it’s ghastly. There was one little court that had about a thousand people huddled in it to protect themselves from the flames. They were all cremated in this spot. There are all parts of the body lying about from ashes to the entire body. It makes me sick to tell about it.
There are thousands of Japs and Chinese down by the water’s edge waiting to be sent out to some of the ships. They have only the clothes on their backs and some of them do not have any clothes. Much looting is going on and pawing over any valuable that they can find. Stretchers have been exhausted, all food, water and medical supplies have been exhausted. Food and water is now coming in to them and they are fairly safe in that direction. The Japs are so stricken and crazy that they are killing the Chinese and the Koreans whom they believe to have caused the fires. There are Jap soldiers here now and this is pretty well in hand.
The Empress is doing wonderful work. She has already handled some 14,000 refugees of all nationalities and is taking all that she can possibly hold and provide for. The President Jefferson, an American passenger ship, left here yesterday with a ship load of refugees for Seattle. Two more American ships are duee in here in the next three days and we are goign to transfer all the tourists from one to the other and send them all down to Kobe and keep the other ship here as a station ship.
Inland there is quite a lot of devastation and suffering also. We sent an armed force up in the mountains with food and water to get several familes and brought them down. The Smith-Thompson went down to Kamakuri and rescured the 185 whites that were stranded there. The Whipple went up to Tokyo and brought down some hundred whites. Most all the Americans are accounted for but there are some hundred that are missing in Yokohama. It is estimated that in all only one hundred Americans have been killed. Only one white person was killed in Tokyo and that was a Russian. The Americans that were killed were killed here in Yokohama.
The American ambassador in Tokyo has called for food supplies and we are going up tomorrow morning with some twenty-five hundred tons of supplies. When I get up there I will tell you about the damage and the sights up there. I understand that the bay is full of bodies so I imagine that it will be a nice trip up.
Do not worry about me at all because I am perfectly safe. We are anchored out and there is no danger of a quake getting us if we did have another one. The Japs have a respect for the foreign uniform and particularly the American. So we are alright.
We have been kept pretty busy all day and most of the time all night and I am awfully tired. It is something new and most interesting even it is a most terrible disaster.
I do not know just how long we will be up here. We will perhaps be able to keep our Shanghai trip even if we do miss the Hankow trip up the river.
Perhaps the folks would be interested in this letter so show it to them as it is too much to write all this to each of them and I haven’t the time. We are on the go from five a.m. to two a.m. nearly every day.
If you want to you can give some of this in the New but please do leave out the parts I have put in parenthesis.
It will be some three weeks before you receive this and I suppose the news will be stale by then but anyway this news is from one who is on the scene and knows what is going on. All reports that get are sugared over.
Write me whenever you can. I will keep you posted on all the dope of this part of the world. Love to all the folks. Love T.O.