The Meatball

In the bleak prisoner-of-war camp at Oeyama, he was vengefully nicknamed "The Meatball." He was a bespectacled, bandy-legged little man who took a savage delight in mistreating captured G.I.s. Under "The Meatball's" regime, U.S. prisoners were, often beaten, ducked in the camp cesspool, forced to work even when sick. One was clubbed into temporary insanity.

One day after war's end, a startled ex-inmate of Oeyama spotted his old enemy walking out of a Sears, Roebuck store in Los Angeles. He called the FBI, who rounded up Tomaya Kawakita, 26, a California-born Nisei back in the U.S. to study at the University of Southern California. Last week, after almost three months of testimony and eight wrangling days of jury deliberation, "The Meatball" listened stolidly in a federal court as he was pronounced a traitor to his country. The penalty: five years to death.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.