Wow, Allied POWs in the Pacific
 

I guess I just never really heard much about or thought about POWs. The only thing that I'd ever really thought or heard about were the POWs from Vietnam, and much of that "info" was sparked by Stallone or Norris movies.

I just read a book, Surviving the Sword: Prisoners of the Japanese in the Far East 1942 - 1945 by Brian MacArthur. I remember lots and lots of world history both from college and before, but I don't really remember much about WWII in the Pacific. It seems like most of the WWII talk was about Europe. I just didn't realize how much of the Pacific and Far East the Japanese invaded and held. I guess I just hadn't watched enough war movies.

It's a great book that managed to keep my interest all of the way through. Besides the treatment and atrocities, what really struck me was the ingenuity of the POWs. Their ability to overcome their lack of normal resources (like adequate food and vitamins) and more mundane every day items like razors, toothbrushes, needles, thread, etc....

I have a hard time imagining modern soldiers being able to manage as well under the same circumstances (http://forums.pelicanparts.com/off-topic-discussions/601496-can-young-kids-even-address-letter.html).

For instance "sifted wood ash made toothpaste and, when combined with palm oil, produced enough soap... brushes, brooms and toothbrushes were fashioned from coconut fiber. Rubber was tapped, and some was used for patching tears in uniforms until men began to make their own thread; it was also turned into adhesive plasters and was used to mend boots or to make sandals.
...Deep laterite clay, washed, dried, and powdered, furnished a cure for diarrhea... Vehicle springs made good hollow-ground open razors and surgical instruments."

They ate hibiscus leaves for vitamin C, and made teas of several different plants to provide other vitamins. They had running yeast production to provide B vitamins and learned how to use mold to break down soy beans so they would be more nutritious and digestible.

They figured out an 80 hour process to make yeast from rice that helped with avitaminosis.

In other sections of the book they talk about "illegal" radios that were built and hidden in various camps. One in particular was "...hidden under the cookhouse fire. The receiver was made from the stolen damper of a Norton motorbike, a coil from a bakelite soap container, and the variable condenser from a stripped and remodeled biscuit tin. A hearing aid supplied a resistor and valves, a shaving-soap container the high-frequency choke; stolen brass, bakelite and wire became a rheostat, while glass and mica purloined from the airfield were used for insulation. Work parties "salvaged" scarp iron, soft Swedish iron, and copper from the docks."

In another instance, the radio was bricked up in a wall. A time switch was built that would only turn the radio on the times of day when the BBC nets broadcasts took place. There was a nail in the wall whose tip just touched the diaphragm of a headphone within the wall cavity. "We listened to it with a kind of stethoscope. All you had to do was put the end of a bit of rubber tubing over the head of this nail, and hold it tight with your finger..."

I just have a hard time picturing modern folks pulling off some of this stuff. Hell, if you take the up and coming generation into account, it's mind boggling. How would they manage anything without a cell phone, the Internet or Cable.

It's also hard to imagine guys that before the war weighed anywhere from 160 to up over 200# being between 80 and 100# because of the lack of food and hard labor that they were forced to do. I can't even imagine what it would be take to get me down to 85#.

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Anyway, the book was a good read. Now I've got a book on the Bataan Death March and another on the Escape from Davao.

I had read sometime ago that we didn't prosecute certain Japanese Dr's that did LIVE VIVISECTION on our GI's because we used their work.

Sort of. My understanding is that the Japanese "Unit 731" did lots of "experiments" on mostly Chinese. We didn't prosecute them as long as they agreed to give us their research.

Yes, there were also Americans (pilots and flight crews) that were experimented on while they were alive. I believe some of the folks involved in that were tried and hanged. I believe, based on what I've read, that this was a much more limited incident of a relative handful of people (compared to lots and lots of Chinese).

That was the one in Harbin, IIRC. They used an old sawmill for the facility and called the Chinese prisoners "logs." One of the great travesties of WWII is that we totally let Japan skate for their atrocities against allied POW's. We should have publicly tried and executed Hirohito and his whole family. Because MacArthur wanted to let them skate, to this day Japan teaches in its schools that they were the victim, not the aggressor, in WWII. I doubt any school kids there know anything about Unit 731, the Rape of Nanking or the Bataan Death March.

Brings back memories. In the late 70's I was working at a new job and and at lunch one day, I offered one of my co-workers an extra banana from my lunch pail. He looked at it, turned white as a sheet and said no thanks. I was confused. Later, when I knew him better, I asked him about the incident. He took a long breath, told me about his time in the Japanese POW Camp where his diet consisted of only bananas and coconuts. when he was liberated, he decided he would never again eat a coconut or banana.

If I did not hear this first hand, I would not have believed the story.

There was an older operations manager that our service company worked for that wouldn't allow two Japanese guys from our company to set foot in his buildings.
He was a Brit that spent a long time in a Japanese POW camp.

Steve,

You may like to read a book written by Australian Historian Gavan Daws entitled "Prisoners of the Japanese; POWs of World War II in the Pacific" (Scribe Publications).

It is one of the most confronting; yet powerful books I have ever read (and I read a lot). I admit I found certain passages of text and personal accounts very, very difficult to read. I shed a lot of tears before I finished it :(. I have lent it to friends who have not been able to finish it...at times it is very hard to accept what happened to these POWs.

But it gave me a real insight into what truly happened in those horrible years. It is wonderfully written. From the rear cover...

"This great book, written by one of the most gifted of Australian historians, whose work is known worldwide, has never been published previously in Australia.
Gavan Daws combined ten years of documentary research and hundreds of interviews with POWs on three continents to write this shattering re-creation of the experience of Allied POWs of World War II in the Pacific - Australian, British, American and Dutch.....
Daws' account, which was neither researched nor written under military auspices, is the humanly indispensable reverse side of official history. This book is his 'best effort to tell a story conspicuously absent from the official histories of both sides, missing in action, so to speak: the truth of life according to the POW'. In this, he has succeeded masterfully".

It is interesting to note that, when we speak of WWII, images of Nazi concentration camps spring to mind, and very few people are aware of what happened on the opposite side of the globe at that time.

The atrocities committed by the Japanese leading up to and during that period are almost forgotten, and often glanced over. The history of the taking of Singapore, the Bataan Death March, the Bataan Railway, and of course the near extermination of the city on Nanking should never be forgotten, if only out of respect for the suffering of those involved.

For a real eye opener to do an Internet search on "the rape of Nanking". After that you will probably agree that It is a real shame that the Japanese were never prosecuted to the same extent as the Nazis, as I feel that in many instances their levels of cruelty and barbarism far eclipsed that of the Germans.

Yes, I've seen that book. I found the three that I have at a used book shop and picked them up. I believe I've seen that one available as a Kindle book, so I have plans of downloading it to my ipad once I finish the current group. The book that I've already read also had passages both in the author's hand and first hand accounts from FEPOWs (from interviews, memoirs and diaries while they were POWs) describing the atrocities committed in the Hell Ships, building the Thai-Burma railway, Bataan, in Japan, etc.... There were definitely parts that were hard to read and sort of hard to comprehend. It's amazing what people can endure mentally, physically and spiritually.

Yes, I've also done a lot of reading about Nanking and other Japanese-->Chinese atrocities. And yes, it is a shame. It's one of the few times when even being the loser, they seem to have been able to write history the way they want.

Another excellent, very personal account is:

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, by Laura Hillenbrand.

It's a sad commentary on our education system that so many people seem to have grown up oblivious to half of WWII. When I was growing up in the late '60's and '70's, the Japanese Theater was just as well known as the European Theater.

What happened???

Well, for me it could have just been bad luck. Dad was in the military so there was lots of moving around. It's possible that at some point one school taught the war in the pacific in the spring and the next school had gone over it in the fall.

Completely agree. I didn't know of the above atrocities until I lived in China and was constantly told about their hate for the Japanese because of what happened in the Pacific Theater. Absolutely atrocious.
I visited Hiroshima last August and was sad to see loudspeakers in town calling for America to apologize. I imagine all of the Japanese history books are washed.

According to historian Chalmers Johnson,
Germany was responsible for the deaths of 6 million Jews and 20 million russian civilians during WWII.
Japan murdered over 30 million Chinese, Filipinos, Malays, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Indonesians and Burmese civilians.

1 out of every 20 Filipinos was murdered.
LRB · Chalmers Johnson · The Looting of Asia


Some of the experiments were so brutal they are hard to imagine or believe.

Ghost Soldiers by Hampton Sides is also a good book detailing some the atrocities against POWs.

Well...at least we are constantly reminded of the internment of Japanese Americans from the West Coast. Never a mention of the other stuff, though.

I am one generation in my family removed from these events and there is no way I could accomplish or survive what they did. My father's older brother died in the Bataan death march. My mother's older brother was shot down over the English Channel. Her other brother spent time in a nazi "hotel" before escaping and bombing them some more. Both my parents served during WWII.

Reminds me of when an austrailian pelican posted about how evil our American soldiers were because a couple of them reportedly took gold fillings out of teeth of dead japanese soldiers.

My ex father-in-law (now deceased) served in the US Army from 1939-1946. He was on the beach on D-Day and fought hand-to-hand during the Battle of the Bulge (where was was awarded the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star). He saw the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan and was so overcome he had to be sedated as the memories he had suppressed all those years ago came flooding back.

He hated the Germans because of all the things he saw during his time in battle. He would never knowingly buy anything German or Japanese made. He lost many of his friends and family fighting the enemy....something he never forgave the Germans or Japanese for.

As we should be. They were American citizens. They had nothing to do with the evil out of Japan in WW II.

History as taught is woefully deficient about WW I and WW II. Most of what is commonly regurgitated is only partially correct at best.

Within the past ten or so years the Guam Trial Documents have been released. Read that.

Also, read the book "Flyboys, a True Story of Courage" by Jame Bradley (Flags of Our Fathers). This will further shed light on the Jap Army treatment of allied prisoners.

Eating livers was a ritual that comes to mind.

The odds of surving being a WWII war prisoner with German captors was about 96%.
the odds of surviving a japanese prison camps was 70%.

30% of all prisoners held by the japanese died.

And it doesn't surprize me that froggy would come out with statements against the US.
Not at all.

Wanna talk about what france was doing when those brave American soldiers were dying around the world to keep us all free?
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War just plain SUCKS!

Who is "We"?
 

True. However, now we get the grovelling apologies made by politicians two generations removed from the actual event, with great-grandchildren of the internees being handled like victims. Taxpayers two generations removed also asked for reparations.

Everyone has a sob story in their family history, as history is quite cruel. Get up, move on, and don't ask me to pay for it.

My ex father in law was in the New Mexico National Guard... many (most?) died in the Bataan Death march.

He thought he was on the last truck transport to take prisoners to the camp before they started the death march... at least, he said, there were no more trucks bringing prisoners into camp after his.

He survived, weighed about 70 lb. when he was rescued.

Said they pounded nails into his ears, just for the hell of it. He needed hearing aids to hear at all when I met him.

He would not talk about the other things that were done to the prisoners.

They got excited when they found maggots in the rice, etc. - protein.

Most (that made it to the camp), died of dysentery.


One of the awful things that happend was after they were rescued, they were taken to an army hospital and all given huge steak dinners. He ate a couple bites and threw up with terrible cramps. Some guys ate the whole meal and many died; terrible, painful deaths. Ruptured stomachs. They were used to eating only the equivalent of a tablespoon of food a day.

When he died of 'old age' in his late 50's, the Doc said he was in his late 70's physically - common w/ POW's from the Pacific Theater.

my Dad served in eastern France and the PI. He'd never talk about it or watch the old movies. Oh and he thought John Wayne was a phony.

WTF is wrong with you? Yes, innocent spies, traitors and saboteurs. :rolleyes:

In Defense of Internment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

yeah, I'd read about that and many other things that are unimaginable even after reading about them.

He was a lucky man, and in some ways not.

One thing forgotten is the almost complete generation lost to WWI. France, Belgium, Germany, Russia lost significant percentages of personnel in WWI. There is the majority of their generation of French soldiers who died stopping de kaiser. When WWII came around France had mainly boys and old men. Not much of a fighting force even in today's world.

Napoleon conquered Europe and would have conquored Russia had not his soldiers been dropping from disease. Le Grand Arme' lost 2/3 of the fighting force to disease prior to ever taking Moscow. If their surgeons had paid proper attention to the signs of illness and taken proper precautions then Europe would be speaking French and local dialects at this time.

All that said, war is not a good thing. As humans we are agressive and desire what others have. We fight over it and will kill for it. Review history, it is all there. And yes, we fail to learn from our mistakes.

WTF is seriously wrong with you?

They were American citizens with full rights. They were all tarred with the same brush by pure bigoted racism. No trials, no evidence, personal property configated and given to white people.

What part of that is American values? What part of that is supported by the US Constitution or Bill of Rights?

And as evidence for your opinion, you cite a wacko right wingnut author. Not a peer reviewed historian. In fact no peer reviewed historian or professional historical journal has validated or agreed to any of his nonsense. He is a political commentator (BS peddler).

There were a mere handful of American citizens that had any involvement with Imperial Japan. Less that .001% by my count. How and why is that grounds for punishing them all?

For once I have to 100% concur with RPKESQ. That was a disgraceful chapter in our history and never should have happened.

"We" is all Americans. Which for your education includes myself.

I have never stated any support for restitution, but being reminded of the past often helps to prevent the same mistake being made all over again.

Why would we want that?

If you were white, non Jewish, Slavic or a Political prisoner. If you were Russian or Polish then you fell like flies.

If you were white in the Japanese case. Chinese and other Asians died at a far, far greater rate.


Sure Sam-I-am. We can talk about that.

Let's start with the Revolutionary War. France saved our asses then.

WW I, American was late to the party and had very little affect on the war. American soldiers were poorly trained, ill equipped (they had to use French and British equipment as there own was nearly useless), and required months of training in France just to be partially able to hold their own against the retreating Germans.

WW II, Americans were late to the party again but fought much better. Of course so did the Free French, Free Poles, British, Canadian, Free Belgium and Resistance from most Western European countries. The French Resistance provided the vast majority of intelligence required for D Day. And of course the Russians were the single most important player in Europe responsible for the German defeat.

So bring out the patriotic vitriol to ease your lack of knowledge of world history.

I'll wait.

i had an uncle that survived bataan too. he never really talked to anyone in the family about it much. my dad told me ONCE about what little he knew my uncle went through. he said that it would be the only time he could. it brought back such terrible memories of what his big brother was like for a few years after the war compared to who he grew up with. my uncle made it into his 60's so he kept those memories for a long time.

+1. That was racism, plain and simple (look at the US treatment of Chinese too for those that don't believe it was racism). However, it certainly does not approach the atrocities committed in Japanese POW camps.

War is documented by who wins and has the better press agent. Filipinos don't own the History Channel where it's nazi week 2 weeks a month.

I see French guy spouting again. Algeria, French Guiana penal system, how you treated Nazi collaborators, French waiters, the Citroen, the Renault Dauphine and other atrocities....should I go on you revisionist douche nozzle?

Grow up.

I never stated the treatment was the same. I never stated the Japanese or Germans or French or anybody eles did not do as bad or worse.

I stated that the internment of Japanese Americans was pure bigoted hatred and totally against American values.

You are the total douchbag that wants to make this some kind of pissing contest based on exaggerations, hyperbola and French insults from third grade.

Either post some facts to refute my statement about Japanese American internment or just creep away like the slimy little ***** for brains that you are.

Oh goody, I got me my first ignore candidate. Takes a lot to piss me off. I had many relatives that fought and gave their lives for this country.

Have fun in your adoptive one.

Thanks for running away. It validates my opinion of you.

And many thanks for the wishes to have fun in France. I appreciate it. I have great fun in France and across Europe, Africa and the United States.

And what your relatives did is nice, but in no way reflects on your worth to mankind.