Prisoners Of War And Their Captors In World War Ii

Presents 11 contributions covering servicemen in all the theatres of WWII. Paper topics include Axis prisoners in Britain, Canada and the negotiations of prisoner of war exchanges, Free French and Vichy French POWs in Africa and the Middle East, Africans and African Americans in enemy hands, captors and captives on the Burma- Thailand railway, and protecting prisoners of war from 1939-1995. Distributed by New York University Press. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Millions of servicemen of the belligerent powers were taken prisoner during World War II. Until recently, the popular image of these men has been framed by tales of heroic escape or immense suffering at the hands of malevolent captors. For the vast majority, however, the reality was very different. Their history, both during and after the War, has largely been ignored in the grand narratives of the conflict. This collection brings together new scholarship, largely based on sources from previously unavailable Eastern European or Japanese archives. Authors highlight a number of important comparatives. Whereas for the British and Americans held by the Germans and Japanese, the end of the war meant a swift repatriation and demobilization, for the Germans, it heralded the beginning of an imprisonment that, for some, lasted until 1956. These and many more moving stories are revealed here for the first time.

How 15 million prisoners of war depended less on the Geneva convention than on their captors'attitudes and customs.

On December 6, 1941, Ensign Kazuo Sakamaki was one of a handful of men selected to skipper midget subs on a suicide mission to breach Pearl Harbor’s defenses. When his equipment malfunctioned, he couldn’t find the entrance to the harbor. He hit several reefs, eventually splitting the sub, and swam to shore some miles from Pearl Harbor. In the early dawn of December 8, he was picked up on the beach by two Japanese American MPs on patrol. Sakamaki became Prisoner No. 1 of the Pacific War. Japan’s no-surrender policy did not permit becoming a POW. Sakamaki and his fellow soldiers and sailors had been indoctrinated to choose between victory and a heroic death. While his comrades had perished, he had survived. By becoming a prisoner of war, Sakamaki believed he had brought shame and dishonor on himself, his family, his community, and his nation, in effect relinquishing his citizenship. Sakamaki fell into despair and, like so many Japanese POWs, begged his captors to kill him. Based on the author’s interviews with dozens of former Japanese POWs along with memoirs only recently coming to light, The Anguish of Surrender tells one of the great unknown stories of World War II. Beginning with an examination of Japan’s prewar ultranationalist climate and the harsh code that precluded the possibility of capture, the author investigates the circumstances of surrender and capture of men like Sakamaki and their experiences in POW camps. Many POWs, ill and starving after days wandering in the jungles or hiding out in caves, were astonished at the superior quality of food and medical treatment they received. Contrary to expectations, most Japanese POWs, psychologically unprepared to deal with interrogations, provided information to their captors. Trained Allied linguists, especially Japanese Americans, learned how to extract intelligence by treating the POWs humanely. Allied intelligence personnel took advantage of lax Japanese security precautions to gain extensive information from captured documents. A few POWs, recognizing Japan’s certain defeat, even assisted the Allied war effort to shorten the war. Far larger numbers staged uprisings in an effort to commit suicide. Most sought to survive, suffered mental anguish, and feared what awaited them in their homeland. These deeply human stories follow Japanese prisoners through their camp experiences to their return to their welcoming families and reintegration into postwar society. These stories are told here for the first time in English.

Narratives and facts on life in civilian internment centers and POW camps are presented here.

Over 140,000 Allied prisoners were taken by the Japanese during World War II. Based on hundreds of interviews with those who survived, here are the harrowing, moving recollections of Americans before, during, and after their capture--men whose ordeal has been overlooked by independent historians and purposely ignored by official accounts. 16 pages of photos.

This is a story about Canada's soldiers who, despite their defeat and capture by the Japanese at Hong Kong in World War 2, never gave up and never stopped fighting.On the battlefield, suffering heavy casualties, they fought with determination and courage until they were ordered to lay down their arms by the British Governor of Hong Kong.As Prisoners of war, they were shipped to Japan as slave labourers. In unimaginable conditions in their camps in Japan,many died of starvation,overwork, disease, and savage abuse.During nearly four years of their captivity, they remained undaunted. They never failed in their duty to try to resist, and they never submitted to the demands of their cruel enemy.While prisoners of war in the very heartland of their enemy, their sabotage was astonishingly successful in crippling the Japanese war effort.Their courage and defiance are part of our history - and one we can be proud of.

Provides personal accounts of what life was like in German prisoner of war camps during World War II.