The Internment Of Western Civilians Under The Japanese 1941 1945

"The Internment of Western Civilians Under the Japanese 1941-1945 also covers wider issues such as the role of women in war, gender and war, children and war, colonial culture, oral history and war and memory."--BOOK JACKET.

More than five thousand American civilian men, women, and children living in the Philippines during World War II were confined to internment camps following Japan's late December 1941 victories in Manila. Captured tells the story of daily life in five different camps--the crowded housing, mounting familial and international tensions, heavy labor, and increasingly severe malnourishment that made the internees' rescue a race with starvation. Frances B. Cogan explores the events behind this nearly four-year captivity, explaining how and why this little-known internment occurred. A thorough historical account, the book addresses several controversial issues about the internment, including Japanese intentions toward their prisoners and the U.S. State Department's role in allowing the presence of American civilians in the Philippines during wartime. Supported by diaries, memoirs, war crimes transcripts, Japanese soldiers' accounts, medical data, and many other sources, Captured presents a detailed and moving chronicle of the internees' efforts to survive. Cogan compares living conditions within the internment camps with life in POW camps and with the living conditions of Japanese soldiers late in the war. An afterword discusses the experiences of internment survivors after the war, combining medical and legal statistics with personal anecdotes to create a testament to the thousands of Americans whose captivity haunted them long after the war ended.

Hong Kong Internment, 1942-1945: Life in the Japanese Civilian Camp at Stanley tells the story of the more than three thousand non-Chinese civilians: British, American, Dutch and others, who were trapped in the British colony and interned behind barbed wire in Stanley Internment Camp from 1942 to 1945. From 1970 to 1972, while researching for his MA thesis, the author interviewed twenty-three former Stanley internees. During these meetings, the internees talked about their lives in the Stanley Camp during the Japanese occupation. Long regarded as an invaluable reference and frequently consulted as a primary source on Stanley since its completion in 1973, the study is now republished with a new introduction and fresh discussions that recognize later work and information released since the original thesis was written. Additional illustrations, including a new map and photographs, as well as an up-to-date bibliography, have also been included in the book.

On the morning of December 8, 1941, thousands of American, British, Dutch, and other civilians of Allied nations living in China awoke to find that their countries were at war with Japan. Thousands of miles away from their home countries, they were cut off, isolated, and faced an uncertain future. As the rigors of life under the occupation increased, they were eventually herded into internment camps, known as Civilian Assembly Centres. There, they experienced starvation rations, horrible sanitary conditions, virtually no medical care apart from what they provided themselves, and an absolute lack of many of the essentials of civilized life. Yet through it all, internees rose to meet the challenges of survival. They placed their hope in the future and educated their children, organized kitchens and hospitals, started libraries, and engaged in subtle forms of resistance.

The important and previously undocumented event in the history of the Second World War: the negotiation of 'prisoner' exchanges between the United States and Japan during 1941 to 1943, is examined here by Bruce Elleman. Approximately 7000 American citizens had been arrested by the Japanese authorities while visiting Japan as tourists, conducting business, teaching English or carrying out missionary work. The same amount of Japanese citizens living illegally in the United States had to be repatriated to secure the Americans' release. Challenging the conventional perceptions regarding the role and justification of the detention camp, this insightful book addresses questions regarding the diplomatic agreement between Japan and the United States, the Japanese-American detention camps and the role of one of the most successful minority groups in the United States today: the Japanese-Americans.

During World War II the Japanese imprisoned more American civilians at Manila's Santo Tomas prison camp than anywhere else, along with British and other nationalities. Placing the camp's story in the wider history of the Pacific war, this book tells how the camp went through a drastic change, from good conditions in the early days to impending mass starvation, before its dramatic rescue by U.S. Army "flying columns." Interned as a small boy with his mother and older sister, the author shows the many ways in which the camp's internees handled imprisonment--and their liberation afterwards. Using a wealth of Santo Tomas memoirs and diaries, plus interviews with other ex-internees and veteran army liberators, he reveals how children reinvented their own society, while adults coped with crowded dormitories, evaded sex restrictions, smuggled in food, and through a strong internee government, dealt with their Japanese overlords. The text explores the attitudes and behavior of Japanese officials, ranging from sadistic cruelty to humane cooperation, and asks philosophical questions about atrocity and moral responsibility.

The author of Guarding Hitlertells the truly heart-rending stories of Caucasian and Eurasian children held captive inside Japanese internment camps. The Japanese treatment of Allied children was as harsh and murderous as that of their parents and military POWs, but this whole episode has been overlooked. Children were plucked from comfortable colonial lives and forced to mature hastily in terrible circumstances, where survival became a daily game, and where their lives were constantly threatened by disease, starvation, and physical abuse. Many of these children were separated from their parents, or they saw their families destroyed by the Japanese. Most witnessed almost daily episodes of bestial violence that no child should ever see, and the entire cumulative experience has had a deep and lasting effect into their adult lives. They are among the last victims of Japanese aggression, and even over sixty years later many carry the mental and physical scars of that atrocious episode. “The fate of [Japan’s] military prisoners is now well known, but the equally poor treatment handed out to the civilian internees and their children is a less familiar topic. Many books on this subject focus on a particular part of the Japanese Empire. Felton has taken a different approach, and covers most of the Japanese Empire, from Singapore and the rest of mainland China, through Hong Kong, Malaya, Burma . . . and on into the Dutch East Indies and the Philippines.” —HistoryOfWar.org

The ‘International Military Tribunal for the Far East’ (IMTFE), held in Tokyo from May 1946 to November 1948, was a landmark event in the development of modern international criminal law. The trial in Tokyo was a complex undertaking and international effort to hold individuals accountable for core international crimes and delivering justice. The Tribunal consisted of 11 judges and respective national prosecution teams from 11 countries, and a mixed Japanese–American team of defence lawyers. The IMTFE indicted 28 Japanese defendants, amongst them former prime ministers, cabinet ministers, military leaders, and diplomats, based on a 55-count indictment pertaining to crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The judgment was not unanimous, with one majority judgment, two concurring opinions, and three dissenting opinions. The trial and the outcome were the subject of significant controversy and the Tribunal’s files were subsequently shelved in the archives. While its counterpart in Europe, the ‘International Military Tribunal’ (IMT) at Nuremberg, has been at the centre of public and scholarly interest, the Tokyo Tribunal has more recently gained international scholarly attention. This volume combines perspectives from law, history, and the social sciences to discuss the legal, historical, political and cultural significance of the Tokyo Tribunal. The collection is based on an international conference marking the 70th anniversary of the judgment of the IMTFE, which was held in Nuremberg in 2018. The volume features reflections by eminent scholars and experts on the establishment and functioning of the Tribunal, procedural and substantive issues as well as receptions and repercussions of the trial.