Figure 1.--. |
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Japan did not sign the Geneva Convention. The Japanese martial code did not permit surrender and thus the Government saw no need to acceed to the Ruropean standards of warfare relected in the Geneva Convention. The Japanese treatment of POWs in World War II was barbaric. The most severe treatment was directed at the Chinese who were killed in large numbers by a variety of brutal means. American, Australian, and British POWs were starved, brutalized, and used for forced labor. The construction of the Burma-Thai railroad was a particularly horendous project in which malnourished British and Australian POWs were forced to do hard labor undervthe most extrene conditions. POWs were used as slave laborers, working in brutl conditiins, in many others areas such as Manchurian coal mines. Some were even used for medical experiments, including live vivisections and assessments of biological weapons. Some POWs were shot at the end of the War in an effort to prevent accounts of their mistreatment to become public. We are unsure how extensive such incidents were. We know of one such incident in the Dutch East Indies. The Japanese shot about 100 American contract workers on Wake Island.
Japan did not sign the Geneva Convention governing the treatment of POWs (1929). I am not sure why they refused. The Militarists by 1929 were becoming increasonly influential. Presumably as the Japanese martial code did not permit surender, they saw no need for adhering to the European standards of warfare reflected in the Convention. What we do not fully understand is that during the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05) and World War I (1914-18), Japan also took Western POWs. These POWs were not subjected to the horrendous treatment accorded to World War II POWs. The Japanese announced after the War began that they would adhere to some provisions of the Geneva Convention (1942). I do not have details on this decession. One would assume that it was a propaganda statement as Japanese treatment of POWs throughout the war was barbaric.
The Japanese treatment of POWs in World War II was barbaric. The most severe treatment was directed at the Chinese who were killed in large numbers by a variety of brutal means. Few Chinese survived being taken prisoner by the Japanese. Western POWs were not killed outright like the Chinese. American, Australian, Dutch, and British POWs were starved, brutalized, and used for forced labor. Most of the over 130,ooo Western POWs were taken in the months immediately following the Japanese attack on Pear Harbor (December 1941). The Japanese took 50,000 Australians and New Zealanders at Singapore, 52,000 Dutch and British in Java, and 25,000 Americans in the Philippines. [MacArthur]
The construction of the Burma-Thai railroad was a particularly horendous project in which malnourished British and Australian POWs were forced to do hard labor under the most extrene conditions. POWs were used as slave laborers, working in brutal conditiins, in many others areas such as Japanese coal and copper mines and limestone quaries. Conditions were especially bad in Manchurian coal mines.
Despite the hard labor they were put to, the POWs were fed very poorly. Often it was rotten or magot-infested rice. As a result they contracted scurvy and diseases associated with vitimin defincies like pellagra and beriberi. POWs had to supplement their rations with what ever they could find, including scorpions, snakes, and rats. Sanitation conditions were also poor leading to cholera, dengue fever, diptheria, and dysentary.
The POWs were also subjected to savage treatment by the camp guards. Beatings with sticks and wire were common place. Guards devised a range of fiendish tortures. Lighted cigaretts butts were pressed to flesh and stick into noses and ears. There were crucifictions. Men were made to hold buckets filled with sand or water in the sun for hours on end. Men were forced to swollow gallons of water and then the guards kicked or jumped on their stomachs. There were also executions, including shooings and beheadings.
Some were even used for medical experiments, including live vivisections and assessments of biological weapons.
Some POWs were shot at the end of the War in an effort to prevent accounts of their mistreatment to become public. We are unsure how extensive such incidents were. We know of one such incident in the Dutch East Indies. The Japanese shot about 100 American contract workers on Wake Island.
Most of the Western Pows were taken taken in early 1942 and thus spent about 3½ years in Japanese custody. As a result of the horrendous conditins and atrocities, 27 percent of the POWS perished. This compared with 4 percent of Germans in Allied POW camps. (The small number of Japanese POWs in American care do not provide a valid comparison.) Fully one-third of the deaths occurred among the POWs put to building the Thailand-Burma railroad that the Japanese constructed to support their invasion of India. After 3½ years in Japanese camps, the surviving POWs were reduced to skeletons and in apauling condition. If the War had not ended when it did, the survival rate would have been much lower than the already horendous rate.
Few young Japanese are aware of thes and other atrocities committed in Japan's name. Much of their concept of World War II centers on the Atmic boms dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the view as Japan as a victim of the war.
MacArthur, Brian. Surviving the Sword: Prisionors of the Japanese in the Fat East, 1942-45 (Random House, 2005), 458p.
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