Figure 1.--The first American offensive in World War II occurred on Guadalcanal (August 1942). American Marines encountered an iutractable enemy. He reused to surrender. Even wounded soldiers refused and would even try to kill meduics try to treat them. This continued on one island after another. Only a handful of prisoners were taken, many so badly wounded that they could not resist being captured. Saipan wa different than all the other islands to that point because there were over 20,000 civilians on the island. American Marines and Soldiers were used to Japanese soldiers committing suiside, but now they horrified to find civiliand doing gthe samne. They were told by the military that the Americans were going to rape and torture them. The Americans returned brutality for brutality when meeting the Jaopanese soldier, but the civiians were a very different matter. Caps were set up to care for them, providing shekter, food, and mnedical care. In fact they had much more to fear from their own troops than the Americans. The caption for this July 4 photograoh read, "Candy for Youngsters, Prison for Elders: Two Japanese youngsters, holding food and candy given them by American troops , stand outside a barbed wire compound on Saipan island in the Marianas where Japanese soldiers captured during the battle are held prisoner." While few Jaoanese soldiers, virtully all of the soldiers abd civilians that did survived the War--in sharp contrast to the prioners of the Japanese. Source: U.S. Armny Signal Corps Newsreel.

The Axis POWs varied a great deal on how they felt about being captured by the Americans. The Japanese with few exceptions were horrified at the very idea. Not so much that the Americans were capturing them, but that they allowed themselves to be captured at all. It was commonly seen as dishonorable. Many of the men take captive were wounded an unable to continue fighting or even kill themselves. This was the case of the first Japanese POW--Ensign Kazuo Sakamaki. They thought surrender dishonest and shameful. They even thought that they were dishonoring their entire family. It is notable that Gen. Tojo had little interest in committing suicide after the War, making only a face saving gesture with a pistol. Many of his young soldiers, however, were fanatical in their devotion to the Emperor. The idea was inculcated in them by the military. Most facing capture, either committing suicide or engaged in suicidal Banzai charges. There were some surrenders on Okinawa in the final months of the War, but very few before that. The Koreans serving in labor battalions with the Japanese were a little different. Almost all of the Japanese soldiers who surrendered to the Americans survived the War. Ironically, large numbers of Japanese soldiers at the end of the War did surrender to the Soviet Red Army in Manchuria. Few of these POWs survived to return to Japan. They had surrendered to the wrong enemy. Given the refusal of so many Japanese soldiers to surrender and the fierceness of their resistance on one Pacific Island after another, it is virtually beyond belief that the surrender of Japan went so smoothly. The difference of course was that the Emperor ordered them to surrender.

Created: 5:29 AM 5/12/2018
Last updated: 5:29 AM 5/12/2018