Posted on 09/16/2011 2:28:37 PM PDT by InvisibleChurch
It was my understanding that most American POWs in Germany were treated decently, about as expected from any POW camp.
It was the Japanese POW camps which were monstrous. I knew 2 Americans who were Japanes POW’s, and I cant even repeat the treatment that they got, that they saw.
“we had a family friend who survived the Bataan death march, to this day my mother will not own a Japanese car”
I had 2 very good friend who were in Japanese POW camps, and to this day I will not own a Japanese car.
As opposed to the Germans, what made the Japanese camps so bad, is that the cruelty of the Japanese was so pervasive, in other words, cruelty was a directive from a high ranking Japanense official, rather, all of the Japanese, from the common soldier on up were monsters. The cruelty from the Japanese guards was not because they were “obeying orders”, the Japanese guards were sick.
I believe too many of the cruel torturing Japanese soldiers went back home to Japan after the war to the Japanese auto companies. In my own opinion, the Japanese cruelty was too deep, too pervasive, too ingrained in the Japanese culture.
It may have been a volume specifically on POW treatment by the Japanese but I am uncertain. My own library has grown, shrunk, grown and is now dwindling as I sell things off.
I will check the remaining Pacific theater volumes I have left.
Page 96:
“ The Japanese had regulations about prisoners of war dating from when tey first fought against white men, in the Russo-Japanese War 1904-105. The Japanese won that war. They were concerned at the time to be seen as a people of elevated morality in the modern world, fitted to make 20th century war in a civilized way, up to Western standards.
POWs of the emperor, the Japanese regulations said, were to be treated with a spirit of goodwill, never subjected to cruelty or humiliation, etc. And that is how the Russians were treated “
On page 284 he discusses how the Japanese came up with the rules and sizes of transport for POWs which dates back to, again, the Russo-Japanese War.
I know very little of that war but I suspect the Japanese took a large number of Russian POWs based on how one sided the affair went. That and the fact the Japanese had to figure out how to transport POWs and made regulations in this regard.
I loved that movie — especially the score. I think I own it on video tape, but we don’t play those any more.
Thanks for the interesting background. Stalag 17 I could handle, Hogan’s . . .
Boy, "multicultural" to the Max. That, and an indication on how well their schools have dumbed down the new generation(s).
Oh, I agree. Hogan’s was pretty bad. My grandfather never allowed it on the TV. No Japanese cars - no Hogan’s Heroes.
Very nice!
Thanks for looking into this. My sources tell me that Japan was one of only two countries that sent a military unit to Russia during the revolution with the sole mission to rescue the Tsar and his family. So perhaps relations between the Japanese people and the Russians were pretty good up till WWII, but I am not certain of this.
I do remember reading somewhere that one of the great Russian spiritual fathers was once asked who should a Japanese Orthodox subject obey in the event of war between Russia and Japan. He was told be obey his government (Japanese emperor).
Regards,
OC
One subject I have almost never found any reading material on was the treatment and fate of the hundreds of thousands ( millions? ) of German, Romanian, Japanese, Italian, Spanish POWs in Russia.
An almost forgot subject. I know about the 1955 return of many German POWs that Adenauer pulled off, general conditions of the camps and such but real details are greatly lacking.
I did read an old congressional hearing booklet with testimony from Russian Jews who claimed there were still German POWs in Russia during the 1970s. These Jews were in the gulag system themselves. They further claimed they were held on Sakhalin Island, were SS or nazis and medical / radiation experiments were common.
They further claimed a few Eskimos were in the camps, many Japanese too.
But other testimony also included the Russians disposing of prisoners with railroad trains that went off unfinished bridges. So, I figure a fair amount of the testimony was what these people had heard rather than seen.
But one has to figure the numbers of Japanese the Russians took toward the end of the war must have been staggering: the Soviets steam rolled the Japanese army. Was always surprised the Japanese didn't break out the chemical / biological weapons vs the Russians. Heavens knows they had them but the ton and were experts in using them.
For the record I wonder what was going through the head of the show creator and the Network with coming up Hogan’s Hero’s.
Have you ever read Gulag Archipeligo by Alexander Solzhinitsyn? Great detail about the camps and biographies of some of those imprisoned.
As a kid (4th - 5th grades?) I would always watch Hogan’s Heros after school. My dad would come into the den for a few minutes to change his shoes and socks and hang the socks over the heating register.
After a few minutes he would get up and leave with a smile - shaking his head, and saying “Oh those crazy guys”.
He fought in the Pacific. He realized it was just a goofy show for kids. I wish he had talked to me more about it - but I’m guessing he didn’t want to “ruin” it for me. Obviously I knew that the Nazi’s were bad. And the show - instead of portraying them as evil - made them look stupid.
I wish I was like that a bit (not telling them everything) more with my kids. They know perhaps too much about the evils that are out there.
This is like a metaphor for our age. For me the 50s and the EARLY 60s were (mostly) good times as the folks like your dad who had fought in WWII were active participants in our society (the greatest generation) and society directly benefited as a result. Then along came the late 60s and the implicit rejection of all of that because the hippies “knew better”. Yeah right. They knew better and look where that’s gotten us.
I’m old enough to have had a foot in both camps. Sure there were problems back then but we didn’t have an upside down world either where nothing made sense like we have now.
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