Japanese prisoners of war in World War II
Encyclopedia
It has been estimated that between 19,500 and 50,000 Japanese military personnel surrendered to Allied
forces prior to the end of the Pacific War
in August 1945. The number of Japanese soldiers, sailors and airmen who surrendered was limited by the Japanese military indoctrinating its personnel to fight to the death, Allied personnel often being unwilling to take prisoners, and many Japanese soldiers believing that those who surrendered often were killed anyway.
Following the war the United States and Britain delayed the repatriation of many Japanese prisoners until 1946 and 1947 respectively and the Soviet Union
continued to hold hundreds of thousands of Japanese prisoners of war (POW)
until the early 1950s.
(IJA) adopted an ethos which required soldiers to fight to the death rather than surrender. This policy reflected the practices of Japanese warfare in the pre-modern era. During the Meiji period
the Japanese government adopted western policies towards POWs, and few of the Japanese personnel who surrendered in the Russo-Japanese War
were punished at the end of the war. Prisoners captured by Japanese forces during this and the First Sino-Japanese War
and World War I
were also treated in accordance with international standards. Attitudes towards surrender hardened after World War I. While Japan signed the 1929 Geneva Convention
covering treatment of POWs, it did not ratify the agreement, claiming that surrender was contrary to the beliefs of Japanese soldiers. This attitude was reinforced by the indoctrination of young people.
The Japanese military's attitude towards surrender was institutionalised in the 1941 "Code of Battlefield Conduct" (Senjinkun
), which was issued to all Japanese soldiers. This document sought to establish standards of behavior for Japanese troops and improve discipline and morale within the Army, and included a prohibition against being taken prisoner. The Japanese Government accompanied the Senjinkuns implementation with a propaganda campaign which celebrated people who had fought to the death rather than surrender during Japan's wars. While the Imperial Japanese Navy
(IJN) did not issue a document equivalent to the Senjinkun, naval personnel were expected to exhibit similar behavior and not surrender. Most Japanese military personnel were told that they would be killed or tortured by the Allies if they were taken prisoner. The Army's Field Service Regulations were also modified in 1940 to replace a provision which stated that seriously wounded personnel in field hospitals came under the protection of the Red Cross Convention of 1864 with a requirement that the wounded not fall into enemy hands. During the war this led to wounded personnel being either killed by medical officers or given grenades to commit suicide.
While scholars disagree over whether the Senjinkun was legally binding on Japanese soldiers, the document reflected Japan's societal norms and had great force over both military personnel and civilians. In 1942 the Army amended its criminal code to specify that officers who surrendered soldiers under their command faced at least six months imprisonment, regardless of the circumstances in which the surrender took place. This change attracted little attention, however, as the Senjinkun imposed more severe consequences and had greater moral force.
Japanese attitudes towards surrender contributed to the harsh treatment which was inflicted on the Allied personnel they captured.
Not all Japanese military personnel chose to follow the precepts set out on the Senjinkun. Those who chose to surrender did so for a range of reasons including not believing that suicide was appropriate or lacking the courage to commit the act, bitterness towards officers, and Allied propaganda promising good treatment. For instance, recent analysis of Japanese soldiers' diaries conducted by Richard Aldrich of Nottingham University has found that what is allegedly a common perception of the Japanese soldier as being fanatically devoted to the Emperor and codes such as bushido
is not necessarily true in all cases. During the later years of the war Japanese troops' morale deteriorated as a result of Allied victories, leading to an increase in the number who were prepared to surrender.
Japanese soldiers' reluctance to surrender was also influenced by a perception that Allied forces would kill them if they did surrender, and historian Niall Ferguson
has argued that this had a more important influence in discouraging surrenders than the fear of disciplinary action or dishonor. In addition, the Japanese public was aware that US troops sometimes mutilated Japanese casualties
and sent trophies made out of body-parts home from media reports of two high-profile incidents in 1944 in which a letter-opener carved from a bone of a Japanese soldier was presented to President Roosevelt
and a photo of the skull of a Japanese soldier which had been sent home by a US soldier was published in the magazine Life
. In these reports Americans were portrayed as "deranged, primitive, racist and inhuman". Hoyt in "Japan’s war: the great Pacific conflict" argues that the Allied practice of taking bones from Japanese corpses home as souvenirs was exploited by Japanese propaganda
very effectively, and "contributed to a preference to death over surrender and occupation, shown, for example, in the mass civilian suicides on Saipan and Okinawa after the Allied landings".
The causes of the phenomenon that Japanese often continued to fight even in hopeless situations has been traced to a combination of Shinto
, Hoko
, and Bushido
. However, a factor equally strong or even stronger to those, was the fear of torture after capture. This fear grew out of years of batle experiences in China, where the Chinese guerillas were considered expert torturers, and this fear was projected onto the American soldiers who also were expected to torture and kill surrendered Japanese.
In a June 1945 report an Office of War Information (OWI) officer noted that the 84% of Japanese POWs who expected torture or death at the hands of their american capturers were typical, and that this was a greater factor than Bushido when it came to Japanese fighting to the death.
The Japanese perceptions were reinforced by the American actions, "Japanese were known to come out of the jungle unarmed with their hands raised above their heads, crying, 'Mercy, mercy,' only to be mowed down by machine-gun fire". Taking "no prisoners" never became official US practise, but was instead "common practise". As an example one Marine batalion came across and wiped out a Japanese Field hospital
, killing "over 400, including patients and corpsmen [medics]". US troops justified actions such as this based on rumors and stories of Japanese treachery.
Allied military personnel were reluctant to take Japanese prisoners at the start of the war. US forces were generally unwilling to accept the surrender of Japanese during the first two years of the war due to a combination of racist attitudes and anger at Japan's sneak attack on Pearl Harbor
and atrocities committed against Allied troops
. Australian soldiers were also reluctant to take Japanese prisoners for similar reasons. Incidents in which Japanese troops booby-trapped their dead and wounded or pretended to surrender in order to lure Allied troops into ambushes were well known within the Allied militaries and also hardened attitudes against seeking the surrender of Japanese on the battlefield. As a result, Allied troops believed that their Japanese opponents would not surrender and that any attempts to surrender were deceptive; for instance, the Australian jungle warfare school
advised soldiers to shoot any Japanese troops who had their hands closed while surrendering. Furthermore, in many instances Japanese soldiers who had surrendered were killed on the front line or while being taken to POW compounds. The nature of jungle warfare
also contributed to prisoners not being taken, as many battles were fought at close ranges where participants "often had no choice but to shoot first and ask questions later".
Despite the attitudes of combat troops and nature of the fighting, the Allied militaries made systematic efforts to take Japanese prisoners throughout the war. Each US Army division
was assigned a team of Japanese American
personnel whose duties included attempting to persuade Japanese personnel to surrender. Allied forces mounted an extensive psychological warfare
campaign against their Japanese opponents to lower their morale and encourage surrender. This included dropping copies of the Geneva Conventions
and 'surrender passes' on Japanese positions. This campaign was undermined by Allied troops' reluctance to take prisoners, however. As a result, from May 1944 senior U.S. Army commanders authorised and endorsed educational programs which aimed to change the attitudes of front line troops. These programs highlighted the intelligence which could be gained from Japanese POWs, the need to honour surrender leaflets and the benefits which could be gained by encouraging Japanese forces to not fight to the last man. The programs were partially successful, and contributed to U.S. troops taking more prisoners. In addition, soldiers who witnessed Japanese troops surrender were more willing to take prisoners themselves. Allied propaganda
and demoralisation resulting from Japan's deteriorating position also contributed to an increased incidence of Japanese soldiers surrendering or deserting. The majority of Japanese military personnel did not believe that the Allies treated prisoners correctly, and even a majority of those who surrendered expected to be killed.
Survivors of ships sunk by Allied submarines frequently refused to surrender, and many of the prisoners who were captured by submariners were taken by force. US Navy submarines were occasionally ordered to obtain prisoners for intelligence purposes, and formed special teams of personnel for this purpose. Overall, however, Allied submariners usually did not attempt to take prisoners, and the number of Japanese personnel they captured was relatively small. The submarines which took prisoners normally did so towards the end of their patrols so that they did not have to be guarded for a long time. In a small number of instances Allied submariners deliberately fired on the survivors of Japanese ships.
Allied forces continued to kill Japanese personnel who were attempting to surrender throughout the war. It is likely that more Japanese soldiers would have surrendered if they had not believed that they would be killed by the Allies while trying to do so. Fear of being killed after surrendering was one of the main factors which influenced Japanese troops to fight to the death, and a wartime U.S. Office of Wartime Information report stated that it may have been more important than fear of disgrace and a desire to die for Japan. Instances of Japanese personnel being killed while attempting to surrender are not well documented, though anecdotal accounts provide evidence that this occurred.
claims that up to 50,000 Japanese became POWs before Japan's surrender. The Japanese Government's wartime POW Information Bureau believed that 42,543 Japanese surrendered during the war,; a figure also used by Niall Ferguson
who states that it refers to prisoners taken by United States and Australian forces. Ulrich Straus states that about 35,000 were captured by western Allied and Chinese forces and Alison B. Gilmore has calculated that Allied forces in the South West Pacific Area
alone captured at least 19,500 Japanese.
As the Japanese forces in China were mainly on the offensive and suffered relatively few casualties, few Japanese soldiers surrendered to Chinese forces prior to August 1945. It has been estimated that at the end of the war Chinese Nationalist and Communist forces held around 8,300 Japanese prisoners. The conditions these POWs were held in generally did not meet the standards required by international law. The Japanese government expressed no concern for these abuses, however, as it did not want IJA soldiers to even consider surrendering. The government was, however, concerned about reports that 300 POWs had joined the Chinese Communists and had been trained to spread anti-Japanese propaganda.
The Japanese Government sought to suppress information about captured personnel. On 27 December 1941 it established a POW Information Bureau within the Ministry of the Army to manage information concerning Japanese POWs. While the Bureau catalogued information provided by the Allies via the Red Cross identifying POWs, it did not pass this information on to the families of the prisoners. When individuals wrote to the Bureau to inquire if their relative had been taken prisoner, it appears that the Bureau provided a reply which neither confirmed or denied whether the man was a prisoner. Although the Bureau's role included facilitating mail between POWs and their families, this was not carried out as the families were not notified and few POWs wrote home. The lack of communication with their families increased the POWs feelings of being cut off from Japanese society.
Japanese POWs were interrogated multiple times during their captivity. Most Japanese soldiers were interrogated by intelligence officers of the battalion or regiment which had captured them for information which could be used by these units. Following this they were rapidly moved to rear areas where they were interrogated by successive echelons of the Allied military and again once they reached a POW camp in Australia, New Zealand, India or the United States. These interrogations were painful and stressful for the POWs. Force was not used by Allied interrogators, though on one occasion headquarters personnel of the US 40th Infantry Division debated, but ultimately decided against, administering sodium penthanol
to an senior non-commissioned officer.
Some Japanese POWs also played an important role in helping the Allied militaries develop propaganda and politically indoctrinate their fellow prisoners.
Most Japanese captured by U.S. forces after September 1942 were turned over to Australia or New Zealand for internment. The United States provided these countries with aid through Lend Lease to cover the costs of maintaining the prisoners and retained responsibility for repatriating them to Japan at the end of the war. Prisoners captured in the central Pacific or who were believed to have particular intelligence value were held in camps in the United States.
Prisoners who were thought to possess significant technical or strategic information were brought to specialist intelligence-gathering facilities at Fort Hunt
, Virginia or Camp Tracy
, California. As well as being interrogated again, the POWs conversations in these camps were wiretapped
and analysed. Some of the conditions at Camp Tracy violated Geneva Convention requirements, such as insufficient exercise time being provided. However prisoners at this camp were given special benefits, such as high quality food and access to a shop, and the interrogation sessions were relatively relaxed. The continuous wiretapping at both locations may have also violated the spirit of the Geneva Convention.
Japanese POWs generally adjusted to life in prison camps and few attempted to escape. There were several incidents at POW camps, however. On 25 February 1943 POWs at Featherston prisoner of war camp
in New Zealand staged a strike after being ordered to work. The protest turned violent when the camp's deputy commander shot one of the leaders of the protest. The Japanese prisoners then attacked the other guards, who opened fire and killed 48 prisoners and wounded another 74. Conditions at the camp were subsequently improved, leading to good relations between the Japanese and their New Zealand guards for the remainder of the war. More seriously, on 5 August 1944 Japanese POWs in a camp near Cowra, Australia
attempted to escape
. During the fighting between the POWs and their guards 257 Japanese and four Australians were killed. Other confrontations between Japanese POWs and their guards occurred at a camp in Bikaner, India during 1945 and Camp McCoy in Wisconsin
during May 1944; these did not result in any fatalities. In addition, 24 Japanese POWs killed themselves at Camp Paita, New Caledonia
in January 1944 after a planned uprising was foiled. News of the incidents at Cowra and Featherston was suppressed in Japan, but the Japanese Government lodged protests with the Australian and New Zealand governments as a propaganda tactic. This was the only time that the Japanese Government officially recognised that Japanese military personnel had surrendered.
The Allies distributed photographs of Japanese POWs in camps to induce other Japanese personnel to surrender. This tactic was initially rejected by General MacArthur when it was proposed to him in mid-1943 on the grounds that it violated the Hague and Geneva Conventions and that the fear of being identified after surrendering could harden Japanese resistance. MacArthur reversed his position in December of that year, however, but only allowed the publication of photos that did not identify individual POWs. He also directed that the photos "should be truthful and factual and not designed to exaggerate".
Repatriation of some Japanese POWs was delayed by Allied authorities. Until late 1946 the United States retained almost 70,000 POWs to dismantle military facilities in the Philippines, Okinawa, central Pacific and Hawaii. British authorities retained 113,500 of the approximately 750,000 POWs in south and south-east Asia until 1947; the last POWs captured in Burma and Malaya returned to Japan in October 1947. The British also used armed Japanese Surrendered Personnel
to support Dutch and French attempts to reestablish their colonial empires in the Netherlands East Indies and Indochina respectively. At least 81,090 Japanese personnel died in areas occupied by the western Allies and China before they could be repatriated to Japan. Historian John W. Dower
has attributed these deaths to the "wretched" condition of Japanese military units at the end of the war.
Nationalist Chinese forces took the surrender of 1.2 million Japanese military personnel following the war. While the Japanese feared that they would be subjected to reprisals, they were generally treated well. This was because the Nationalists wished to seize as many Japanese weapons as possible, ensure that the departure of the Japanese military didn't create a security vacuum and discourage Japanese personnel from fighting alongside the Chinese communists. The nationalists retained over 50,000 POWs, most of whom had technical skills, until the second half of 1946, however. Tens of thousands of Japanese prisoners captured by the Chinese communists were serving in their military forces in August 1946 and more than 60,000 were believed to still be held in Communist-controlled areas as late as April 1949.
Hundreds of thousands of Japanese surrendered to Soviet forces in the last weeks of the war and after Japan's surrender. The Soviet Union claimed to have taken 594,000 Japanese POWs, of whom 70,880 were immediately released, but Japanese researchers have estimated that 850,000 were captured. Unlike the prisoners held by China or the western Allies, these men were treated harshly by their captors, and over 60,000 died. Japanese POWs were forced to undertake hard labour and were held in primitive conditions with inadequate food and medical treatments. This treatment was similar to that experienced by German POWs in the Soviet Union
. The treatment of Japanese POWs in Siberia was also similar to that of Soviet citizens who were being held in the area.
Due to the shame associated with surrendering, few Japanese POWs wrote memoirs after the war.
Allies of World War II
The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...
forces prior to the end of the Pacific War
Pacific War
The Pacific War, also sometimes called the Asia-Pacific War refers broadly to the parts of World War II that took place in the Pacific Ocean, its islands, and in East Asia, then called the Far East...
in August 1945. The number of Japanese soldiers, sailors and airmen who surrendered was limited by the Japanese military indoctrinating its personnel to fight to the death, Allied personnel often being unwilling to take prisoners, and many Japanese soldiers believing that those who surrendered often were killed anyway.
Following the war the United States and Britain delayed the repatriation of many Japanese prisoners until 1946 and 1947 respectively and the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
continued to hold hundreds of thousands of Japanese prisoners of war (POW)
Prisoner of war
A prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...
until the early 1950s.
Japanese attitudes to surrender
During the 1920s and 1930s the Imperial Japanese ArmyImperial Japanese Army
-Foundation:During the Meiji Restoration, the military forces loyal to the Emperor were samurai drawn primarily from the loyalist feudal domains of Satsuma and Chōshū...
(IJA) adopted an ethos which required soldiers to fight to the death rather than surrender. This policy reflected the practices of Japanese warfare in the pre-modern era. During the Meiji period
Meiji period
The , also known as the Meiji era, is a Japanese era which extended from September 1868 through July 1912. This period represents the first half of the Empire of Japan.- Meiji Restoration and the emperor :...
the Japanese government adopted western policies towards POWs, and few of the Japanese personnel who surrendered in the Russo-Japanese War
Russo-Japanese War
The Russo-Japanese War was "the first great war of the 20th century." It grew out of rival imperial ambitions of the Russian Empire and Japanese Empire over Manchuria and Korea...
were punished at the end of the war. Prisoners captured by Japanese forces during this and the First Sino-Japanese War
First Sino-Japanese War
The First Sino-Japanese War was fought between Qing Dynasty China and Meiji Japan, primarily over control of Korea...
and World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
were also treated in accordance with international standards. Attitudes towards surrender hardened after World War I. While Japan signed the 1929 Geneva Convention
Geneva Convention (1929)
The Geneva Convention was signed at Geneva, July 27, 1929. Its official name is the Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, Geneva July 27, 1929. It entered into force 19 June 1931. It is this version of the Geneva Conventions which covered the treatment of prisoners of war...
covering treatment of POWs, it did not ratify the agreement, claiming that surrender was contrary to the beliefs of Japanese soldiers. This attitude was reinforced by the indoctrination of young people.
The Japanese military's attitude towards surrender was institutionalised in the 1941 "Code of Battlefield Conduct" (Senjinkun
Senjinkun military code
The was a pocket-sized military code issued to soldiers in the Imperial Japanese forces on 8 January 1941 in the name of then War Minister Hideki Tojo. It was in use at the outbreak of the Pacific War....
), which was issued to all Japanese soldiers. This document sought to establish standards of behavior for Japanese troops and improve discipline and morale within the Army, and included a prohibition against being taken prisoner. The Japanese Government accompanied the Senjinkuns implementation with a propaganda campaign which celebrated people who had fought to the death rather than surrender during Japan's wars. While the Imperial Japanese Navy
Imperial Japanese Navy
The Imperial Japanese Navy was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1869 until 1947, when it was dissolved following Japan's constitutional renunciation of the use of force as a means of settling international disputes...
(IJN) did not issue a document equivalent to the Senjinkun, naval personnel were expected to exhibit similar behavior and not surrender. Most Japanese military personnel were told that they would be killed or tortured by the Allies if they were taken prisoner. The Army's Field Service Regulations were also modified in 1940 to replace a provision which stated that seriously wounded personnel in field hospitals came under the protection of the Red Cross Convention of 1864 with a requirement that the wounded not fall into enemy hands. During the war this led to wounded personnel being either killed by medical officers or given grenades to commit suicide.
While scholars disagree over whether the Senjinkun was legally binding on Japanese soldiers, the document reflected Japan's societal norms and had great force over both military personnel and civilians. In 1942 the Army amended its criminal code to specify that officers who surrendered soldiers under their command faced at least six months imprisonment, regardless of the circumstances in which the surrender took place. This change attracted little attention, however, as the Senjinkun imposed more severe consequences and had greater moral force.
Japanese attitudes towards surrender contributed to the harsh treatment which was inflicted on the Allied personnel they captured.
Not all Japanese military personnel chose to follow the precepts set out on the Senjinkun. Those who chose to surrender did so for a range of reasons including not believing that suicide was appropriate or lacking the courage to commit the act, bitterness towards officers, and Allied propaganda promising good treatment. For instance, recent analysis of Japanese soldiers' diaries conducted by Richard Aldrich of Nottingham University has found that what is allegedly a common perception of the Japanese soldier as being fanatically devoted to the Emperor and codes such as bushido
Bushido
, meaning "Way of the Warrior-Knight", is a Japanese word which is used to describe a uniquely Japanese code of conduct and a way of the samurai life, loosely analogous to the concept of chivalry. It originates from the samurai moral code and stresses frugality, loyalty, martial arts mastery, and...
is not necessarily true in all cases. During the later years of the war Japanese troops' morale deteriorated as a result of Allied victories, leading to an increase in the number who were prepared to surrender.
Japanese soldiers' reluctance to surrender was also influenced by a perception that Allied forces would kill them if they did surrender, and historian Niall Ferguson
Niall Ferguson
Niall Campbell Douglas Ferguson is a British historian. His specialty is financial and economic history, particularly hyperinflation and the bond markets, as well as the history of colonialism.....
has argued that this had a more important influence in discouraging surrenders than the fear of disciplinary action or dishonor. In addition, the Japanese public was aware that US troops sometimes mutilated Japanese casualties
American mutilation of Japanese war dead
During World War II, some United States military personnel mutilated dead Japanese service personnel in the Pacific theater of operations. The mutilation of Japanese service personnel included the taking of body parts as “war souvenirs” and “war trophies”...
and sent trophies made out of body-parts home from media reports of two high-profile incidents in 1944 in which a letter-opener carved from a bone of a Japanese soldier was presented to President Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
and a photo of the skull of a Japanese soldier which had been sent home by a US soldier was published in the magazine Life
Life (magazine)
Life generally refers to three American magazines:*A humor and general interest magazine published from 1883 to 1936. Time founder Henry Luce bought the magazine in 1936 solely so that he could acquire the rights to its name....
. In these reports Americans were portrayed as "deranged, primitive, racist and inhuman". Hoyt in "Japan’s war: the great Pacific conflict" argues that the Allied practice of taking bones from Japanese corpses home as souvenirs was exploited by Japanese propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
very effectively, and "contributed to a preference to death over surrender and occupation, shown, for example, in the mass civilian suicides on Saipan and Okinawa after the Allied landings".
The causes of the phenomenon that Japanese often continued to fight even in hopeless situations has been traced to a combination of Shinto
Shinto
or Shintoism, also kami-no-michi, is the indigenous spirituality of Japan and the Japanese people. It is a set of practices, to be carried out diligently, to establish a connection between present day Japan and its ancient past. Shinto practices were first recorded and codified in the written...
, Hoko
Hoko
Hoko yari in an older form of Japanese spear or yari based on a Chinese spear. and thought to be from the Nara period.-Appearance and use:The hoko yari was thought to be a guard's spear used in the defense palisades and gates...
, and Bushido
Bushido
, meaning "Way of the Warrior-Knight", is a Japanese word which is used to describe a uniquely Japanese code of conduct and a way of the samurai life, loosely analogous to the concept of chivalry. It originates from the samurai moral code and stresses frugality, loyalty, martial arts mastery, and...
. However, a factor equally strong or even stronger to those, was the fear of torture after capture. This fear grew out of years of batle experiences in China, where the Chinese guerillas were considered expert torturers, and this fear was projected onto the American soldiers who also were expected to torture and kill surrendered Japanese.
In a June 1945 report an Office of War Information (OWI) officer noted that the 84% of Japanese POWs who expected torture or death at the hands of their american capturers were typical, and that this was a greater factor than Bushido when it came to Japanese fighting to the death.
The Japanese perceptions were reinforced by the American actions, "Japanese were known to come out of the jungle unarmed with their hands raised above their heads, crying, 'Mercy, mercy,' only to be mowed down by machine-gun fire". Taking "no prisoners" never became official US practise, but was instead "common practise". As an example one Marine batalion came across and wiped out a Japanese Field hospital
Field hospital
A field hospital is a large mobile medical unit that temporarily takes care of casualties on-site before they can be safely transported to more permanent hospital facilities...
, killing "over 400, including patients and corpsmen [medics]". US troops justified actions such as this based on rumors and stories of Japanese treachery.
Allied attitudes
The western Allied governments sought to treat captured Japanese in accordance with international agreements which governed the treatment of POWs. Shortly after the outbreak of war in December 1941 the British and United States governments transmitted a message to the Japanese government through Swiss intermediaries asking if Japan would abide by the 1929 Geneva Convention. The Japanese Government responded stating that while it had not signed the convention, Japan would treat POWs in accordance with its terms; in effect though Japan failed to meet any of the convention's requirements. While the Allies notified the Japanese government of the identities of Japanese POWs in accordance with the Geneva Convention's requirements, this information was not passed onto the families of the captured men as the Japanese government wished to maintain that none of its soldiers had been taken prisoner.Allied military personnel were reluctant to take Japanese prisoners at the start of the war. US forces were generally unwilling to accept the surrender of Japanese during the first two years of the war due to a combination of racist attitudes and anger at Japan's sneak attack on Pearl Harbor
Attack on Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941...
and atrocities committed against Allied troops
Japanese war crimes
Japanese war crimes occurred during the period of Japanese imperialism, primarily during the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II. Some of the incidents have also been described as an Asian Holocaust and Japanese war atrocities...
. Australian soldiers were also reluctant to take Japanese prisoners for similar reasons. Incidents in which Japanese troops booby-trapped their dead and wounded or pretended to surrender in order to lure Allied troops into ambushes were well known within the Allied militaries and also hardened attitudes against seeking the surrender of Japanese on the battlefield. As a result, Allied troops believed that their Japanese opponents would not surrender and that any attempts to surrender were deceptive; for instance, the Australian jungle warfare school
Kokoda Barracks
Kokoda Barracks is an Australian Army base located in Queensland at Canungra.The Australian Army Intelligence Corps has training facilities known as the Defence Intelligence Training Centre and the Australian Army Land Warfare Centre, Canungra located here....
advised soldiers to shoot any Japanese troops who had their hands closed while surrendering. Furthermore, in many instances Japanese soldiers who had surrendered were killed on the front line or while being taken to POW compounds. The nature of jungle warfare
Jungle warfare
Jungle warfare is a term used to cover the special techniques needed for military units to survive and fight in jungle terrain.It has been the topic of extensive study by military strategists, and was an important part of the planning for both sides in many conflicts, including World War II and the...
also contributed to prisoners not being taken, as many battles were fought at close ranges where participants "often had no choice but to shoot first and ask questions later".
Division (military)
A division is a large military unit or formation usually consisting of between 10,000 and 20,000 soldiers. In most armies, a division is composed of several regiments or brigades, and in turn several divisions typically make up a corps...
was assigned a team of Japanese American
Japanese American
are American people of Japanese heritage. Japanese Americans have historically been among the three largest Asian American communities, but in recent decades have become the sixth largest group at roughly 1,204,205, including those of mixed-race or mixed-ethnicity...
personnel whose duties included attempting to persuade Japanese personnel to surrender. Allied forces mounted an extensive psychological warfare
Psychological warfare
Psychological warfare , or the basic aspects of modern psychological operations , have been known by many other names or terms, including Psy Ops, Political Warfare, “Hearts and Minds,” and Propaganda...
campaign against their Japanese opponents to lower their morale and encourage surrender. This included dropping copies of the Geneva Conventions
Geneva Conventions
The Geneva Conventions comprise four treaties, and three additional protocols, that establish the standards of international law for the humanitarian treatment of the victims of war...
and 'surrender passes' on Japanese positions. This campaign was undermined by Allied troops' reluctance to take prisoners, however. As a result, from May 1944 senior U.S. Army commanders authorised and endorsed educational programs which aimed to change the attitudes of front line troops. These programs highlighted the intelligence which could be gained from Japanese POWs, the need to honour surrender leaflets and the benefits which could be gained by encouraging Japanese forces to not fight to the last man. The programs were partially successful, and contributed to U.S. troops taking more prisoners. In addition, soldiers who witnessed Japanese troops surrender were more willing to take prisoners themselves. Allied propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
and demoralisation resulting from Japan's deteriorating position also contributed to an increased incidence of Japanese soldiers surrendering or deserting. The majority of Japanese military personnel did not believe that the Allies treated prisoners correctly, and even a majority of those who surrendered expected to be killed.
Survivors of ships sunk by Allied submarines frequently refused to surrender, and many of the prisoners who were captured by submariners were taken by force. US Navy submarines were occasionally ordered to obtain prisoners for intelligence purposes, and formed special teams of personnel for this purpose. Overall, however, Allied submariners usually did not attempt to take prisoners, and the number of Japanese personnel they captured was relatively small. The submarines which took prisoners normally did so towards the end of their patrols so that they did not have to be guarded for a long time. In a small number of instances Allied submariners deliberately fired on the survivors of Japanese ships.
Allied forces continued to kill Japanese personnel who were attempting to surrender throughout the war. It is likely that more Japanese soldiers would have surrendered if they had not believed that they would be killed by the Allies while trying to do so. Fear of being killed after surrendering was one of the main factors which influenced Japanese troops to fight to the death, and a wartime U.S. Office of Wartime Information report stated that it may have been more important than fear of disgrace and a desire to die for Japan. Instances of Japanese personnel being killed while attempting to surrender are not well documented, though anecdotal accounts provide evidence that this occurred.
Prisoners taken during the war
Estimates of the numbers of Japanese personnel taken prisoner during the Pacific War differ. Japanese historian Ikuhiko HataIkuhiko Hata
is a Japanese revisionist historian. He published many books and interpretive studies in both Japanese military and modern history.-Education and career:...
claims that up to 50,000 Japanese became POWs before Japan's surrender. The Japanese Government's wartime POW Information Bureau believed that 42,543 Japanese surrendered during the war,; a figure also used by Niall Ferguson
Niall Ferguson
Niall Campbell Douglas Ferguson is a British historian. His specialty is financial and economic history, particularly hyperinflation and the bond markets, as well as the history of colonialism.....
who states that it refers to prisoners taken by United States and Australian forces. Ulrich Straus states that about 35,000 were captured by western Allied and Chinese forces and Alison B. Gilmore has calculated that Allied forces in the South West Pacific Area
South West Pacific theatre of World War II
The South West Pacific Theatre, technically the South West Pacific Area, between 1942 and 1945, was one of two designated area commands and war theatres enumerated by the Combined Chiefs of Staff of World War II in the Pacific region....
alone captured at least 19,500 Japanese.
As the Japanese forces in China were mainly on the offensive and suffered relatively few casualties, few Japanese soldiers surrendered to Chinese forces prior to August 1945. It has been estimated that at the end of the war Chinese Nationalist and Communist forces held around 8,300 Japanese prisoners. The conditions these POWs were held in generally did not meet the standards required by international law. The Japanese government expressed no concern for these abuses, however, as it did not want IJA soldiers to even consider surrendering. The government was, however, concerned about reports that 300 POWs had joined the Chinese Communists and had been trained to spread anti-Japanese propaganda.
The Japanese Government sought to suppress information about captured personnel. On 27 December 1941 it established a POW Information Bureau within the Ministry of the Army to manage information concerning Japanese POWs. While the Bureau catalogued information provided by the Allies via the Red Cross identifying POWs, it did not pass this information on to the families of the prisoners. When individuals wrote to the Bureau to inquire if their relative had been taken prisoner, it appears that the Bureau provided a reply which neither confirmed or denied whether the man was a prisoner. Although the Bureau's role included facilitating mail between POWs and their families, this was not carried out as the families were not notified and few POWs wrote home. The lack of communication with their families increased the POWs feelings of being cut off from Japanese society.
Intelligence gathered from Japanese POWs
The Allies gained considerable quantities of intelligence from Japanese POWs. Because they had been indoctrinated to believe that by surrendering they had broken all ties with Japan, many POWs provided their interrogators with information on the Japanese military. Australian and US troops and senior officers commonly believed that captured Japanese troops were very unlikely to divulge any information of military value, leading to them having little motivation to take prisoners. This view proved incorrect, and many Japanese POWs provided valuable intelligence during interrogations. Few Japanese were aware of the Geneva Convention and the rights it gave prisoners to not respond to questioning. Moreover, the POWs felt that by surrendering they had lost all their rights. The prisoners appreciated the opportunity to converse with Japanese-speaking Americans and felt that the food, clothing and medical treatment they were provided with meant that they owed favours to their captors. Questioning techniques developed by Allied interrogators in which they exaggerated the amount they claimed to know and asked the Japanese to "confirm" details were also successful. As a result of these factors, Japanese POWs were often cooperative and truthful during interrogation sessions, and many interrogations produced useful military information. The value of this intelligence more than outweighed the cost of maintaining prisoners in POW camps.Japanese POWs were interrogated multiple times during their captivity. Most Japanese soldiers were interrogated by intelligence officers of the battalion or regiment which had captured them for information which could be used by these units. Following this they were rapidly moved to rear areas where they were interrogated by successive echelons of the Allied military and again once they reached a POW camp in Australia, New Zealand, India or the United States. These interrogations were painful and stressful for the POWs. Force was not used by Allied interrogators, though on one occasion headquarters personnel of the US 40th Infantry Division debated, but ultimately decided against, administering sodium penthanol
Sodium thiopental
Sodium thiopental, better known as Sodium Pentothal , thiopental, thiopentone sodium, or Trapanal , is a rapid-onset short-acting barbiturate general anaesthetic...
to an senior non-commissioned officer.
Some Japanese POWs also played an important role in helping the Allied militaries develop propaganda and politically indoctrinate their fellow prisoners.
Allied prisoner of war camps
Japanese POWs held in Allied prisoner of war camps were treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention. By 1943 the Allied governments were aware that their soldiers who had been captured by the Japanese military were being held in harsh conditions. In an attempt to win better treatment for their POWs, the Allied governments made extensive efforts to notify the Japanese government of the good conditions in Allied POW camps. This was not successful, however, as the Japanese government refused to recognise the existence of captured Japanese military personnel. Nevertheless, Japanese POWs in Allied camps continued to be treated in accordance with the Geneva Conventions until the end of the war.Most Japanese captured by U.S. forces after September 1942 were turned over to Australia or New Zealand for internment. The United States provided these countries with aid through Lend Lease to cover the costs of maintaining the prisoners and retained responsibility for repatriating them to Japan at the end of the war. Prisoners captured in the central Pacific or who were believed to have particular intelligence value were held in camps in the United States.
Fort Hunt Park
Fort Hunt Park is a public park located in Fort Hunt, Fairfax County, Virginia. It is administered by the National Park Service as part of the George Washington Memorial Parkway. The park preserves the remains of the eponymous Fort Hunt, portions of which date to the time of the Spanish-American War...
, Virginia or Camp Tracy
Byron, California
Byron is a census-designated place in Contra Costa County, California, United States. The population was 1,277 at the 2010 census.-Geography:...
, California. As well as being interrogated again, the POWs conversations in these camps were wiretapped
Telephone tapping
Telephone tapping is the monitoring of telephone and Internet conversations by a third party, often by covert means. The wire tap received its name because, historically, the monitoring connection was an actual electrical tap on the telephone line...
and analysed. Some of the conditions at Camp Tracy violated Geneva Convention requirements, such as insufficient exercise time being provided. However prisoners at this camp were given special benefits, such as high quality food and access to a shop, and the interrogation sessions were relatively relaxed. The continuous wiretapping at both locations may have also violated the spirit of the Geneva Convention.
Japanese POWs generally adjusted to life in prison camps and few attempted to escape. There were several incidents at POW camps, however. On 25 February 1943 POWs at Featherston prisoner of war camp
Featherston prisoner of war camp
Featherston prisoner of war camp was a camp for captured Japanese soldiers during World War II at Featherston, New Zealand. It had been established during World War I as the largest military training camp in New Zealand. At the request of the United States, in September 1942 it was re-established...
in New Zealand staged a strike after being ordered to work. The protest turned violent when the camp's deputy commander shot one of the leaders of the protest. The Japanese prisoners then attacked the other guards, who opened fire and killed 48 prisoners and wounded another 74. Conditions at the camp were subsequently improved, leading to good relations between the Japanese and their New Zealand guards for the remainder of the war. More seriously, on 5 August 1944 Japanese POWs in a camp near Cowra, Australia
Cowra, New South Wales
Cowra is a town in the Central West region of New South Wales, Australia in the Cowra Shire. It is located on the Mid-Western Highway, 317 kilometres west of Sydney on the banks of the Lachlan River at an altitude of 310 metres above sea level. At the 2006 census Cowra had a population of 8,430...
attempted to escape
Cowra breakout
During World War II, a prisoner of war camp near the town of Cowra in New South Wales, Australia was the site of one of the largest prison escapes of the war, on 5 August 1944. At least 545 Japanese POWs were involved in the breakout.-The camp:...
. During the fighting between the POWs and their guards 257 Japanese and four Australians were killed. Other confrontations between Japanese POWs and their guards occurred at a camp in Bikaner, India during 1945 and Camp McCoy in Wisconsin
Wisconsin
Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...
during May 1944; these did not result in any fatalities. In addition, 24 Japanese POWs killed themselves at Camp Paita, New Caledonia
New Caledonia
New Caledonia is a special collectivity of France located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, east of Australia and about from Metropolitan France. The archipelago, part of the Melanesia subregion, includes the main island of Grande Terre, the Loyalty Islands, the Belep archipelago, the Isle of...
in January 1944 after a planned uprising was foiled. News of the incidents at Cowra and Featherston was suppressed in Japan, but the Japanese Government lodged protests with the Australian and New Zealand governments as a propaganda tactic. This was the only time that the Japanese Government officially recognised that Japanese military personnel had surrendered.
The Allies distributed photographs of Japanese POWs in camps to induce other Japanese personnel to surrender. This tactic was initially rejected by General MacArthur when it was proposed to him in mid-1943 on the grounds that it violated the Hague and Geneva Conventions and that the fear of being identified after surrendering could harden Japanese resistance. MacArthur reversed his position in December of that year, however, but only allowed the publication of photos that did not identify individual POWs. He also directed that the photos "should be truthful and factual and not designed to exaggerate".
Post-war
Millions of Japanese military personnel surrendered following Japan's surrender. Soviet and Chinese forces accepted the surrender of 1.6 million Japanese and the western allies took the surrender of millions more in Japan, South-East Asia and the South-West Pacific. In order to prevent resistance to the order to surrender, Japan's Imperial Headquarters included a statement that "servicemen who come under the control of enemy forces after the proclamation of the Imperial Rescript will not be regarded as POWs" in its orders announcing the end of the war. While this was successful in avoiding unrest, it led to hostility between those who surrendered before and after the end of the war and denied prisoners of the Soviets POW status.Repatriation of some Japanese POWs was delayed by Allied authorities. Until late 1946 the United States retained almost 70,000 POWs to dismantle military facilities in the Philippines, Okinawa, central Pacific and Hawaii. British authorities retained 113,500 of the approximately 750,000 POWs in south and south-east Asia until 1947; the last POWs captured in Burma and Malaya returned to Japan in October 1947. The British also used armed Japanese Surrendered Personnel
Japanese Surrendered Personnel
Japanese Surrendered Personnel is a designation for captive Japanese soldiers...
to support Dutch and French attempts to reestablish their colonial empires in the Netherlands East Indies and Indochina respectively. At least 81,090 Japanese personnel died in areas occupied by the western Allies and China before they could be repatriated to Japan. Historian John W. Dower
John W. Dower
John W. Dower is an American author and historian.Dower earned a bachelor's degree in American Studies from Amherst College in 1959, and a Ph.D. in History and Far Eastern Languages from Harvard University in 1972, where he studied under Albert M. Craig...
has attributed these deaths to the "wretched" condition of Japanese military units at the end of the war.
Nationalist Chinese forces took the surrender of 1.2 million Japanese military personnel following the war. While the Japanese feared that they would be subjected to reprisals, they were generally treated well. This was because the Nationalists wished to seize as many Japanese weapons as possible, ensure that the departure of the Japanese military didn't create a security vacuum and discourage Japanese personnel from fighting alongside the Chinese communists. The nationalists retained over 50,000 POWs, most of whom had technical skills, until the second half of 1946, however. Tens of thousands of Japanese prisoners captured by the Chinese communists were serving in their military forces in August 1946 and more than 60,000 were believed to still be held in Communist-controlled areas as late as April 1949.
Hundreds of thousands of Japanese surrendered to Soviet forces in the last weeks of the war and after Japan's surrender. The Soviet Union claimed to have taken 594,000 Japanese POWs, of whom 70,880 were immediately released, but Japanese researchers have estimated that 850,000 were captured. Unlike the prisoners held by China or the western Allies, these men were treated harshly by their captors, and over 60,000 died. Japanese POWs were forced to undertake hard labour and were held in primitive conditions with inadequate food and medical treatments. This treatment was similar to that experienced by German POWs in the Soviet Union
Forced labor of Germans in the Soviet Union
Forced labor of Germans in the Soviet Union was considered by the Soviet Union to be part of German war reparations for the damage inflicted by Nazi Germany on the Soviet Union during World War II. German civilians in Eastern Europe were deported to the USSR after World War II as forced laborers...
. The treatment of Japanese POWs in Siberia was also similar to that of Soviet citizens who were being held in the area.
Due to the shame associated with surrendering, few Japanese POWs wrote memoirs after the war.
See also
- Japanese prisoners of war in the Soviet UnionJapanese prisoners of war in the Soviet UnionBy the end of :World War II there were from 560,000 to 760,000 Japanese POWs in the Soviet Union and Mongolia interned to work in labor camps. Of them, about 10% died , mostly during the winter of 1945–1946....