Who Treated American POW's Better

[MacTheWolf (imported)]

While I was researching the rescue of American POW's during the famous 1945 Raid of Cabanatuan, I was sidetracked by a U.S. Navy document explaining how American prisoners of war were treated in World War Two.

Hypothetically, lets say there were 60,000 American POW's at any one time.

If these Americans were POW's of Germany, the casualty rate would have been 1% - 600 Americans would have died.

If these Americans were POW's of Japan, the casualty rate would have been 40% - 24,000 Americans would have died.

http://www.history.navy.mil/library/onl ... ancomp.htm

[Riverwind (imported)]

So Mac, when are you going to put together all this information, put it in a book and sell it?

River

[moi621 (imported)]

While I was researching the rescue of American POW's during the famous 1945 Raid of Cabanatuan, I was sidetracked by a U.S. Navy document explaining how American prisoners of war were treated in World War Two.

Hypothetically, lets say there were 60,000 American POW's at any one time.

If these Americans were POW's of Germany, the casualty rate would have been 1% - 600 Americans would have died.

If these Americans were POW's of Japan, the casualty rate would have been 40% - 24,000 Americans would have died.

http://www.history.navy.mil/library/onl ... ancomp.htm

Can you find out survival if a Nazi POW was Jewish. American and Russian.

America was so good, to considerately label the dog tags.

I imagine the best POW situation would have been the Italian captured in North Africa.

Sent to a POW camp free of Nazi ideologues located in the south west United States.

All that fresh fruit, meat, dairy foods. And you make it through the war, better nourished.

I remember this German POW from a similarly located camp being interviewed on History channel.

He spoke of how they entered the barracks for the first time, saw hygiene kits including tooth brushes on each cot and fresh fruit. Until told, they did not understand the goodies were for them.

And the food. The food.

Probably for Europeans, the worst survival was captured Russian POW's in Nazi incarceration.

I bet that was worse then the survivors of Stalingrad who finally made in back to Deutchland in the fifties I believe. When History Channel presents that % as a tear jerker, I always find it too high and share the view if I have company.

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Such fiction can't be all fiction. Like the assassination of Pope John Paul 1

Enzo Aguello was born in Sicily and enlisted in the Army during the Second World War. He was captured shortly before the fall of Mussolini and sent over to America to help the war effort, finding work with Nazorine Pitelli, the Baker in Little Italy, New York.

During this time, Enzo became infatuated with Nazorine's daughter Katerina. When Enzo was about to be sent back to Sicily, Katarina pleaded with her father to let Enzo stay. Fearing that his daughter and Enzo would elope, or conceive a child, Nazorine visited his old friend Vito Corleone, who ensured Enzo would remain in the country.

<fade to music>

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aV9X2d-f5g

How'd this Child of Hollywood 90026, do? Stay on topic River

Or as Dave might claim, "snark snark" Oy, am I manic

Moi

A shot of Azul Silver Tequila, $19.99 for 1.75 L is a wondrous shot.

[Sweetpickle (imported)]

The Japanese seemed to have little respect for the life of anyone, including their own troops.

I suppose it was an outgrowth of the Samurai mentality.

If the Japanese military leaders had thought they could hide from the atom bomb

they probably would not have surrendered.

[Wolf-Pup (imported)]

The Japanese abuses of POW's is extremely well known. They also used Korean women as prostitutes and routinely raped them at will (I'd guess Chinese women as well). The Germans murdered Eastern European Jews as the went along, and French collaborators gave up their neighbors as antisemitism was very strong then.

I don't know, but would guess that they'd have killed Jewish soldiers as they found them and not taken them prisoner? Don't know on that though.

[A-1 (imported)]

While I was researching the rescue of American POW's during the famous 1945 Raid of Cabanatuan, I was sidetracked by a U.S. Navy document explaining how American prisoners of war were treated in World War Two.

Hypothetically, lets say there were 60,000 American POW's at any one time.

If these Americans were POW's of Germany, the casualty rate would have been 1% - 600 Americans would have died.

If these Americans were POW's of Japan, the casualty rate would have been 40% - 24,000 Americans would have died.

http://www.history.navy.mil/library/onl ... ancomp.htm

macwolfie,

As a child I had a friend who came back from WWII Germany. HE was captured in the Battle of the Bulge. By the time he was liberated he came home weighing only 60 pounds. His wife told me they gave him 6 months to live and it was 5 years after he was discharged before he was able to hold a regular job.

I don't know where you got your information, but it is not accurate. The freaking Nazis were BASTARDS!!!

[MacTheWolf (imported)]

macwolfie,

As a child I had a friend who came back from WWII Germany. HE was captured in the Battle of the Bulge. By the time he was liberated he came home weighing only 60 pounds. His wife told me they gave him 6 months to live and it was 5 years after he was discharged before he was able to hold a regular job.

I don't know where you got your information, but it is not accurate. The freaking Nazis were BASTARDS!!!

I never said the Nazis weren't bastards. After all, they murdered 7 million Jews, Catholics, Jehovah's Witnesses, Gays, the handicapped, the blind, the retarded, etc.

I only said an American soldier captured by Germany in WWII had a better chance of coming home alive, than did an American soldier captured by the Japanese.

[Losethem (imported)]

I never said the Nazis weren't bastards. After all, they murdered 7 million Jews, Catholics, Jehovah's Witnesses, Gays, the handicapped, the blind, the retarded, etc.

I only said an American soldier captured by Germany in WWII had a better chance of coming home alive, than did an American soldier captured by the Japanese.

We rarely agree, but... that *is* what you said. You'll remember my post about concentration camps a while back, and that was from my experience visiting one and... It wasn't a death camp (read: purposely murdered for the sake of the "final solution") and it still had thousands of deaths. I'd imagine the Japanese were much worse hosts for POW's.

--LT

[DeaconBlues (imported)]

THANKYOU Mac for this thread. It has caused me to think a lot about these matters. Later when I am not so tired I will post my thoughts about it, for now I will just say that this important bit of history should never be forgotten, and it seems to me that the modern Japan is trying very very hard to suppress or revise anything to do with this part of history.

[SplitDik (imported)]

My great uncle was a bomber navigator shot down over France, he spent a couple years in German POW camps. He didn't talk about it much, but acknowledged that US airmen were generally treated "well" considering.

To escape extreme poverty during the Depression, my paternal grandfather enlisted (Army) in 1938 (at age 16!) and had a choice of going to Hawaii or the Philippines. Keep in mind that at that time Hawaii was considered as weird and exotic to him as the Philippines, so it wasn't an obvious choice. He often remarked that that was the luckiest choice of his life -- otherwise he would have been have been in the Baatan Death March (which was bad in its own right) and then following years of Japanese POW camps. From Hawaii he ended up in Solomon Islands and Guadalcanal, and actually got bayoneted in the leg, but otherwise survived.

It is "funny" how getting different military stations made a night and day difference. My maternal grandfather served in Korean war but was stationed in Austria. Basically drank beer and chased European women, while other people were dying of Henta virus or frostbite in Korea. He met my grandmother who was an Army brat because he was teaching her to drive (he was an MP). Of course the Cold War was in full force then and being stationed in Europe potentially was dangerous, but of course that never materialized.