Who Treated American POW's Better

[Riverwind (imported)]

I know just what your talking about, my father was in WWI the war to end all wars, he did not go to Europe but spent his entire time in Chicago which may have saved his life he was out when the flu hit.

River

[gareth19 (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

How does that rate compare with the survival of American troops imprisoned by southern terrorists during the Civil War?

[Riverwind (imported)]

How does that rate compare with the survival of American troops imprisoned by southern terrorists during the Civil War?

What southern terrorists are you talking about?

River

[MacTheWolf (imported)]

How does that rate compare with the survival of American troops imprisoned by southern terrorists during the Civil War?

I don't know anything about Southern terrorists, but Andersonville Prison was a hell hole for Union POW's

[transward (imported)]

I don't know anything about Southern terrorists, but Andersonville Prison was a hell hole for Union POW's

http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/civ ... nville.htm

Of the approximately 45,000 Union soldiers who passed through Andersonville, 12,913 died within the prison's walls. This represented 28% of Andersonville's population and 40% of all Union POW deaths during the war. Between the figures for the Japanese and the Germans.

Transward

[considering (imported)]

Some may be familiar with the opera, "The Italians In Algiers". To update that it would be called, "The Italians in Oklahoma". This turned into a love fest that until age and distance cut into the practice, there were reunions every few years between groups from Italy and small towns in Oklahoma. Many stayed in Oklahoma after the war-for years some of the best Italian food to be had was in Oklahoma City. My grandfather hired his chauffeur, Ceppetti, from a camp near Enid and he stayed with us, brought his family from Milan, married locally, and was quite happy. Needless to say, when we traveled abroad, or at least in Italy, our reception verged on the riotous. Americans are good people, hospitable people as are the Italians so the fit was instantaneus. Both sides had just come through a disastrous period and recognized that this hazard of war represented an uptick for all concerned. Somehow a whole batallion of mechanics had been caught and sent over and, happily, they had previously worked for Isotta-Fraschini so were "hired" on to work at a car assembly plant in Kansas City. The late William Allen, then a senior officer at Boeing, would have been glad to have some of their engineers but the Government was against it. It's an ironic fact that those Italians who did die whilst in American custody in Oklahoma did so due more to natural causes or....an unfamiliarity with rattllesnakes.

[Riverwind (imported)]

http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/civ ... nville.htm

Transward

I knew about the southern prisons I was wondering who the terrorists were that Gareth was talking about. As I recall there were terrorists on both sides mostly located in and around Missouri, but did not know they amounted to the number of deaths that Gareth indicated.

River

[A-1 (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.

HI.

I don't mean to try to justify the Japanese. At this time they believed that they were racially superior and that their Emperor was God.

I just didn't want anybody believing that German POW's were all treated like the guys on the defunct television series Hogan's Heroes. That whole T.V. series was nothing but a bunch of CRAP. Its intentions were about like the Japanese intentions that are a part of the subject of this thread.

Historical revisionists are INCREDIBLE... BUT false.

[erikboy (imported)]

I know that soviet pows were generally treated bad by germans. they were considered as untermensh. 57% of soviet pows died. But not as bad as jews. Of stalingrad german 110000 pows taken,only some 6000 returned. That was kind of a sweet revenge. I big part died during the journey to the pow camps. 95% died.

[Jack 4321 (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.

Reading these entries reminds me of a contribution in the EA’s Fiction Archive called ‘Japanese Prison Camp Penectomy’ and in particular to the very first paragraph of that story.

The EA ‘Japanese’ story author opens by saying ‘I do not know the historical accuracy of this story but tales of this sort were discussed in the playground when I was at school, as if they had really happened.’Like the EA author, I had also overheard occasional murmured remarks by my Dad and his buddies (all WWII vets) long ago in the 1950’s about the nature of Japanese mistreatment of Allied prisoners.

As a kid of 7 or 8 years old, one day my father jokingly said that if it hadn’t been for him ‘winning the (Second World) war,’ we would all have had Japanese fathers!

My mother, overhearing this, ‘hushed’ him, gave him a silent look of rebuke, together with the briefest shake of her head. Nothing more was said.

This joke by my father, as well as his Army buddies’ comments (along with the author’s 1st paragraph in the ‘Japanese’ story) leads me to mention the apparently wide-spread fear among New Zealand/Australian troops about the intention of the Japanese forces - should they be successful in invading NZ/Australia during WWII.

This fear centred on the belief that the blond, white NZ/Aust female inhabitants were to be relegated to the role of comfort women, or even ‘breeding stock’ for a new Japanese race in the South Pacific.

The males from these countries were to suffer the fate of slavery or serfdom - but preceded by emasculation. Ethnic cleansing, in other words. This provides a source for what the author of ‘Japanese’ story recalls, and is maybe the inspiration of his narrative.

This emasculation rumour seems to have had wide spread currency among certain of the Allied participating armies during the War.

I have not been able to Google any information about the extent of Allied emasculation at the hands of the Japanese. Anyone with URLs or other historic references maybe kindly be able to write and add to this discussion.

As almost all the guys who served in WWII have long passed away, first hand oral evidence on this topic will have been lost.

Hearsay evidence however (like my recollections) could help build an albeit unverifiable picture of this undiscussed aspect of Japanese conduct during WWII.