Prisoners Of War Essay

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On December 7, 1941, America was attacked by Japanese aircraft in an awfully successful air raid. Due to this attack on Hawii , President Roosevelt declared war on Japan. Everyone knows obviously America won, and yeah we know people were shot and killed by the Japanese but what you may not know is not everyone went home after the war was over many people in fact were captured and sent to terrifying concentration camps where they were overworked and barely fed just because they were caught fighting for their country. All the men caught were known as prisoners of war (POW),they were taken to places in Japan called either prison camps or concentration camps, the name really made know difference because the prisoners were welcomed by the same bizarre As presumed these meals weakened the soldiers and turned them into prisoners. They were given a mat to sleep on though thankfully. A normal day consisted of working all day for ten days and having one day off. The jobs were things like working the shipyard and mines,but a more dangerous job given to the prisoners was the Burma Thailand Project. Laborers were sent to work side by side building a 260ml railroad manually. Over 61,000 men were put to this job and afterward only 48,000 survived the railroad. The main jobs done to build the bridge included setting up dynamite all around mountains to blast through them and then the tracks were laid.Or they were tasked to build bridges, the easiest jobs to receive during the reconstruction was the moving of the ground to make room for whatever was to be put there, but even that task took it’s toll on the weak and tired men. Thankfully this treatment did not break all the men, after the Japanese surrendered the American Red Cross got together and rescued the Allied POW’s but, they were not given all the locations of the camps so, the POW’s capable of making their way to the Recovery sites did and helped with locating all the camps, which was almost double the amount the Red Cross was told(73).During the war a total of over 30,000 POW’s

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