Treatment of World War II Prisioners: Japan vs. United States

Treatment of World War II Prisoners of War: Japan vs. United States

The topic of POW's is a fascinating one that can be dealt with in various ways. First, one can gain information from primary sources from diaries and journals kept by POWs or their captors and guards. Second, there are secondary sources that can give general overviews of what treatment the POWs received. Another interesting thing in learning about POWs is to compare how the prisoners were supposed to be treated (in accordance with international law) and how they were actually treated. Another interesting viewpoint you can look at is to compare how countries treated prisoners differently, and subsequently, their reasoning to justify the treatment. The goal of the paper is to compare the differences in treatment of POWs between the United States and Japan during the Second World War. In my paper the treatment of American POWs by the Japanese with first-hand accounts from Manny Lawton's book Some Survived: An Epic Account of Japanese Captivity During World War II will be discussed along with how the Americans typically treated POWs and why they were treated that way. According to Some Survived by Manny Lawton, the treatment of American POW's by the Japanese was harsh and unforgiving. Lawton was a captain in the United States Army and a POW for three and a half years in the Philippines and Japan. He experienced the Bataan Death March, transportation through marches and by rail, and was on the infamous "Hellships" when the prisoners were shipped to Japan. His memoir reveals how he dealt with the surrounding death and torture, the lacking medical treatment, and the minimal food portions. After the Death March the prisoners went to Camp O'Donnell. I...

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...l-treatment if it did exist (Moore, p 264).

It is a fair judgment to claim that the United States treated their POWs better than Japan. The cultural differences between the two nations were immense and greatly contributed to the treatment of prisoners. Virtually all information available agrees with these two statements. However, one must not forget that the victors write history and there may be more sides to this already complicated topic.

Bibliography

1. Lawton, Manny. Some Survived: An Epic Account of Japanese Captivity During World War II Chapel Hill, North Carolina: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 1984.

2. Moore, Bob and Fedorowich, Kent. Prisoners of War and Their Captors in World War II. Oxford: Berg, 1996.

3. Towle, Philip, Margaret Kosuge, and Yoichi Kibata, Japanese Prisoners of War. London: Hambledon and London, 2000.