Prisoners Of War Essay

During World War II more than 30 000 Australians became prisoners

of war. Many of these POWs were captured during the fall of the
Australian and British troops at Singapore. The conditions these
soldiers kept in under were horrific and 37% of these men died in
the camps. The Australians captured had surrendered, and
according to Japanese Bushido code surrender is dishonorable and
therefore the POWs were thought to be unworthy of respect and
deserved extreme punishment. This is exactly what they received. I
believe three important topics to touch on concerning the Allied
prisoners of war are the terrible conditions they lived in, why they
were treated so terribly by the Japanese and how they survived
throughout the nightmarish ordeal

Fg. 1
The conditions in which the soldiers lived
Starved
were terrible; they were starved, beaten, Australian
tortured and killed. When supplies were POWs
low, allied troops were fed on as little as
cups of rice per day. Figure 1 depicts
starved Australian
Fg. 2 prisoners of war living in Chang when supplies
Allied were low. The name Changi is synonymous with
POWs the suffering of Australian soldiers; an ex-British
being
beaten by jail turned Japanese Fg. 3
their torture house. Allied
merciless The Japanese treated Prisoners
captors. these men brutally working
on the
subjecting them to agonizing torture and railway
punishment, these methods included
being beaten by large clubs, forced
children to hold rocks above their heads,
slashing them with rocks; one aboriginal prisoner was even made to
kneel on a bamboo platform for several days, the bamboo cut into
his legs which caused gangrene and the eventual loss of his legs.
Figure 2 depicts an Allied soldier being savagely beaten by the
Japanese in a POW camp. Perhaps the largest event of destruction
and suffering inflicted upon the Australians and the Allied prisoners
from the Japanese was the building of the Burma-Thailand railway.
The atrocities committed during the construction of this railway
earned it the name The Burma-Thailand Death Railway. The
constructing of this railway began because Japan wanted to invade
and attack the British in India and needed an easy way to transport
supplies and equipment to their troops as they travelled northwards.
To do this they took many Australian prisoners and set them about
to manufacture the rail line. Figure 3 depicts allied prisoners
 laboring on the rail line while under the watchful eyes of their brutal
guards. The Japanese were aiming to build the railway as fast as
possible, so as a result the Australians were forced to work
impossibly long shifts of 18 hours a day and were provided very
little food and no medical treatment. These factors resulted in the
Allied prisoners succumbing to a range of tropical diseases including
beriberi, tropical ulcers and dengue and cholera. A quote from Sir
Harold Atcherley explains just how detrimental the effects of these
tropical diseases were on the prisoners. Cholera rife and men dying
at a rate of 20 per day. Appalling state of tropical ulcers cases
seen myself of legs bared to the bone from ankle to knee. No sleep
for the wretched patients, who moan all night long their only hope
for the morning to look forward to a repetition of all the previous
days agonies. No man deserves such a death.
Fg. 4
This Korean guard Figure 4 shows one of
was nicknamed the 66 Japanese and
The Mad Mongrel Korean soldiers working
for his brutal on the Burma-Thailand
treatment of
railway that were
POWs. He was
later sentenced to charged with or
death and accused of committing
executed for his war crimes.
crimes along the These events make it
clear that the majority of the
Japanese soldiers treated their prisoners badly; but why is this so?

The Japanese soldiers were taught and lived by the bushido code,
which means they believed that to die in battle or to kill themselves
would be more prudent and honorable than surrendering to the
enemy. This means that when the Allied troops of Australia and
Britain surrendered at the fortress of Singapore to the Japanese this
meant they were dishonorable, weak and deserved punishment.
Perhaps the most frightening thing about the Japanese guards was
their unpredictability. One Allied prisoner described their erratic
behavior stating, A comment that one day might warrant a savage
beating could provoke a laugh and a cigarette the next. The
Japanese soldiers themselves were subjected to beatings during
Fg. 5 their training to join the Japanese Armed Forces (figure 5).
It was clear this treatment from their superiors somewhat
brainwashed the Japanese guards into beating the prisoners; and in
these few months of training they were heavily influenced by their
superiors which translated into their treatment of the Australian and
British Prisoners Of War. Figure 6 explains how the Japanese soldiers
were taught to treat their inferiors.. Although the Japanese despised
the prisoners whilst living (and were indifferent to their suffering),
they had much respect for the prisoners when dead and sometimes
 even attended funerals for the Allied soldiers. The treatment
the Japanese soldiers delivered to the Allied troops was in,
hindsight, foolish. Had the Japanese treated the prisoners better
they would have been more cooperative and also been
physically fitter and medically stable meaning they would have
been able to build facilities much faster. This makes it clear that
the Japanese soldiers were merciless and we already know that
conditions the prisoners lived in were terrible, so how did they
survive?

Fg. 7
Fg. Detailed
6 and
A Japanese The hellish conditions that the Allied prisoners lived through
accurate
soldier in
drawing of a
meant they had to fight to survive. They would need to learn
training being
tropical ulcer, and improvise skills fundamental for survival such as first aid,
beaten byis,
which hisknow cooking rice and relentless teamwork. Disease and injury was
to eat away at the largest killer in the prisoner of war camps and the Allied
the leg to the troops did their best to treat themselves and their mates.
These included some outside of the box treatment methods.
For instance tropical ulcers (figure 7) could be treated by
agonizingly scraping the ulcerous material away from the bone
with a spoon with no anesthetic; or other men might dangle
their legs in the water letting fish each away the rotten flesh.
The Allied prisoner army cooks did not know how to cook rice,
often serving it as a lumpy grey porridge mixture. Eventually
the cooks improvised and managed to provide their fellow
prisoners with basic vitamins, protein and carbohydrates.
Above all else, a major factor in the soldiers survival was their
will and their longing to return home. Three World War 2
Veterans stated how they survived their stay in a prisoner of war camp
as seen in figure 8. The Allied prisoners banded together and as one;
which I believe played a big part in the survival of the Aussies in Japan
POW camps.

Fg. 9
The
importance of
sprit and will
in the survival
of the POWs.
In conclusion, the Allied prisoners of war lived in nightmarish
conditions of torture, disease, execution and suffering which was
largely due to the Japanese bushido code, which caused them to
inflict such pain. Throughout these conditions however many
Australian prisoners survived though shocking yet effective medical
treatments, quick thinking from army chefs and powerful, primal
spirit.

Bibliography
http://hellfire-pass.commemoration.gov.au/surviving-the-
camps/illness-and-death.php#
http://hellfire-pass.commemoration.gov.au/the-enemy/
http://hellfire-pass.commemoration.gov.au

http://www.skwirk.com/p-c_s-14_u-91_t-199_c-666/australian-
prisoners-of-war-changi-and-the-burma-thailand-
railway/nsw/history/australia-and-world-war-ii/war-time-
experiences

https://www.awm.gov.au/exhibitions/stolenyears/ww2/japan/survival/
http://ww2history.com/experts/Max_Hastings/Japanese_treatment_of
_POWs