Life Inside a Japanese PoW Camp - WW2 Special
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- čas přidán 19. 05. 2021
- The inhuman, torturous, and deadly Japanese PoW Camps famous from “Bridge over the River Kwai,” “Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence,” “Empire of the Sun,” and more recently “Unbroken” are a world of abuse and mistreatment managed by willfully incompetent and sadistically brutal men.
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Between 2 Wars: • Between 2 Wars
Source list: bit.ly/WW2sources
Hosted by: Spartacus Olsson
Written by: Spartacus Olsson and Joram Appel
Director: Astrid Deinhard
Producers: Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Executive Producers: Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson, Bodo Rittenauer
Creative Producer: Maria Kyhle
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Joram Appel
Edited by: Miki Cackowski
Sound design: Marek Kamiński
Map animations: Eastory ( / eastory )
Colorizations by:
Mikołaj Uchman
Daniel Weiss
Sources:
Yad Vashem 4613/666, 4572/3
IWM ART 15747 42, 16712 (1), 15747 91, LD 7187, 15747 83
Picture of Corporal Rod Breavington, courtesy of Michael Clayton-Jones
Pictures of Allied POWs at Fukuoka camp, courtesy of Roger Mansell, Palo Alto, CA
Soundtracks from Epidemic Sound:
Jon Bjork - Disposal
Cobby Costa - Flight Path
Philip Ayers - Trapped in a Maze
Wendel Scherer - Growing Doubt
Wendel Scherer - Defeated
Fabien Tell - Last Point of Safe Return
Gunnar Johnsen - Not Safe Yet
Jon Bjork - Icicles
Philip Ayers - Under the Dome
Archive by Screenocean/Reuters www.screenocean.com.
A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.
While the Japanese camp system is fairly well known to anyone with a cursory interest in WW2, their inner workings from a Japanese viewpoint are much less explored than the German camps in Europe. It's easy to chalk that up to language barriers, but when I scratch the surface only a little bit during my research, something else comes to light. The huge difference between Germany and Japan at this time. The German system was driven by individuals forming a system to serve their murderous intent, while the Japanese system used individuals within a well established hierarchic system of abuse to fulfill their goals of subjugation and punishment. You should however not infer a lesser amount of personal responsibility because of that, or because we have a harder time describing the perpetrators as people - the Japanese camp commandants, and guards were faced with the same daily choices as the Germans: Do I strike, or do I not? Do I torture, or do I not? Do I murder or do I not? Failing to choose to act out against the inmates was never cause for punishment or falling out of favor, and violence was never the only choice available to keep order. So if you are looking for individual culpability, it’s just as present here as it was there. That said, it's always important to remember that it was not the Japanese people as a whole who perpetrated these acts, but individuals with the freedom of choice to do so or not.
Spartacus
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Oh boy!
Another inside insight into hell on earth!
Europeans weren't good with listening to the Pacific experiences either. People in NL literally said to people who survived Japanese camps ''oh, at least you weren't hungry'' (which, obviously wasn't true) and other bullshit like that. Invalidating (war) experiences is such a bad thing to do..
Thank you for making this video!
@@demi3115 Damn!
Thank you for this video. Looking forward to more PoW-Episodes! Greetings from Poland.
Very, very well said Spartacus.
It’s worth crediting the art showing the conditions in the camps in Burma. They were drawn - at huge risk - by Ronald Searle, who became a famous cartoonist and was captured at Singapore. His view was that he was going to die and wanted to leave a record. The full collection can be found in his book To the Kwai and Back, and are incredibly moving.
Thank you for posting, I will look for the book.
My father was a captive along with Searle. He worked on the death railway and was the only officer in his regiment 17th Dogra Reg. (Ind. army) to make it back to Changi before being liberated.
@@alisdairmclean8605
I as an indian thank your father and if he has gone to heaven , I pray he is at peace .
I know he was a english officer in the british indian army but politics aside , the massive indian army was the juggernaut which helped the empire in its worst hours and saved india from this Japanese scrouge .
It was not just your war, it was our war too
" DURGA MATA KI JAI " , ( WAR CRY OF DOGRA REGIMENT as it is today )
Don't forget the Japanese attitude of superiority. After hundreds of years of victory over other countries, they thought they were invincible and others were beneath them.
Iwo Jima and Nagasaki changed that - at least for a while.
After WWII my grandfather hosted a Japanese business delegation somewhere in the 1960s.
They complimented him (as being a European) for understanding the Japanese customs so well.
"Well, I ought to, after spending 4 years in a Japanese prison camp during the war", was his reply.
The Japanese guests seemed awkwardly embarrassed, and the meeting came rather hastily to an end.
At the next encounter they presented my grandfather a gift (as it turned out an expensive Japanese oil painting) on behalf of their company.
@peter michalski Considering how hellish the camps were, I'm more surprised so many forgave them so quickly.
@peter michalski What kind of crack you on mate?
@@Jonathan-fb1kj lmao right? like wtf was that about?
@peter michalski
Did you even pay attention to the very episode you're commenting on?
Or are you confusing Japanese POW camps with American Internment Camps, in which many families were in fact separated, and while never in danger of starvation, plenty to eat is a bit of an overstatement, and while sheltered, those shelters were at first no more than huge multi-family barracks which later became small apartments without A/C in the desert southwest, and often cramped as the size of the apartments did not consider the size of the family.
No, such camps were not at the death factories of the Axis camps, perhaps not hellish, but certainly a miserable purgatory that no civilian should have been subjected too.
At least they didn’t say: What? I thought we didn’t take prisoners because I killed everyone that surrendered.
My old neighbour was a Australian veteran who refused to ever buy Japanese cars because of the hell he experienced in a Japanese POW camp.
Wow.
When I was a kid I had to hide my Kawasaki motorbike every time my grandfather who was a Pacific war veteran came to visit.
I remember when Japanese cars first appeared in dealer's lots. We didnt think they'd ever catch on. I know Dad said he "sure as hell won't ever buy one". Alot of his Legion buddies wouldn't either. It was only when the fuel crisis and the 55 MPH speed limit came that they started selling well. In the 1980s??
In 2004 i moved to work in Germany and my brother was then working for VW (but in UK). My mother told us her grandmother would be spinning in her grave as she lost 1 son in WW2,
When I was in fifth grade a daughter of a WW2 vet she said her father sent her a kimono he looted during the war but had to hide it due to his PTSD when he returned and told us stories of how he would army crawl in his sleep
My grandfather was a PoW in Burma and Japan, working on the Burma Railway and then the undersea coal mines on the home islands. He used to say that one of his fellow prisoners died for every railway sleeper they laid. He survived it all and lived until he was 106, we were so lucky to have him survive. Thank you Timeghost for covering this as we must never forget what happened.
Thanks for sharing his history with us. Your comment is what motivate us to keep foward.
I just watched an episode of "The Repair Shop" on Netflix where these people brought in an antique watch to be repaired.
Apparently, their grandparents were arrested by the Japanese in Indonesia in 1942 and interned in a prisoner of war camp.
The only thing their grandmother could save was the watch. The provenance of the watch was that their grandmother sewed the watch inside her dress to keep it hidden from the guards and other prisoners as it had value for trade.
It was in her dress for four years and survived the war.
Wow!
As I began to read this I thought it was gonna be like the Christopher Walken story in Pulp Fiction
Heard the same thing about our family; a (step?)father surived the camps with barely anything, yet my greatgrandmother burned it all because she was afraid it could carry over some diseases (not implausable)
Sidenote: There was no Indonesia yet in 1942.
@@AdnanKhan-ty2sl Hiding it in a dress is probably a more comfortable place for it
My father was a US Marine (4th Marines) and after the war while on occupation duty in Japan, he was riding a bus with several fellow Marines when an elderly lady approached him and in very broken English started a conversation. She wanted to know if it was true that, to be a Marine, he had to kill his mother and drink her blood. He was stunned and thought she was joking, and assured her that his mother was alive and well and that he wrote her letters every week.
I am a little surprised she would have the nerve to ask that even if she thought it possible.
For their part the Japanese had their own initiation rituals. The youngest and least experienced in a unit might be required to be the first to bayonet a prisoner, for example.
Marines are hard core.
But not THAT hard core......😳😖
Semper Fi and Semper Paratus to my bastard red headed step-brothers of the US Navy!!!
That little piece of propaganda is *still* dogging the Marine Corps nearly a century later. That's come up in both Iraq and Afghanistan in one form or another.
@@kalashnikovdevil oorah
My grandfather was a POW of the Japanese. He refused to speak of it and took his story with him to his grave.
I don’t know why that sounds scary to me.
"Then he didn't lie."
Did he save any objects from the War years? Papers, utensils?
Phillip, your grandfather probably couldn't speak of all the horrors, and wanted to spare your family his pain. I'm sure he went to his grave feeling betrayed that justice was not served.
Lucky he wasn't in the Bataan march.
A nightmare. This is what WW2 Japanese POW camps sound like to me. You say "never forget", Spartacus, but I say from my part of the world, "never stop learning about human atrocities". RIP POWs. Respect for WWTwo channel & cheers for Sparty & crew!
Indeed! and thanks
Hell Ships. Thank you USS Pampanito. You sank the Kachidoko Maru and came back to save the prisoners. Australia remembers.
They came back to shoot what they thought were Japanese survivors in the water and we're calling "anybody who wants to shoot a Japanese grab a gun", they were about to open fire when an unrecognisable Australian being covered in oil and sunburned was heard to call "you sink us and now you're gonna shoot us" and the rescue began
In my comment my quote about what was said about the yanks grabbing guns to shoot Japanese survivors was initially removed because I used the three letter abbreviation for the Japanese
@@hodaka1000 2nd Geneva convention: you don't shoot an enemy survivor after their ship has been sunk.
"the Convention requires the Parties to the conflict, after each engagement, to take all ‘possible measures’ to search for, collect and provide care to the victims of an engagement at sea."
@@hodaka1000 By that time in the War it was payback for all the monstrous actions the Japanese military had committed against Allied servicemen and women. Remember the times and the inhumane acts of the Japanese that started it all. It would be very difficult for the Allies not to reply in kind.
@@BangFarang1 As a general rule, the Geneva Convention protocols go out the window when one combatant side starts ignoring them. Sometimes both sides might agree to resume applying them, but if the other side shoots and tortures marked medical personnel or butchers survivors of sunken ships, the other side is allowed to arm medical personnel and ensure that enemy sailors aren't able to return to the fight. War is hideous enough with rules, but it gets exponentially worse when one side says, "F*** the rules," because it will likely turn out that the only way to make them go back to the rules is to repay them in kind. May God have mercy on our souls if nations ever again fight a war with the gloves off.
5:58 Thank you for the coverage of the notorious Selarang Barracks incident of 30 August 1942, coming from a Singaporean here. There were also very touching biblical murals done by British POW Stanley Warren during his imprisonment at Changi Prison. Both places were POW camps back then in my country of Singapore.
Yes! Haven’t visited that site in years
@@jonL88 The Changi Chapel Museum has recently reopened here after a recent major restoration with many new items and artifacts that were graciously donated or loaned to the museum by the families of the POWs. Hopefully we welcome you to come back and visit it again once the pandemic restrictions are lifted. The murals by Stanley Warren in the museum are actually replicas though, since the actual ones are at Changi Air Base and is a restricted area.
How is vaccination rate in Singapore
I’d love to go there one day.
Have you heard of the massacre at Parit Sulong ?
Sometimes it's hard to fathom many of the Japanese weren't punishment for their actions and lived full normal lives after
And they do not even admit most of the things that were done.
I know. I still wonder why they weren’t.
@@CatsEyethePsycho That’s easy. The United States need a strong and established nation that is staunchly against communism in East Asia.
@@oakoakoak2219 Yeah, true. But that’s still wasn’t a valid excuse not to.
@@CatsEyethePsycho It wasn't an excuse, it's pure McCarthyism to ignore atrocities in favor of US geopolitical gains
I had a great uncle who participated in the defense of Hong Kong. He was «detained» for the duration of the war an only came back home (Montréal, Canada) late in 1946.
He didn't talk about it much but he had night terrors and shouted in his sleep for his whole life.
Those fellas in Hongkong had a hard time
Same with my father he was wounded in Singapore and was one of the six survivors from the Sandakan Death March to Ranau in North Borneo
He'd gotten over the nightmares by the time I was born in the late 50's
He testified at the War Crimes Tribunals at Rabaul and Tokyo
He past away in 1997 but still speaks today in a specially dedicated area of the National War Memorial Canberra 🇦🇺
i couldn’t imagine living through that.. I heard some POW say before all prisoners of war have a hard time but the Japanese were so good at torture and were so cruel.
There is a documentary abouthow the Canadians were conned into defending Hong Kong. They were able to hold off the Japs for more than a week. One soldier after the surrender said at a hospital the White British nurses were raped and the sick murdered.
My grandpa was in german POW camp near Halle, he said German guards were all kind of, but he made one friend who let him carry his gun as it was heavy for him and was stabbing picture of hitler on wall in front of him cursing that only Hitlers death will make his sons come back home...my grandpa also mentioned how the liberation of camp by us army brought so much food that inmates died from overeating. And he kept his food ration pot for ever and we still have it.
My family has been heavily affected by the Japanese camp system in ww2. My grandmother, along with her sister and mother, we imprisoned in Camp Ambarawa near Yogyakarta in Indonesia (Dutch east indies). They suffered 3 years of unimaginable conditions while her father was sent to Burma as a POW. He survived but was never the same.
I read "The Forgotten Scotsman" a few years ago. Captured in Singapore, stranded at sea for 5 days after his POW boat was sunk, and sent to Nagasaki in time for you know what. He went from 135 lb to 85lb when he was released. Many POW's died from overeating immediately after freedom which must be a special hell in itself.
You sould then read Ubroken as well. The book follows Loius Zamperini and he went through much of the same exerpeience. Very good read
I have read of an American captured at the Battle of the Bulge who went from 135 to 95 pounds in German captivity, despite only being a POW for six months.
@@stevekaczynski3793 Yes, the Germans did NOT feed Allied POWs well at all. They were hungry all the time.
@@ToddSauve Particularly the thousands captured at the Bulge. They seem to have been fed less well than those held in Luftwaffe camps. A lieutenant colonel captured at the Bulge (and officers were generally better treated than enlisted) recalled finding maggots in the soup the Germans issued. In civilian life he was an agricultural chemist, decided the maggots were protein and ate them.
I caught the ending to A Bridge Over The River Kwai the other day and had forgotten what a tense and brilliant climax there is to that film
Bridge on the river kwai was a fantastic film historically inaccurate but good just the same. A more updated film on Japanese concentration camps is "railway man" on the experiences of Eric Lomax junior officer in the Royal Singals well worth a watch.
Among the films, you forgot a TV Series from UK, Tenko. A 'must' in every list on Japanese civilian concentration camps.
That's a classic right there. I remember it being on tv when I was a kid. My parents wouldn't have missed it.
I have the box set Classic viewing I have been told that it was based on true experience
The brutality of Japanese commandants and the ordeal that their prisoners went through is often forgotten or sidelined by the mere size of Germany's extermination system and the death toll. Thank you covering this. We should never forget.
Sorry but the Japanese actually killed more there are no official estimates but it’s way more than the Germans the reason why we don’t learn about this is because the Americans helped the Japanese covered up to save their skin and keep their emperorship
Plenty of those guards were Koreans don’t forget.
My Great Uncle was in Changi after Singapore fell, he was an Aussie in the 8th Signaller Division. In 43 he was sent to work on the Thai-Burmese railroad, and after that spent the rest of the war in a POW camp in Malaya, where they lived in huts, were fed mostly rotten rice by the guards and sometimes given eggs and other more desirable food by local Chinese. From what he claimed the Korean guards were even crueler than the Japanese ones. Came back home in 45, didn't speak much at all about his experience there until his death
He would have been a signaler in the 8th Division do you know his battalion ?
@@hodaka1000 Afraid not, what I do know I've learnt from my grandmother's brother who spoke to him many years ago (he has since passed as well). I've also learnt a bit from the Australian war memorial, I know his service number was NX51457 but that's about it
@@williamyork7296
My father was a member of the 2/19th Battalion of the 8th Division he was wounded on Singapore and I think he said he was in Changi three times and was sent with "B" Force to work on an airstrip at Sandakan North Borneo
He servived the First Death March to Ranau and escaped to became one of only six survivors from a total of more than two thousand four hundred British and Australians originally at Sandakan
He testified at the War Crimes Tribunals at Rabaul and Tokyo
He past way in 1997 but still speaks today on video in a specially dedicated area of the National War Memorial Canberra
You should be able to find out more about him from the War Memorial you have his enlistment number so try again they should be able to tell you what unit or units he was in and give you a copy of his service record
@@hodaka1000 His file on the War Memorial Website only seems to say he was 8th Sigs. Now that I think about it though it does make a lot of sense.
I'm fairly certain he wasn't a combatant at any point, rather a rear soldier, so it would make sense if he was a soldier in the 8th Division HQ unit and not under a battalion and a brigade, he was born in 1907, so it makes sense that as he was in his mid 30s he wouldn't be prioritised for frontline service.
Of course, I suppose that wouldn't have mattered much to the Japanese
@@williamyork7296
Yeah when I think about it you'd be right and 8th Division Signals
My father said he was in the Brigadier's bodyguard but when I looked into it he was in Headquarters Company he turned 18 over there and I think they may have kept him back because of his age so he luckily missed out on his Battalions epic battle on the Bakri to Parit Sulong Road that ended with the massacre at Parit Sulong where their wounded were murdered
Later the 2/19th were in the thick of it where the Japanese landed on Singapore and he was wounded either by a Japanese bullet or a bullet from a nearby exploding ammunition truck, he was fortunately taken to a hospital for officers because some of the other hospitals where also the scenes of massacres
He was very lucky to have survived
Found out a few days ago that a number of allied POWs suffered such degrees of malnutrition that they came down with optic neuropathy (a condition I developed myself some years back), resulting in loss of vision and in some cases hearing, as well as pain in their extremities. A small detail to add to the list of horrors stated here.
Brilliant as always, Indy and team.
I'm a Singaporean. Served much of my national service stint at the Selarang Camp, which remains in use (but has been much improved, I am glad to say).
One thing I'm sure you have mentioned is that the POWs were force-marched from a field facing city hall and the Supreme Court to Selarang , a distance of some 20 kms as the crow flies. The weather in my country is hot, wet, or both, and I cannot imagine what it would be like to suffer that march after a brutal jungle campaign only to be mistreated by the Japanese.
But for its history, Selarang would be a pleasant place. It is nestled at the foot of a series of then-jungled hills in the east of Singapore, near the sea.
Some people suggested British army stationed at Selarang Barracks prewar were spoiled & thus fought poorly, at the time.
My cousin wrote a book about his experience as a death march survivor and 2.5 years as a prisoner before he escaped from the sinking hell ship Shinyo Maru. the book is in transit as i am moving to Arkansas, but when i get it , i will post some excerpts from it.
Please do! What's the title?
Please give us the title?
@@archstanton6102 I will do that when I get the Book unpacked , He is also listed as one of the survivors of the hell ship shinyo maru. he was US army air corps. his last name is Overton. my dad and uncle also served in WWII My uncle was a torpedo man on USS argonaut lost on Jan 10 1943.
Yes please post as much as you can
My friend's father was the chief engineer of the Hong Kong waterworks. He only survived 5 years as POW because they needed him to keep the waterworks going. He kept an illegal diary too, at great risk to himself. I've seen it, tiny crabbed handwriting to make the most use of the tiny scraps of paper he had to make do with.
I think one of the best movies that has a background story of Japanese POW camp is "The Railway Man" and it's based on true story. Good movie.
It's not amazing as a film but it's interesting as in that it focuses a lot in the postwar experience. It's also way more realistic than (the better films) Bridge on River Kwai and Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence
What's about?
Life inside a Japanese POW camp was terrible. The Japanese believed in not surrendering, and that people who surrendered were not worthy of respect.
Ship of Ghosts by James D. Hornfischer follows the survivors of the USS Houston and a few other sources through their time in the Japanese POW system, and it's possibly the most disturbing book I have ever read. What struck me the hardest was that most of the people who died, didn't have to. Even the bare minimum amount of effort on behalf of the guards to let the prisoners take care of themselves would have brought conditions in many places up to merely hellish, and untold thousands might have lived.
Read that book and they did a TV show on it as well!
@@mikaelcrews7232 I didn’t realize there was a TV show. I’ll have to look that up.
My wife's great uncle gave an interview at UNT which is cited in that book and he is mentioned a couple of times; Dan Buzzo was a staff sergeant with the 131st Field Artillery, US 36 Infantry Division (TX Nat Guard) and was captured at Java where the unit was fighting alongside the Australians. He went on after the war around the world and ultimately settled down running a bar in Iquitos Peru. The Texas Military Forces Museum in Austin has a nice part of their exhibit dedicated to the 131st, the "Texas Lost Battalion"
@@vincentdracen Their story deserves a book of its own. As a fellow (former) redleg, the idea of having to go through what they went through, even before the capture, sort of blows my mind.
@@gatling216 I certainly can’t comprehend it myself, no matter how much I read. They had real fortitude. Thank you for your own service as well.
A lot of incompetence was indifference; brutal indifference.
Even in hell on earth idiots don't get high up on the ladder.
Crap floats to the top of the septic tank. I've worked for government half my life and sad to say we're not ruled by the best and brightest and according to studies many of those in charge show sociopathic tendancies.
Yeeeeeep.
In this case, idiots were deliberately assigned to these postings. Guarding POWs was seen as a punishment detail, and only soldiers and officers who'd fucked up in some major way were ever assigned to it.
@@GaldirEonai Yes, however this doesn't mean that they were utterly incompetent. Also, some people (cowards) (with something to prove, because cowards) prefer rear area duty. Which is riskier beating up defenceless prisoners or leading a banzai charge?
@@coling3957 try not to mistake violence for stupidity.
If you guys ever go to Penang, you can visit the Penang War Museum, which was a former British military base converted to a Japanese POW camp. You can walk around the camp and see the commemorated stories of Japanese abuse of various British prisoners, and it's a pretty sobering experience. The Malaysian friend I took with me felt the need to cleanse himself of bad vibes before leaving.
Though of course, there's a paintball course nearby. It's a bit odd.
wow that's a lovely outfit. i'm kinda envious of how good Spartacus looks today. :-)
Multiple lawsuits on the way from epileptic people
It does look nice. Despite today's horrific subject
@@TrickiVicBB71 yeah. great outfit. terrible subject.
He does look especially smart, great duds!
Spartacuss, "The History Nerd!"
My uncle went was in a pow camp in 1943. He told me that the depictions of the harsh nature
on pows from the movie Unbroken are accurate to. He said that at one point another pow had tackled a guard and was shot immediately. At first, he wondered why he did such a stupid move. But as he got older he realized that he did it because he was so fed up with the torture to the point he wanted to end it.
Thank you for taking the time and effort to share your uncle's story with us. Unfortunately, talking about the grim realities endured by the POWs is a necessary part of utilizing history as a tool for remembrance for those who suffered in these conditions. We hope that our work honors your uncle's memory in this way. All the best.
Wow.
That was awesome at the end “NEVER FORGET!” And we shouldn’t
My grandfather was a POW in Hakodate during WW2. He survived a hellship (full of dysentery) and managed to survive Changi prison. His stories (written in a memoir) recall everything from starvation, to rape (of other men), to the torture and execution of men and other prisoners of these camps. Their stories still haven't been told. Britain, America, and Japan have rejected acknowledging these stories.
The brutality and lack of humanity in many of those involved remains difficult to grasp, even from today's perspective. We're doing our best to appropriately document those events, as forgetting often leads to repetition.
The JEATH (Japanese, English, Australian, Thai, Holland) museum at the River Kwai is worth a visit. It's touching when you see the memorials maintained by the locals to all those who were involved.
Where's kwai river located??
There's a movie about It.
Jeath 😂
Thanks for the spotlight on this!
Thank you again for all of the work that goes into these. Never forget
I've read that over 11,000 allied men and women, who were prisoners transported on Japanese ships died as a result of being torpedoed by allied submarines. Tragic indeed
I read the book Unbroken. Its a great book and has good ending. But every time I read about the treatment of POWs by Japan it makes my blood boil.
Understandable .
I read a book aboutva Shima surviver .That was cruel too .Wars are hell for all sides ,and there are not many winners when its over .
My late farther was a JPOW in camp Fukuoka camp 5 Working the coal mines. He was shipped there after capture by sea on one of those Hell ship's. When he came home he met my mother in 1950. He lived to the tender age of 40yrs old, I was 7. His name was Gunner Frederick William George Billing of the Royal artillery
Thankyou for sharing your father's memory with us @Mac Billing
Rest in Peace.
Good work again Spartacus.
We really appreciate the effort.
Well done.
Appreciate the nod to Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence in the beginning. Excellent film and soundtrack.
Unrealistic fantasy
Read "The Knights Of Bushido" a short history of Japanese War Crimes
@@hodaka1000 Thanks for the rec. I'm not vouching for the film's Realism--I like the magical elements, love the music, and am a big David Bowie fan.
@@chancephillips7975
Me too I was playing my Bowie CD the day before he died and it was unplayable the next day and never worked again but the thought of forming a gay love affair as a POW with a Japanese is beyond belief and makes a joke of the real situation
My father was one of six survivors of the Sandakan Ranau Death March in North Borneo, he testified at the War Crimes Tribunals at Rabaul and Tokyo
If you want to watch a couple of good movies about POWs of the Japanese watch "A Town Called Alice" and "Three Came Home" you'll find them both on CZcams
@@hodaka1000 Again, thanks for the recs. And thank you for sharing your family's history. My great grandfather was a Seabee in the PTO.
The Close up ending gives you chills.
It is history's judgement on Japanese conduct in WW2.
And to think that they have yet to properly acknowledge their crimes...
You missed out King Rat with George Segal from the novel by James Clavel who was himself a British prisoner of war & the excellent The Railwayman with Colin Firth.
Excellent Video Spartacus!!
Keep educating people on this.
Thank you.
Researching and presenting this information must be very difficult.
Thanks for the appreciative comment, Shawn.
Interesting summary, thank you!
Thanks for watching with us @SNOUPS4
My high-school social studies teacher was a survivor of the Bataan Death March and wasn't shy about sharing his experiences in the camps. While in the Ir Force I was stationed in Thailand and in 1975 I went to Kanchanaburi to see the original bridge on the river Kwai and it was the 30th anniversary of the wars end and there were Brits, Australians and New Zealand former prisoners there. Truly a moving experience.
It was really heartbreaking to see the brutal treatment as mentioned in the video.
May the killed ones rest in peace.
Peace!
The first book I read of life in a Japanese PoW camp was "No Time for Geishas" by Geoffrey Adams. Well worth a read.
Years later, I discovered a friend's father had gone through a similar journey, being captured at the fall of Singapore, doing some time on the Burma railway, and then being shipped to Japan to see out the war in a coal mine. He described himself as lucky.
My great grandad was at Fukuoka F2B! Thank you for telling him and his fellow soldiers story!
i dont comment often on youtube and i am struggling to find words for what i want to say right now. these specials and the war against humanity series always make me sad, but i enjoy learning from them. this one was different, i knew this already. my grandfather was in a japanese civilian camp and his father was in a POW camp working on the burma railroad. doing my own research a bit and listening to stories from other people who lived through the camps i got a vague idea of what happened and what it was like.
I realised these things have been around me my whole life and for me are a large part of my families history. being from the Netherlands there is a distance, not only historical, but geographical that doesnt allow me to connect fully with what happened.
this episode broke my heart and left me crying not because i learned about the atrocities and the treatment of POWs by the Japanese, but because of the crushing anonimity of the numbers.
I hated this episode, thank you.
I already know how hard to watch this will be. Never forget.
I’ve heard that from all the Chinese prisoners that were captured during the 2nd Sino-Japanese War, only 56 came out alive.
😳
@@randomalien7746 Yeah, that was my reaction as well
@@f-35enjoyer59 when you think about the dozens of entire divisions that got captured by the Japanese that figure would be insane but not surprising considering the attitude of the IJA towards ethnically Chinese people.
@@f-35enjoyer59 Did you feel your heart stop beating for a brief second? That was my reaction
Wow, even Auschwitz was safer.
Episodes like this, and WAH, are really hard to watch. Thank you for doing the research and bringing them to use, they are very important for us and future generations to see.
You haven't listed the artist, of most, if not all of the POW camp drawings, the late Ronald Searle (1920-2011), he produces approximately 300 drawings during his internment, at times hiding them under the mattresses of prisoners dying of cholera. I missed it the first time but at 08:47 you show artwork with Ronald Searle's name on it.
He said, of his drawings, "I desperately wanted to put down what was happening, because I thought if by any chance there was a record, even if I died, someone might find it and know what went on."
Hi sparty
Very sad to hear the torture they recieved..
Creating awarness is best way so that in future incidents will not occur..
Kudos to you..
Never forget..
Thanks
"Soiled Japan's honor" is a way to phrase it that would resonate with them. Well done!
My local Masonic lodge here in Erskine, Scotland, has a Japanese Officer's sword and it sits in front of the Master's lectern. The Lodge was founded by returning soldiers from WW2, and some of them were POWs in the Far East and the sword was taken from the Commandant of the POW Camp. The sword's sat there proudly for nearly 75 years. By the way, some of the returning soldiers were so poorly from their mistreatment the Lodge meetings are conducted sitting down throughout the whole evening. The only one I know of that does this.
I'm amazed at you Spartacus on how your able to keep your composer and never cry. I don't cry at them all but I have before at what humans can do to other humans. Thank you Spartacus.
Just for contrast I want to recommend the movie "Baruto no Gakuen" on a prison camp for Germans in Japan during WW1.
Edit: Looks like the Soviets also managed around a 3rd of dead PoWs.
BTW Fukuoka is the name of a city, the camp was just named after it.
It's the story of how "Ode to Joy" became a Japanese Christmas tradition, yeah. Fascinating.
@@umjackd First performance in Asia. I love this symphony. Too bad I can't sing.
My father-in-law was a British Colonial Service doctor captured in Singapore. He spent the duration of the war in Japanese captivity in Changi prison in Singapore, and took several years to recover from his ordeal. He survived to live into his 90's. Trying to put a humorous tone to it, he always referred to his incarceration as his time in the "Japanese Polish camp".
Another family friend was a British POW who was on the Burma railway. He had badly scarred legs due to infected jungle sore ulcers. He suffered from PTSD and eventually took his own life.
In Russell Bradon’s book “The Naked Island” a colonial service doctor is mentioned at length who saved many men without quinine or other medical supplies. Is this your father-in-law?
@@belbrighton6479 I haven't read the book, so I will try to get ahold of it. My father-in-law was Dr. Tom Evans. Unfortunately he died in 1995. I do know that he did as much as he could help with whatever he had at hand, and that he was not the only doctor in his group.
OK! I found "The Naked Island" on Amazon and it I got it in paperback for $17
My condolences about your family friend.
@@lynnwood7205 Thank you. That happened in 1969.
I am at a loss for words. My Dad was a P.O.W. under the Japanize for 21 month's, had his jaw broke, suffered side effects ,from malaria, till the day he died. very hard for me to watch this knowing my Dad went through it.Thank You Dad I miss ya'll.
I'm very sorry to hear that he suffered so much before he died. Thank you for sharing about your Dad here. May he rest in peace
*Japanese.
As a boy in Australia my father would on occasions take me to a friend's farm to buy Eggs.
The friend was permanently bent over at the waist almost 90 degrees....he couldn't stand up straight.
He had been a prisoner of the Japanese and due to his height [well over 2 mtrs] was a 'problem' for them ..he towered over them which they didn't like.
So to even things up and bring him down a notch they broke his back and neck and left him to heal/exist 'as is'.
Anyone who wants to know more about Japanese brutality should listen to Mark Felton's video: "WW2 Japanese Military Brutality Explained"
Felton is full of crap and does nothing more than poorly plagiarizes the good work of others
Read "The Knights of Bushido" a short history of Japanese War Crimes
@@hodaka1000 Or maybe he tells in depth stories as to why the Japanese during WWII acted in the way they did.
@@wolfu597
Or maybe he's reading it straight off the index not even the content of the "Knights Of Bushido"
Yeah nah, I don't think the sun shines from Felton's arse
@@hodaka1000 Jesus christ, that reddit post rustled some jimmies lol
@Danny M
Yeah that's right but that doesn't mean people should believe the sun shines from Felton's arse and a lot do
And at the rate he's pumping his crap out "spoon fed" is a very accurate description
Japan's honor?
Their army had the highest civilian kill rate of any combatant in WW2
As a soldier one had a higher chance of dying as a POW than as a combat soldier fighting their army
That never forget at the end always gives me the chills
Its weird how the Japanese regarded surrendering as such a dishonour but scorned attempts to escape?
One of my uncles was in a Japanese concentration camp in what is now Indonesia. He was separated from his mother at age 10 to be alone in a camp for males only. He had been so hungry in the camp that when he was liberated and came back to the Netherlands by ship and got seasick, he ate his vomit again out of fear of starving.
Edit: this was of course a camp for civilians.
I’ve had multiple friends who grew up in the Los Baños Internment camp in the Philippines. And I’ve had the privilege of knowing the men who rescued them on the fateful day of February 23rd 1945 when all 2147 of them were rescued in a daring prison raid.
My Grandfather on my Dad’s side of the family was in the Pacific Theater of WW2. He was never sent to a POW Japanese camp but his older brother did. My Great Uncle was captured and sent to a POW Japanese camp 2 days before Nagasaki was hit. I never met my Grandfather or his brothers and sisters on my Dad’s side. Everyone survived the war but most died a year before I was born.
The only things from WW2 from my father’s side of the family I got was a Yiddish Navy code book, tons of pictures, and a left handed/ secondary katana from the commandant after the camp was liberated.
The sword was made in 1944 but issued in 1945.
ya my step father came back from a japanese pow camp...it made him meaner then hell.
Japan during WW1: Held a code of honor and followed the rules of war and treated POWs with respect
Japan during WW2: Pure Evil with no regard for human life.
What happened to these dudes? Probably some dudes told them to act that way.
The horror, the horror
Wrong war, wrong continent.
A horrifying, informative and very important video because I am so afraid that way too many people have little or no knowledge of this history. Thank you for all the videos that Time Ghost Army provides. For no matter what subjects covered they are well written and presented.
Again, thank you!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Well said sir, every word. Well said.
wow, it has ads.
im surprised
Literally the perfect timing since I wanted to learn this today XD
I always wanted to know it.
This a good episode where we all learn new things about WW2 that we "must never forget".
I think this episode was good comparing Japanese PoW "camps" to German PoW "camps" that held Soviet prisoners. I think this episode should have contrasted the differences between how the Japanese treated PoW and how the Germans treated Western Allied PoW. Stories from British and American PoW tell us that they were not treated very badly. They say the food was not great, but it was the same meager rations that the German guards ate.
I once typed the memoirs of a French soldier who spent the war in a camp in Indochina. Being previously posted at the French ambassy in Tokyo, he was fluent in japanese and somewhat earned the camp commander's respect.
That apparently made a huge difference as he could mitigate a significant portion of the abuse towards his comrades.
I remember that when the british (i think ?) liberated the camp and ordered all weapons seized, the commander gave *him* his family katana instead of a british officier.
I don't think I've ever been this early before, literally just got home too
Corporal Breavington did not fear death. What a last stand. So sad.
We knew an old Filipino who was on the Bataan deathmatch and also spent 3 years in a Japanese labor camp. He was the toughest man I've ever met
Trying to watch these as soon as I can after they come out in case they get cancelled by CZcams.
🤔 Spartacus, there was no such rank as Lieutenant Colonel in the RAF. The highest ranking officer in a camp could be from any of the services. In this instance, the army.
Unless he was RAF regiment but I'm not sure about the officer in question anyway .....
keeping history alive
Thank you for sharing this. My father was a POW of the Japanese for 3.5 years.
Thank you for watching & sharing about him. That must have been hell.
My great grandfather was a civil engineer stationed on Java when the war broke out. He was called up for service in the Royal Dutch East Indies Army in early 1942 where he was captured following the capitulation of the colonial government. His wife and kids were sent to a civilian concentration camp whilst he was sent to work in the jungles of Burma. At war's end his camp was liberated by British units and put on a train to Bangkok after which he received news from the Dutch government. He would only receive a couple of months' worth of pay instead of the 3 years they owed him. They didn't even give him that full amount since he also had to pay a fee for the loss of his uniform which had been torn up in captivity.
What a story - I'm also Dutch and I've got an uncle who was liberated from a camp in Japan. After having witnessed the bombing of Hiroshima from sea, on their way back home to Indonesia, they also received a letter (finally a message from the homefront they thought) which stated they had to pay for lost equipment. Not sure if the Dutch government ever formally apologised.
"Congrats on surviving, but the way we figure it you owe us 6,000 hours of missed work and unscheduled time off."
Spartacus Olsson for the president of planet Earth.
These episodes are not a time for levity but, as an Aussie, I do admit to a small, bitter chuckle at the thought of the diggers signing an official document as "Ned Kelly". One last insult to their captors.
Love history, my father was a WW2 disabled veteran. I expected a little more of this video. Much less camera on the narrator and much more relevant archival footage is overwhelmingly needed
How advanced a society is, is defined by its handling of and care for the weak.
They pretty much _all_ get a failing grade on that.
Postmodernism: How advanced a society is, is defined by how much profit it can make.
Have you read the story of Alistair Urquhart of the Gordon Highlanders, captured in Singapore then sent to work on the Death Railway then whilst being transported to Japan in a "Hell Ship" was torpedoes and sunk by the USS Pampanito, he survived and then ended up in another POW camp in Nagasaki and was there when the atom bomb was dropped. He survived this also and wrote a brilliant book about his life called: The Forgotten Highlander: My Incredible Story of Survival During the War in the Far East published in 2010 and well worth a read. If you ever get down and think the world is against you. read that book and you'll realise that your life is actually pretty damn good and you need to stop being so self absorbed.
Have read it good read but it gets a little bit dry in a few chapters!
Wasn't that book turned into a movie caĺled To end all wars?
The movie and book “Unbroken” are based on our local WW2 hero and 1936 Berlin Olympics track competitor Louis Zamperini. The movie is worth seeing. He was a tough old guy, living to 97.
The Torrance, California airport is named for him.
He went to Nagano Olympics in 1998. The Bird refused to meet him again.
Hard stuff to hear but necessary.
My Dad was in wwll in Pacific occupation, fought against the Japanese Imperialist in 1940-1946
Unless he was Chinese the war against Japan didn't start until late 1941
"Soiled Japan's honor in the most despicable way." Well said.
My grandfather was merchant marine in the war. A sub, I believe I-27, sunk his ship. The crew was massacred and the captain was taken prisoner. He and a few survived and made it long enough to be seen by a PBY and rescued.
When the captain was freed at the end of the war he had gone from a hale 200 to 110 pounds.
Of all those movies Spartacus listed I think Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence is my favorite followed by Empire of the Sun and Bridge on the River Kwai.
No matter where you go as POW as allied, cruelty is the name of the game
Most true.
As long as you were held by the Luftwaffe and not the Gustapo, being held by the Germans wasn't too terrible. It might actually be the best treatment that an American POW had received actually.
Actually, my grandfather survived the war as a Dutch POW in German detention. He might well have died otherwise, being a Jew and all.
The Germans treated POWs, and especially officers (which he was), pretty decently. I don't know if he was not sent to the extermination camps because he was a POW, or if he had hidden his identity. He died before I thought to ask.
He made some life-long friends in that camp.
in this war, yeah. It's appalling how you can treat other fighters like that.
But it depends, an uncle of my father was in North Africa fighting Rommel and was captured and survived the war. He was spat on by the Italians when he was brought to the continent as a POW but otherwise nothing compared to what Eastern Front POWs went through.
As long as you were "aryan" and didn't try to escape, chances were high you'd be treated decently (by the Germans of course), because the Germans hoped to keep a bargaining chip to negotiate with the Western Allies