Beneath the waves of the Pacific Ocean and under the soil of the lands which border it lies one of the starkest reminders of Japanese imperialism: the remains of some one million soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen of Imperial Japan’s armed forces who perished in World War II. 504-528-1944. A former POW of the Japanese has expressed "disgust" at a campaign by a group of auxiliary troops from Korea and Taiwan who were convicted of … Finally Lomax spoke, “Do you remember what you told me when we last met?”. The number who surrendered in the weeks after August 9 is astounding—between 1.6 and 1.7 million men. Eric Lomax, who died on Monday aged 93, was starved, viciously beaten and tortured as a prisoner of the Japanese during WW2. After initial resistance, Japan’s forces on the Korean peninsula, Sakhalin, and the Kuriles also laid down their arms to the Soviets. Free resources for your classroom to commemorate the December 7,1941 attack. “75 Years Later, One Million Japanese War Dead Still Missing,” August 13, 2020. That, however, was not the only reason why Soviet personnel often acted so cruelly. Many Japanese firms, suspicious of the politics of such men, simply would not hire them. Not surprisingly, the vicious cold of Russian winters claims disproportionate attention in these works. Japan - Japan - World War II and defeat: The European war presented the Japanese with tempting opportunities. Processing and sustaining such a massive array of prisoners would have been a daunting task for any military. He gagged and frantically gasped for breath as water filled his throat. Books in Japanese - POW Research Network Japan (English website). Commissioned in December 1940, he was posted to Malaya in 1941, but his unit was soon in full retreat to Singapore, where he was captured by the Japanese in February 1942. “I think you’d like to have this,” he said. “Are you ready to talk?” Nagase asked. Lomax was in the worst condition. His stomach began to swell. On August 8, 1945, Joseph Stalin, keeping his promise to Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill at Yalta the previous February to intervene 90 days after Germany surrendered, declared war on Japan. After the war, the United States held a war crimes trial for four of the Japanese soldiers who had been involved with the systematic torture and maltreatment of the Doolittle POWs. However, they are relatively few, probably fewer than a dozen. Named the Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation but better known now as “August Storm,” a term popularized by historian David Glantz, it was a gargantuan undertaking coordinating air, sea, and land forces. By August 1945, war weariness, overwhelming odds, and sheer self-preservation exerted countervailing pressures to the indoctrination. Courtesy of Kyodo News. Homecomings: The Belated Return of Japan’s Lost Soldiers. The Japanese rightly assumed that the mistreated prisoners would seek revenge against their captors. But his wartime past wouldn’t leave him. Largely unknown in the United States, a memoir literature about life in the Soviet POW camps burgeoned in the immediate postwar years. In the bloodiest  battle in Marine Corps history, 27 Marines and sailors were awarded the Medal of Honor for action on Iwo Jima. Nagase was always on hand as interpreter. A towel was put over his mouth and nose. Such cooperation is most promising. Maj Gen Cullen said the killings happened just after the Australians overcame the Japanese at Milne Bay, New Guinea. Massacres of POWs, Dutch East Indies, 1941-1942 ... (56 men) were the victim of the Japanese revenge, which originated in the fact that the airfield of Koetaradja had been damaged before KNIL troops left the city. Starting in late 1946 the USSR began to repatriate the POWs, freeing 625,000 in the following year alone. [8] A guard found Lomax’s map and they were ordered to stand at attention all day in the scorching sun, without food or water. The radio went undetected for a few months until one morning when the Japanese conducted a surprise search of the huts. Lomax was tried in a court in Bangkok for his ‘crimes’ and sentenced him to 5 years’ hard labour. Based on the book by James Clavell, with screenplay and direction by Bryan Forbes, the film stars George Segal in the lead, together with British actors John Mills, Tom Courtenay, and James Fox. Tens of thousands of these nearly forgotten Japanese dead had once been prisoners of war in Soviet captivity, seized in the global conflict’s final weeks. This article is part of an ongoing series commemorating the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II made possible by Bank of America. Fighting forces turned into forces of occupation, working to maintain a fragile peace while living amongst former enemies. Nagase looked up and grasped Lomax’s hand. On the night of March 9, 1945, U.S. warplanes launch a new bombing offensive against Japan, dropping 2,000 tons of incendiary bombs on Tokyo over the course of Nothing came of his efforts. The interrogation and torture finally stopped after more than a week. Fifty years later, he was to meet his chief tormentor again. By night, they slept on wooden planks in dismal bamboo huts. Assistance from DPAA with issues of forensic science and greater cooperation from the Russian government will lead, with any hope, to scores of identifications of these prisoners, among the final casualties of the Pacific War. Nagase unfolded the page and read the words, “Although I can’t forget the ill treatment at Kanchanaburi, taking into account your change of heart, your apologies, the work you are doing, please accept my total forgiveness.”. Probably the biggest reason why some Filipinos—especially those belonging to the older generation—still harbor feelings of hatred for the Japanese is because of the brutality they suffered under their rule. But unfortunately their sadistic, cruel and murderous acts are continuing today by the Muslim terrorists right across the Middle East and the world. An account of his story published in the Reader’s Digest in 1994 generated such interest that, a year later, he published his own memoir called The Railway Man. This was a major event, with Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Minister of Welfare Yasuhisa Shiozaki, as well as representatives sent by the service members’ families, in attendance. According to S.I. Lomax travelled to the Far East with Patti. “You men suffered the most horrendous beatings I have ever witnessed,” the doctor said. His was the voice that Lomax heard hour after hour, when the torture began and ended. Despite their small, fluffy nature and their propensity to do as they please, even cats had a place in the military. The day before they were to part, the two men sat across from each other in silence. One of their methods was to pour large amounts of water down his throat.”  The article spoke of Nagase’s remorse over Japanese atrocities and his public acts of atonement to the victims. The former interpreter identified Lomax just as quickly. The stories about and by these former POWs haunt present relations between Japan, Russia, and the United States. He was relieved to find, however, that his fiancée had waited for him. They agreed to meet at the World War 2 museum in Kanchanaburi on 26 March 1993 – almost 50 years after their first encounter. New York: W.W. Norton & Company/The New Press, 1999. The interrogation went on for hours, then days. Maizuru, Japan, 1946. The Japanese speculated that it might have been the work of local Chinese, who wanted to get revenge on Japanese troops whom they knew to be on board. That the Japanese gave up in such incredible numbers seemed miraculous at the time. The end of World War II brought unexpected challenges for American servicemembers in both Europe and the Pacific. Various shots of the Japanese prisoners loading lorry and clearing dump. On December 7, 1941, USS California’s crew fought bravely to save her. It is time to bring the men back to Japan, their homeland. They did so in a completely foreign, Siberian environment and climate that was merciless. * Update January 2014 – the movie is out now in cinemas: Earth's History in 1 Minute - 4½ billion years in a 1 minute video, History in Colour – Vintage Images Colourized, Gripping History - Ancient, Medieval & Modern, 10 Ancient Faces – best preserved bodies of the last 5,000 years, Red hair genes directly inherited from the world’s first Redheads 70,000 years ago, DNA links 5,500 year old remains of aboriginal woman found in Canada and her 200 x great-grandaughter who still lives nearby, Tortured by the Japanese in WW2, what happened when a former POW met his chief tormentor again 50 years later, Oldest known photographs of cities around the world. “You said, ‘Keep your chin up.” Lomax paused, then smiled. In May 2016, during the first phase of the recovery effort, remains of 2,337 Japanese service members were brought to the Chidorigafuchi National Cemetery in Tokyo, the final resting place for more than 360,000 unidentified or unclaimed members of the military who perished in World War II. Launched in 2016, this effort will last until 2024. Most of those interred had been exhumed and repatriated from Russia and the Solomon Islands. It was Japan's first defeat in the Pacific war. The tension began to vanish. The terms of the Geneva Convention were ignored by the Japanese who made up rules and inflicted punishments at the whim of the Camp Commandant. At one point the train derailed, with many guards and civilians killed and injured. “The Situation of Japanese Prisoners of War in Soviet Camps (1945-1956).” Translated by David M. Glantz. Like most POWs held by Japan … When Lomax woke the next morning, his body was numb. Stripped and tied with wire in such a way a sudden movement would cause strangulation, soldier, and civilian alike were made to sit in the sun on the concrete they had recently poured. This was just under half of the 3.5 million Japanese combatants left abandoned outside of Japan when Emperor Hirohito announced his country’s acceptance of Allied terms. Fifty years later, he was to meet his chief tormentor again. It had no effect on Lomax, who was consumed with hatred for Nagase. In fluent English, Nagase accused Lomax of ‘anti-Japanese activities’ and stated that he would be ‘killed shortly’. Finally, that night, one of the prisoners was ordered to raise his arms above his head. The important thing to remember here is the difference between how the Japanese had conducted themselves and how the Americans conducted the subsequent war crimes trial against those four Japanese soldiers. On the day of the meeting, he nervously paced about the museum’s terrace. “My husband is the man you describe being tortured so terribly”. Eventually Lomax agreed that Nagase’s remorse must he genuine and replied with a note, “Perhaps a meeting would be good for us. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016. They married three weeks after his arrival, and Lomax’s life seemed to settle into a comfortable routine. In the bloodiest battle in Marine Corps history, 27 Marines and sailors were awarded the Medal of Honor for action on Iwo Jima. Perhaps half of them are potentially recoverable. Two weeks after the beatings, with his arms encased in splints and bandages, Lomax was driven to the Japanese military-police headquarters in Kanchanaburi. Glantz, David. Jason Dawsey, PhD, is Research Historian at The Institute for the Study of War and Democracy, where he researches the service records of ... Institute for the Study of War and Democracy, 75th Anniversary of the End of World War II, The End of World War II in Japan and the Question of Democracy. Tokuda Kyuichi, Chairman of the Japanese Communist Party, 1946. Finally the marriage ended. Kuznetsov, these memoirs document camp regulations, the labor system, and the food—mainly bread, cabbage, and potatoes, but little rice, the mainstay of the Japanese diet. “I am so very sorry,” he said softly. By day, the prisoners laboured in temperatures exceeding 38°C. The face was much older, but still instantly recognisable. Another prisoner was similarly beaten. Soviet troops, 1.5 million of them commanded by Marshal Aleksandr Vasilevsky, steamrolled into Manchuria and, subsequently, conducted amphibious operations on southern Sakhalin Island, in northern Korea, and on the Kurile Islands. There, he was locked in a 5ft cage that soon became full of red ants, mosquitoes and his own filth. American troops 'murdered Japanese PoWs' By Ben Fenton 06 August 2005 • 00:01 am . A US Navy lieutenant with a Japanese skull used as a mascot. Every Japanese treated our countrymen harshly. Many of these returnees did not stay silent after they resettled into life in Japan. Source: Battling Bastards of Bataan. In Lomax’s mind, Nagase personified all the atrocities committed by the Japanese. Expressing empathy with the prisoner, Nagase said, “Keep your chin up.”. His fate rested in part on the attitude of General Douglas MacArthur. Igarashi, Yoshikuni. At times, Lomax ended up crying out for his mother, unaware that she had died soon after his capture. He was sent to a disease-ridden prison in Singapore and twice feigned injury in order to be sent to hospital. Similar to the atrocities they perpetrated in Germany, Austria, and Hungary earlier in the year, the Red Army sullied their triumph by engaging in mass rape and systematic pillage against the populations of these newly occupied areas. He retired from the army in 1948, worked abroad for some years and later got a job teaching personnel management at Strathelyde University in Glasgow. Then, in October 1989, a friend gave Lomax a newspaper clipping about the publication of Crosses and Tigers, a book by Takashi Nagase. Just before the outbreak of World War 2 in 1939, aged 19, he joined the Royal Corps of Signals. At his wife’s urging, Lomax contacted the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, and began treatments with a psychiatrist, talking about his experiences as a POW. The Second World War ended 75 years ago. Lomax got a copy of Nagase’s book and found it very painful to read, especially the details of his interrogation and torture. Tortured by the Japanese in WW2, what happened when a former POW met his chief tormentor again 50 years later. A mother and child murdered on the streets of Manila. Shut off from the outside world, said Kuznetsov, Japanese POWs in Soviet hands knew next to nothing about the timetable for their release until right before they exited the camps for home. “I would like…” His voice cracked, and he began to cry. The Stalin regime declared in the spring of 1949 that just 95,000 Japanese prisoners remained in Siberia and they would be sent home by year’s end (many would … He heard the crack of his own bones. A soldier swung the wooden handle of a pickaxe down across the man’s back, knocking him to the ground. Summers, a Marine during World War II, was captured by the Japanese on Guam on December 10, 1941 and later transferred to Japan. Their leaders were furious and exacted revenge on the prisoners. Close up shot of a sign reading 'Japanese Civilian Camp General Office'. He wanted to remember him, and someday find him and make him pay. After surrendering to Imperial Japanese Army forces in a revenge act for the sinking of a Japanese minesweeper they rounded up 300 Dutch and Australian POWs at random and executed them at Laha airfield in the Dutch East Indies (Now Timor). Over the next three days, the men talked about their lives since the war. After the Nazi attack on Russia in 1941, the Japanese were torn between German urgings to join the war against the Soviets and their natural inclination to seek richer prizes from the European colonial territories to the south. Bruises covered his body. Maybe the worst aspect of their treatment was the absolute lack of contact with relatives. The Japanese got their just revenge and it couldn’t have better happened to a more sadistic, cruel and murderous nation who killed young babies and raped women and young women right across Asia. Unsurprisingly, his explanation that he was a railway enthusiast who had simply mapped it for pleasure on his own devices did not convince them. They wanted to know why Lomax had secret map of the area around the railway, and where he had got the information to draw it. To Lomax’s amazement, the article explained how, “the author has flashbacks of the Japanese military police in Kanchanaburi torturing a POW accused of possessing a map. All members of Kato’s unit formally became POWs on arrival at Zhangzhou in central Henan Province. Other guards joined in, beating and kicking the man until he appeared lifeless. Eventually the military policemen began to slap Lomax, and then deliver repeated blows to his face as his silence continued. With thousands of his fellow prisoners, he undertook a forced march to Changi Prison, and was then transported 1,200 miles to Kanchanaburi, Thailand, and forced to work on the notorious Burma-Siam Railway. Faced with this onslaught, the Japanese Kwantung Army, along with its Manchurian and Mongolian auxiliaries, surrendered. Journal of Slavic Military Studies 8, no. They concealed it in a coffee tin and huddled around it at night. Truly horrific An excellent book telling a hitherto little known and sad story of the treatment of women and family captives, both military and civilian, in the Pacific arena of WWII. The men (8 Europeans and 48 Ambonese and Menadonese) were shackled on March 15 and loaded onto a Chinese fishing vessel. The total lives lost by the Japanese was close to 1000. But Roger also mentions some POWs' remarkable human capacity to have compassion for Japanese civilians who they knew were also suffering. From the ex-prisoner of war memoirs and interviews taken from ex-POWs in the post-war years that I have read there were a few sporadic instances of POWs taking revenge on their guards (who were more likely Korean conscripts rather than Japanese, by the way, as being a guard of POWs was about the lowest duty that could be performed in the Imperial Japanese Army) where the guards had … First, there was the history of the Russo-Japanese War, then the Japanese government’s intervention in Siberia against Lenin, Trotsky, and the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War. 1. Some men, like Junpei Gomikawa, reentered Japan radicalized after prolonged exposure in the camps to the ideas of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Vladimir Lenin, filtered, to be sure, through a rigid Stalinist lens. Lomax remembered it as, “a flat neutral piece of information … I had just been sentenced to death by a man my own age who seemed completely indifferent to my fate. For eight months during 1945 I served as a Japanese interpreter (U.S. Marine Corps) at the Japanese POW Camp on Guam. A grovelling letter written by the commander of a Japanese prisoner of war (POW) camp, in which he apologised for the suffering inflicted on captured soldiers, has emerged after 70 years. Right into early August, Japanese officials clung to the hope that the Soviets might negotiate a peace deal with the Western Allies. Others, like the poet Yoshiro Ishihara, who was not released from a Siberian camp until 1953, authored powerful poems about the lack of resistance in Japan to the ultra-nationalists, like the former prime minister, Hideki Tojo. American experiences on Tarawa, Saipan, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and other islands, where so few Japanese surrendered, cemented the expectation that the armed forces of Japan, if not the civilian population, would fight bitterly to the very end if the country were invaded. He would lose his temper over trivial matters, such as bureaucratic requests for personal information. When the policemen stalked out of the room momentarily, Nagase whispered to Lomax, “If you confess, they’ll stop beating you.”  But Lomax remained defiant. The surviving POWs then suffered treatment on a par with the worst of all the POW camps. Top Image: Japanese soldiers returned from a Soviet POW camp in Siberia. Hitler and his staff kept driving German troops onward to Moscow to impel Imperial Japan to enter the war. Within seconds he was slammed to the ground, and his mouth filled with blood. They strongly opposed the militarism and authoritarianism of Japan’s recent past and became a disruptive force in the immediate postwar years. Lomax ducked into the latrine and grabbed the map. Beginning from mid-1945, there was a concerted effort to locate Allied POW's held by the Japanese on mainland Japan -- details on those efforts can be found in "Operation Blacklist" (see the original Aug. 8, 1945 document, Basic Outline Plan for Blacklist Operations, pages 134 to 163; 218-page document, Basic Outline Plan for "Blacklist" Operations to Occupy Japan Proper and Korea After Surrender or … The Japanese called this place the Epidemic Prevention and … The Soviets inflicted terrible brutality on their Japanese captives. Unfortunately, matters grew worse and the flashbacks continued. Currently, the Japanese government is undertaking a major initiative to exhume, repatriate, and identify the remains of its war dead. Lomax refused, but gave her grudging permission to send a letter on her own. Starting in late 1946 the USSR began to repatriate the POWs, freeing 625,000 in the following year alone. A labor shortage meant that these prisoners of war could expect arduous toil. 945 Magazine Street, New Orleans, LA 70130 During the Meiji period the Japanese government adopted western policies towards POWs, and few of the Japanese personnel who surrendered in the Russo-Japanese War were punished at the end of the war. Nearly all the men were depleted from malnutrition and disease, and they were dying by the score. He felt boot heels on the back of his head, crunching his face into the gravel. Kuznetsov, S.I. What 10 sets of ancient fingerprints tell us about the people who made them. UNIT 731--JAPAN'S DEATH LABORATORY . Prisoner of war camps in Japan housed both capture military personnel and civilians who had been in the East before the outbreak of war. Patti understood that her husband’s angry outbursts were related to his wartime experiences and assumed things would get better with time. One of his broken arms was pulled behind his back, the other across his chest, and he was tied down. I had no reason to doubt him.”. What happened to these men and where were their remains? Associated Press. The following is the story of Powell Magee’s imprisonment at the hands of the Japanese during World War II. The confrontation stemming from border disputes between the Soviet Union, Japan’s puppet state in Manchuria and Mongolia, culminating in the 1939 Nomonhan Incident, had not faded from memory. On instinct, Lomax put out his hand, and Nagase clasped it tightly. The Stalin regime declared in the spring of 1949 that just 95,000 Japanese prisoners remained in Siberia and they would be sent home by year’s end (many would not actually return until well into the 1950s.) info@nationalww2museum.org Prisoners captured by Japanese forces during this and the First Sino-Japanese War and World War I were also treated in accordance with international standards. No other campaign surpassed that number. Nagase said to Lomax, “We know you were involved in building and operating the radio – your friends confessed to your part in it. Dower, John W. Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II. Lomax also drew a map of the area around the railway to aid in possible escape attempts, gaining information from truck drivers, new prisoners, and Japanese maps whenever he had access to camp offices. “I’ve learned that hate is a useless battle,” Lomax said, “and it has to end sometime.”. He refused to talk about the war, reasoning that nobody would understand. On the 5th day of interrogation, Lomax was accused of being a spy – a crime punishable by death. Leonard Siffleet, who was captured in New Guinea about to be beheaded by a Japanese officer with a gunto, 1942 Credit: … He also had frequent nightmares in which he would see Nagase’s face and hear his voice. Books about Internment Camps In Asia During WWII - Books about civilian internees and camps It was discovered under the bunk of another prisoner, whose immediate punishment was to swing a 270lb sledgehammer onto a block of wood for hours at a time. “I have suffered tremendous guilt all these years,” he wrote. It was taken from a taped interview with Mr. Magee and edited into its present form. Many films have been made about those POW in the hands of the Japanese, but this is one of the more unusual examples. References Containing Information about Prisoners of War of the Japanese in World War II - ADBC site. Sadly, Mr Lomax will not now see the film’s release next year. The two men went on to become firm friends, and their remarkable story of reconciliation has been turned into a film, starring Colin Firth as Eric Lomax, with Nicole Kidman playing his wife. The fractured bones in his right arm and wrist never set properly, making it painful for him to write. When the towel was finally removed and Lomax had recovered from his delirium, he still refused to confess and name his confederates. The atrocities continued throughout the war, but were mild, in many ways, compared to what went on at Unit 731, located at Pingfan, Manchuria, just outside the city of Harbin. It turned out that the ROK officer had been a particularly brutal guard in the same Japanese POW camp where the British officer had been a prisoner. The beating went on until he lost consciousness. In the early 1990s, after the Cold War ended, Russian authorities published the names of 46,000 Japanese who had died in the Soviet prison camps. 3 (1995): 612-629. www.dpaa.mil (Personnel Accounting Cooperation with Japan). To obtain war news, Lomax and a few other prisoners had secretly built a radio receiver from scrap materials they collected. By an … When Lomax finally returned home to Britain, he learned that his mother had died three years before, and his father had remarried. The British officer was immediately hustled out of the country, back to England's green and pleasant land, and was replaced. If earlier documentation was truly reliable, the actual number of POWs should have been closer to 300,000. Soviet forces encountered a very different enemy, though. Source: Japan Times, Unknown Author. Chidorigafuchi National Cemetery, Tokyo, May 2016. The best explanation, however, is that the Stalin regime treated its enemies, external and internal, ruthlessly. He located and wrote other British survivors of Kanchanaburi, requesting information about the camp officials. Indonesia. The water torture began once more. When Nagase told him he had to sign a confession, Lomax again refused. Vanderbilt University historian Yoshikuni Igarashi more than doubled that number, estimating that 100,000 Japanese captives perished in the Soviet camps. He wrote beautifully about one episode that took place right after the end of the war. When Nagase reached Lomax, he bowed deeply. Lomax shook his head. An account of his story published in the Reader’s Digest in 1994 generated such interest that, a year later, he published his own memoir called The Railway Man . Nagase informed Lomax that he was being transferred out of the camp. I have tried to keep as much of his own words as possible, but to make it more readable and put it into chronological order, some changes were made. He even once refused to take a seat in a restaurant because a Japanese couple was eating nearby. She went on to say he had lived with many unanswered questions all these years and ended with a request: “if you are willing, perhaps you would correspond with my husband?”, Patti Lomax was moved to tears by Nagase’s reply. Absolute lack of contact with relatives then suffered treatment on a bench ) at the Japanese as. Enormous confusion in Japan during the American occupation was one of the more unusual examples a POW... 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