Roughly 39% of all Australian POWs, some 8,031 men, did not survive the horrors of the camps. 12,433 British military personnel also died in Japanese camps, roughly 25% of the total number held by Japanese Forces.
90,332 British troops were casualties in the war against Japan, of which 29,968 died and 12,433 were held as prisoners of war.
The Japanese treated these POWs, and civilian internees, with at best indifference and, at worst, considerable brutality. They were forced into hard labour, many shipped in dangerous conditions to work in Japan.
Survival Rates in Japanese and German WWII Camps
Stenger's figures list 93,941 U.S. military personnel captured and interned by Germany, of whom 1,121 died (a little over a 1% death rate), and 27,465 U.S. military personnel captured and interned by Japan, of whom 11,107 died (more than a 40% death rate).
However, nations vary in their dedication to following these laws, and historically the treatment of POWs has varied greatly. During World War II, Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany (towards Soviet POWs and Western Allied commandos) were notorious for atrocities against prisoners of war.
The POWs suffered frequent beatings and mistreatment from their Japanese guards, food was the barest minimum, and disease and injuries went untreated. Although the POWs finally received Red Cross packages in January 1944, the Japanese had removed all the drugs and medical supplies.
The reasons for the Japanese behaving as they did were complex. The Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) indoctrinated its soldiers to believe that surrender was dishonourable. POWs were therefore thought to be unworthy of respect.
Many of the women and children were held in prison camps in terrible conditions and forced on death marches. Some women were killed on sight and others were raped, beaten, and forced to become sex slaves.
Only 56 Chinese prisoners of war were released after the surrender of Japan. After 20 March 1943, officers of the Imperial Japanese Navy ordered and encouraged the Navy to execute all prisoners taken at sea.
Lukacs. The book is the story of the only large-scale group of American prisoners of war to escape from a Japanese prison camp in the Pacific Theater during World War II. The ten escaped POWs were the first to break the news of the infamous Bataan Death March and other atrocities committed by the Japanese to the world.
As they did so, Japan captured just under 200,000 British soldiers, taking them prisoner. Viewing surrender as a fate virtually worse than death, the Imperial Japanese Army kept prisoners of war (POWs) in dire conditions for many years, forcing them to complete gruelling construction projects. Thousands died.
Following the war, the victorious Chinese Communist government began repatriating Japanese prisoners home, though some were put on trial for war crimes and had to serve prison sentences of varying length before being allowed to return. The last Japanese prisoner returned from China in 1964.
Some 650 Irish soldiers were taken prisoner by the Japanese during WW2. They were starved, beaten, even crucified - but showed incredible bravery, writes historian Robert Widders.
It was short of modern weapons such as tanks. Due to the impact of the Ten Year Rule, the British armaments industry had shrunk. This meant that when rearmament began it would take time to set up the factories and design the weapons required.
More than one million British military personnel died during the First and Second World Wars, with the First World War alone accounting for 886,000 fatalities. Nearly 70,000 British civilians also lost their lives, the great majority during the Second World War.
After World War II there were from 560,000 to 760,000 Japanese personnel in the Soviet Union and Mongolia interned to work in labor camps as POWs. Of them, it is estimated that between 60,000 and 347,000 died in captivity.
Axis powers. The Axis powers (Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan) were some of the most systematic perpetrators of war crimes in modern history.
Then in 1992, a Japanese historian named Toshiyuki Tanaka found incontrovertible evidence of Japanese atrocities, including cannibalism, on Indians and other Allied prisoners. His initial findings were printed by The Japan Times.
Still, the Soviets inflicted terrible brutality on their Japanese captives. A labor shortage meant that these prisoners of war could expect arduous toil. They did so in a completely foreign, Siberian environment and climate that was merciless. Food, or the lack of it, and the elements worked against the men.
Heroic Nurse – the Last Surviving 'Angel of Bataan and Corregidor' – Passes Away. Mildred Dalton Manning, the last surviving member of a group of U.S. Army and Navy nurses taken prisoner in the Philippines at the start of World War II, passed away last week at the age of 98.
For British and American prisoners, Stalag IX B was one of the worst camps in Germany. Conditions were appalling from the start and continued to deteriorate as the war progressed. The first transport of American prisoners arrived in late December 1944. By January 24, the camp had 4,075 Americans, held in 16 barracks.
The US, no doubt about it. Various POWs inquired whether there was a procedure for them to become US citizens while they were still imprisoned. A POW camp containing German soldiers was built in a small town near Chicago in WWII. The prisoners were sent out of the camp each day to work at local businesses.
More than 4,000 people were convicted of war crimes in other international tribunals, and about 920 of them were executed. Tojo and the six others who were hanged were among 28 Japanese wartime leaders tried for war crimes at the 1946-1948 International Military Tribunal for the Far East.