Those Germans in charge of the
He explained that he and three other POWs designed a system whereby during the day they existed on five slices of bread and the "goon soup." They ate only one substantial meal a day — generally in the evening — which consisted of their potato ration combined with any meat or cheese ration from a Red Cross parcel.
Brutal Treatment of Allied Prisoners of War
The Japanese were very brutal to their prisoners of war. Prisoners of war endured gruesome tortures with rats and ate grasshoppers for nourishment. Some were used for medical experiments and target practice.
The Germans were hardly the genial hosts, whether you were a POW during World War I or World War II. There was severe punishment for escape attempts, there were meager rations and drafty bunkhouses, and there were irregular deliveries of packages from the Red Cross.
Officially, none of the more than 425,000 Axis POWs kept in the United States should have stayed there after the war—POWs are supposed to be repatriated after the war is over.
During World War II, Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany (towards Soviet POWs and Western Allied commandos) were notorious for atrocities against prisoners of war.
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 Soviet government kept roughly 1.5 million German POWs in forced-labor camps after the end of World War II through 1956. The POWs constituted the largest and longest held group of prisoners for any victor nation.
On December 23, 1944, 25 German POWs broke out of Camp Papago Park in Arizona by crawling along a 178-foot (54 m) tunnel. By January the escapees were caught, in part because a river they intended to travel down by raft turned out to be a dry river bed.
Survival Rates in Japanese and German WWII Camps
Dr. 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).
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.
The Japanese used many types of physical punishment. Some prisoners were made to hold a heavy stone above their heads for many hours. Others might be forced into small cells with little food or water. Tom Uren described how a young Aboriginal soldier was made to kneel on a piece of bamboo for a number of days.
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.
A typical meal was a thin broth of rice and vegetables. The prisoners were paid a small wage with which they supplemented this diet. Camps near villages could trade with the local Thai population for items such as duck eggs and fruit. Camps on the Kwae Noi also had access to supplies brought up by boat.
Those Germans in charge of the Prisoner of War camps for first British and Canadian and then American prisoners devised a ration that would keep Allied prisoners alive without breaking Germany's economic back: Each Anglo-American POW would receive 9 pounds of potatoes per week, augmented by 5 pounds of bread, and 2-1/2 ...
Most prisoners of war (POWs) existed on a very poor diet of rice and vegetables, which led to severe malnutrition. Red Cross parcels were deliberately withheld and prisoners tried to supplement their rations with whatever they could barter or grow themselves.
All in all, 2 million POWs returned from the Soviet Union. Biess argues that, in the immediate postwar period, there were indications that the Germans would be prepared to confront guilt, including Wehrmacht guilt.
NARRATOR: Of the prisoners at Stalingrad only 6,000 survive. The western powers also establish camps for millions of German POWs. By the end of the war, the so-called Rheinwiesen camps were set up by the U.S. Army on German soil. The American are ill prepared for such large numbers of prisoners.
Three hundred fifty American POWs were selected to be sent to the Berga slave labor camp upon suspicion of being Jewish. There they endured inhumane treatment as laborers in underground tunnels along with prisoners from the nearby Buchenwald concentration camp, all while suffering from starvation and beatings.
After a brief period of captivity in France, most of the prisoners were deported to Germany. In Germany, prisoners were incarcerated in Stalag or Oflag prison camps, according to rank, but the vast majority were soon transferred to work details (Kommandos) working in German agriculture or industry.
In 1940 1.8 million French soldiers were taken as prisoners of war by Germany. During the coming months most of these men were deported into Germany for use as slave laborers. Nearly a million were still held in Germany in 1945 when they were liberated by Allied and Soviet forces.
After Germany's surrender in May 1945, millions of German soldiers remained prisoners of war. In France, their internment lasted a particularly long time. But, for some former soldiers, it was a path to rehabilitation.
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.
Of the 22,376 Australian prisoners of war captured by the Japanese, some 8,031 died while in captivity. After the end of the war, War Crimes Trials were held to investigate reports of atrocities, massacres and other causes of death.
The D-Day invasion was the largest seaborne invasion in history and a turning point in World War II. By the end of the Normandy campaign, hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians had been killed or wounded.