Japanese POWs

Factual Questions
1

I know there were very few Japanese military that were captured during WWII. Where were they held? What happened to them after the war? How were they treated by their countrymen when they returned after the war? Did all of them return? Thank you.

2

Here’s a good tale.

http://www.anzacday.org.au/history/ww2/anecdotes/cowra.html

3

Thank you. I have never heard of that. Very interesting.

4

An article about Japanese POWs in a camp in NZ

part 1

http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-WH2Pris-_N95664.html

part 2

http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-WH2Pris-_N105178.html

The website they’re from. Looks interesting but I don’t have time to read it.

http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-WH2Pris.html

5

Shohei Ooka wrote some very good autobiographical and semi-autobiographical books about his wartime experiences as a soldier, POW and postwar returnee.

Fires on the Plain
Taken Captive: A Japanese POW’s Story
The Burdens of Survival: Ooka Shohei’s Writings on the Pacific War (actually a book about him and his writings)

I found a similar GQ discussion from a couple of years back with some more information: Japanese POWs in WWII

6

This monograph is worth a read on this question as well.

This Chapter is especially important re the OP - that there is no one uniform answer on “Japanese POWs” adjusted or were received at home. The point is, I think, that what an average Japanese civilian thought of a POW in 1942-3-4-5 was entirely different than what they might say after August 1945 and the beginning of the occupation.

Chapter 10, “Returning Home Alive,” brings the captives’ ordeal full circle. Expecting ostracism, most experienced joyous reunions with families and neighbors. Despite the fact that the International Committee of the Red Cross furnished the available names of POWs to Tokyo, the Imperial War and Navy ministries issued death notices, modestly pensioned the families, and listed the names at the Yakusuni shrine for war dead. The families received small boxes purporting to contain loved ones’ remains, some of which were empty. Called “ghosts,” the repatriates had to restore their names on the family rolls before they could re-enter society (p. 237). Discovering that Japan had become a collective POW camp, they realized that the shame of surrender applied to all and therefore to none.

7

The weird thing about Shohei Ooka is, I took this whole Japanese literature class, right? We probably studied, I don’t know, twenty important authors. All these people with nothing to cry about, they killed themselves. Every damned one of them. One of those dudes got the job done after his fourth or fifth suicide pact with a woman - of course, all the women bit it on the first try. (Who the hell forms a suicide pact with somebody who’s survived three others?)

So there’s this guy who went through hell and back in the war, writes this book about eating people, etc - and he lives this perfectly normal, healthy life.