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.
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.
Over 22,000 Australian servicemen and almost forty nurses were captured by the Japanese. Most were captured early in 1942 when Japanese forces captured Malaya, Singapore, New Britain, and the Netherlands East Indies. Hundreds of Australian civilians were also interned.
The overall number of POWs and internees killed was about 138,000 (line 93). Since this is largely based on official figures released shortly after the war, I give no high and low.
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.
During World War II, Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany (towards Soviet POWs and Western Allied commandos) were notorious for atrocities against prisoners of war.
United States Army Colonel Floyd “Jim” Thompson, the longest held prisoner of war (POW) in American history, and his wife, Alyce, were products of the idealism of post-World War II America. When Thompson was shot down and captured, they began a journey that changed them forever.
They were imprisoned in camps throughout Japanese-occupied territories in Borneo, Korea, Manchuria, Hainan, Rabaul, Ambon, Singapore, Timor, Java, Thailand, Burma and Vietnam and also Japan itself. At the end of the war only 13,872 of the POWs were recovered: one-third of the prisoners had died.
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.
Crucifixion was a form of punishment, torture and/or execution that the Japanese military sometimes used against prisoners during the war. Edwards and the others were initially bound at the wrists with fencing wire, suspended from a tree and beaten with a baseball bat.
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.
Others, often starved and treated brutally, worked for months under shellfire close behind German lines. In camps in Germany conditions were better, but prisoners suffered increasingly from shortages caused by the British blockade. Many survived only because of regular Red Cross parcels.
From Florena Budwin, a Civil War woman who disguised herself as a man to join Union troops and was held in a Confederate prison camp, to the 67 Army nurses who were taken captive by the Japanese in World War II, there have been less than 100 military women held as POWs throughout American history.
Starting in late 1946 the USSR began to repatriate the POWs, freeing 625,000 in the following year alone. 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.)
“Comfort women” refers to the system of sexual slavery created and controlled by the Imperial Japanese government between 1932 and 1945. It is the largest case of government-sponsored human trafficking and sexual slavery in modern history.
The convicts were transported as punishment for crimes committed in Britain and Ireland. In Australia their lives were hard as they helped build the young colony. When they had served their sentences, most stayed on and some became successful settlers.
Japan. The movement of Australian prisoners to Japan, Formosa and Korea began in 1942, continued during 1943, and was intensified in 1944 following the completion of the Burma-Thailand Railway. By early 1945 there were nearly 3,000 Australian prisoners of war in Japan.
About 8,600 Australians became prisoners of the Germans. They included 7,115 Australian soldiers captured in North Africa or Greece; 1,476 airmen, mostly bomber aircrew shot down over Germany in 1943–45; and a few sailors.
Joseph Alexander became a POW at 15. He was a military and civilian worker at Kelly AFB. Joseph Alexander never got to enjoy his youth. At just 14 years old, and with his grandmother by his side, he enlisted in the U.S. Army, and is said to have been the youngest American prisoner of war.
Instances under Russia's control include the "summary executions of 15 POWs, the use of POWs as human shields, the deaths of two wounded men POWs due to a lack of medical care, and torture or other ill-treatment to extract information," per the report.
Our research and operational missions involve coordination with hundreds of countries and municipalities worldwide. As of the latest update on May 22, 2023, more than 81,000 Americans remain missing from WWII, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Cold War, and the Gulf Wars/other conflicts.
The Axis powers (Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan) were some of the most systematic perpetrators of war crimes in modern history.
Only 14 countries remained officially neutral throughout the entire war. They included Sweden, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Turkey, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan as well as the microstates of Andorra, Monaco, Liechtenstein, San Marino and Vatican City.