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Theresa Dufrene – 7C

“Concentration Camps for the Americans”



During the 1930’s-1940 the Second World War broke out. Due to the U.S. just getting out of a major war, the country chose to stay neutral. Unfortunately, the attack of Pearl Harbor changed America’s “neutral” standing in the war. After the Pearl Harbor attack, America began to change. There was a rise in nationalism, support for troops, but also racism. During 1941 the government began to discriminate against the Japanese-Americans that were living on American soil, but I am here to disclose information about why America treated the Japanese-Americans the way they did.

Not all Americans know about the fact that the Japanese-Americans were placed in concentration camps. The government uprooted over 100,000 Japanese-American families, and distributed them to many different camps all over the United State. When bringing the Japanese-Americans to these camps, the Japanese-Americans were only allowed to bring a certain number of bags. Many families left and lost their most prized possessions. At the camps people were put in barracks where they would stay for the next few years. Despite the stress of moving and loyalty tests, the Japanese-Americans lived pretty normal lives. They were able to eat, sleep and function like other Americans except in a more confined area.

The alienation of Japanese-Americans was not completely caused by the attack of Pearl Harbor. The loyalty tests and confinement was done to protect America and American security. A main reason that Japanese-Americans were placed in concentration camps was the fact that the attack of Pearl Harbor led to America becoming completely paranoid. An effect of Pearl Harbor was the Americans going in to bomb Japan which led to our pilots crashing on Japanese soil, and thus the cruel treatment of American POW’s in Japan began. According to statistics only one percent of American POWs placed in German labor camps were killed whereas a whopping thirty-eight percent of the American POWs in Japan were killed. Also, despite the Germans using our men for labor in the camps the Japanese turned our men into slaves, subjects for experiments and also tortured our men for amusement.

The majority of American POWs were pilots that had either crashed or had been shot down in Japan. Although, American pilots were also shot down in Germany and Italy. One of the places that the American POWs were put into labor camps in Bataan during the Battle of Bataan. In these camps the soldiers were forced to dig ditches and drain mosquito infested rice paddies with shovels made of thin sheet iron. After they were done in Bataan the same POWs were placed into a ship (at the bottom of the boat) in order to sail to another part of Japan. When riding on the boats, the Japanese officers would turn off the water that went down to the American POWs. When the Japanese did this many of the American POWs would go crazy and begin screaming. The Japanese would order the other American POWs to shut up the crazy POWs or else they would shut off the air from all the American POWs. Haro Maru (a pilot and American POW during the ship ride) knew that if the Japanese were to cut off the air supply, then hardly any men would survive. Out of desperation some of the crazy POWs would be quiet while the other crazy POWs were killed by their fellow American comrades. The situation was so bad in these boats that many of the POWs would drink their own urine in order to try to re-hydrate themselves. They were hardly fed and thus would eat the bodies of their dead comrades and would even slit each others’ throats, and drink the blood in order to re-hydrate themselves. Some of these acts were what led the POWs to go crazy, along with sleeping and standing in their own feces and vomit.

By the second day of this boat ride, American dive bombers began bombing the ship which looked like a Japanese cargo boat. The Japanese had put a bomb at the bottom of the ship with the POWs so when the dive bombers also bombed the boat many of the POWs died from the explosion. Those that lived were ordered by Japanese officers to swim across to the land in sight. When the men swam across to the land (trying to bring their wounded with them) the Japanese would then herd them into a tennis court surrounded by chicken wire. The American POWs were told that their wounded would be brought to hospitals and then had to watch the other wounded POWs be thrown into a truck like discarded trash. The POWs (many years later) discovered that the wounded were not brought to hospitals but were instead thrown into a massive ditch and then beheaded by the Japanese. Alas, the men that were herded to the tennis court surrounded by chicken wire were now at a new slave labor camp.

The first five days of being at this slave labor camp the men were given a teaspoon of rice a day for food and that was all. After five days of this the men were moved out to barracks and began their slave labor. This camp was a camp for coal diggers. You would dig coal for twelve or so hours away. You were still only fed a teaspoon of rice a day and also given water. Some POWs were so desperate for death that instead of eating they would trade their teaspoon of rice to other men for cigarettes. Men were so desperate to keep from working in the mines that they would pay off “bone crushers” to break their bones. They would trade cigarettes, water or their teaspoon of rice to another POW so that that POW would break their legs or arms to get them out of work for a few days. Many of the American POWs who did not die from starvation or exhaustion, died from cave-ins since the coal mines were supposed to be closed but the Japanese wanted to get as much use out of them as humanly possible.

Another camp was in Tokyo and is referred to as “Tokyo Torture.” In this area it was all B-29er’s who had crashed during their bombings of Tokyo. One man (whose name isn’t mentioned) was put into a cage smaller than a cage for a dog. He was in so much pain that he would cry out so loudly ever night that other POWs had asked for the Japanese officers to make him be quiet. The man in the cage was brought to a doctor and the doctor was going to “inject” him with a “tranquilizer.” The man talked the doctor out of injecting him and the man later discovered that the “injection” was a poison that would kill him. Some of the other men who were brought to doctors were used as test subjects. The doctors would chisel open the back of POWs’ skulls and stab knives into their brains, drain their blood and replace it with seawater, and even cut out certain body parts. The POW that was lucky enough to live and not be tortured was then put into a dog cage where he was beaten with the butts of rifles. He had a hole in the grown for a toilet and he was fed a golf ball size of rice per day. This POW was also paraded around Tokyo to show the Japanese how weak the Americans are, and that they were not “gods” but nearly humans that the Japanese could defeat.

A reason that the Japanese would parade around the beaten down POWs was to ensure faith to the Japanese. Even today the Japanese are fearful of other people who do not look nor act Japanese which is referred to as the Gaijin Complex. In Japan the Japanese tend to think of a group and refuse to pull away from the group. This is referred to as Uchi-Soto (us and them). This was of thinking is brought about by having an emperor. By having an emperor the people are taught to follow his every command and serve him so obediently that their own lives mean nothing (i.e. the Kamikaze). Two other parts of Japanese culture are Osekkai (mind your own business) and “goatism” (giseisha and urami). Basically what these two words mean is that Osekkai means that the Japanese firmly believe in protecting their privacy and following out their dreams. In Japan, there is no such thing as failure which is why seppuku (a common form of honorable suicide) became popular when the soldiers would fail in battle. Another problem is “goatism” which comes from “scapegoat” which is what the Japanese tend to use very often. Since there is no room for failure in the Japanese culture then it must always be someone else's fault and therefore the Japanese have someone else to hide behind.

These different reasons are why the Japanese tortured the POWs as badly as they did, and also refused to surrender until the A-bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Japanese have no excuse for treating the American POWs the way that they did but none the less their reasoning can be better understood if you understand their culture. A real life example of these customs upheld in society is the death of army minister Korechika Anami. When the U.S. issued conditions of surrender and Emperor Hirohito had agreed, the army minister Anami decided to try to overthrow the government. In doing so, American ended up issuing unconditional surrender terms and that led to Anami and his followers giving up. Without the help of the Emperor (who was willing to surrender) there was no way for Anami and his followers to continue fighting. When the terms were agreed to by both countries, Anami felt that he had failed his emperor and country, which is the worse sin ever committed by someone who is Japanese. Therefore, he committed seppuku and when he did not die plunged the knife into his neck, and ultimately died.

Despite these fine examples of Japanese culture as I’ve mentioned before it does not excuse the way they treated our POWs. These examples are a very big reason why in American we put Japanese-Americans into concentration camps. When discovering the horrors that the Japanese were capable (on top of the sneak attack at Pearl Harbor) our government felt it was necessary to confine them to where they could be better monitored. Also, Harry Truman even nationally apologized to the Japanese-Americans for their unfair treatment yet the Japanese have never nationally apologized to our POWs. The Japanese-Americans, despite how unfair their treatment was, were still treated humanely. If anything, the POWs should have been apologized to and given reparations for what they were forced to go through. In the end both countries are wrong but American treated the Japanese-Americans humanely and only acted the way they did due to apparent reason, and not paranoia.