From Wake Island to Berlin , livre ebook

F ROM W AKE I SLAND T O B ERLIN
WW II Ex-POWs
T URNER P UBLISHING C OMPANY
T URNER P UBLISHING C OMPANY
412 Broadway
P.O. Box 3101
Paducah. KY 42002-3101
(502) 443-0121
Copyright 1997 Harry Spiller
Publishing Rights: Turner Publishing Company
This book or any part thereof may not be reproduced without the written consent of the publisher and author.
Turner Publishing Company Staff:
Editor: Katherine Sredl
Library of Congress
Catalog Card Number: 96-61775
ISBN: 978-1-56311-331-4
ISBN: 978-1-68162-131-9
Limited edition: Additional copies may be ordered directly from the publisher.
This publication was compiled using available information.
The publisher regrets it cannot assume liability for errors or omissions.
From Endsheet: POWs during the Bataan Death March.
Back Endsheet: Death Railway
Cover Photo: POWs Lee Rogers and John Todd. (MedSearch photo)
Table of Contents
DEDICATION
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER ONE: Gysgt. Edward Sturgeon-Wake Island Camp Woosung. China Camp Osaka. Japan
CHAPTER TWO: Pvt. Benjamin Dunn-Java Burma Death Railway
CHAPTER THREE: Sgt. Charles Branum-Bataan Bataan Death March, Camp O Donald, Philippines, Camp Bilibid, Philippines Camp, Mukaishina, Japan
CHAPTER FOUR: Cpl. Ralph Lape-Mindanao Camp Mindana, Philippines,Camp Kawasaki, Japan Camp Niigata, Japan
CHAPTER FIVE: Lt. Thomas Hart-Burma Camp Hosi Escaped
CHAPTER SIX: P.F.C. John McLaughten-Glider Infantry Stalag IIB, VIIA, Luft III
CHAPTER SEVEN: SSgt. Russell Hulsey-93rd Bomb Group Stalag 17B
CHAPTER EIGHT: TSgt. Gordon Butts-451 Bomb Group Stalag Luft III. Stalag VIIA, XIIID
CHAPTER NINE: Sgt. William Bradley-351 Infantry Stalag IIIA, IIIB
CHAPTER TEN: Sgt. William Carr-398th Bomb Group Stalag Luft IV
CHAPTER ELEVEN: SSgt. Edwin Douglass-134th Infantry Stalag XIIA, IIIC, IIIA
CHAPTER TWELVE: TSgt. Harold Boardman-96th Bomb Group Stalag Luft IV
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Lt., Carl Remy-95th Bomb Group Stalag Luft I
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Cpl. Kenneth Smith-106th Infantry Stalag IXB
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Sgt. Alvel Stricklin-301 Infantry Stalag XIIA, XC
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
APPENDIX A-Japanese Prison Camps
APPENDIX B-German Prison Camps
APPENDIX C-German Prison Camp Regulations
PUBLISHER S MESSAGE
INDEX
Dedication
This book is dedicated to all the ex-prisoners of war in World War II and their Families.
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank Steven Arthur for his translation of documents.Terri Rentfro for her computer knowledge, and for their art work Bill Erwin, Robin Greenlee, and Michael Dann.
Introduction
In World War II 130,201 American servicemen were captured and held as Prisoners of War. About twenty-five percent of those were held by the Japanese Imperial Army and the remaining seventy-five percent of them were held by Hitler s Third Reich. Although all of the men were POWs in World War II there were marked differences in the captives experiences.
The day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese begin a massive invasion of the West Pacific Area. This included Wake Island, the Philippine Islands, Singapore, Southeast Asia, Java, New Guinea, Borneo and Malaya. By May 1942, after many bloody battles with Allied forces, the Japanese had successfully seized most of the West Pacific. It was during this early part of the war that the Japanese captured the majority of American POWs. These American captives would be POWs under the Imperial Japanese Army for the entire war.
The Japanese, who believed in fighting to the death, were surprised by the surrender of Allied Forces in the West Pacific. The surrender posed unsuspected problems for the Japanese. What to do with thousands of Allied prisoners? It also posed a problem for Allied POWs, because as the Japanese considered surrender as unacceptable under any circumstance they considered POWs as inferior beings. This resulted in a cold blooded plan on the part of the Japanese of brutality and extermination.
American prisoners were held in camps scattered through the West Pacific Asia area. Many of the camps were military installations that had been seized by the Japanese during the war. However, in some areas barracks were constructed. Often the barracks had dirt floors. Men slept on the floor, in wooden bunks, or bamboo slabs located in the barracks. A latrine was provided, the common open pit with no drainage that was filled with maggots and flies.
The Japanese did not adhere to the Geneva Convention at all. Their treatment of American prisoners was barbaric to say the least. Men were beaten, bayoneted, tortured, and murdered. On the Bataan Death March alone 650 American prisoners of war were murdered.
Those lucky enough to survive the inhumane treatment of the Imperial Army were rewarded with hard labor, starvation and disease. Men were forced to work 12 hour days in all weather conditions with only small portions of buggy rice to eat. The food was not enough for the prisoners to maintain their health and many developed disease from the diet as well as the unsanitary conditions. Due to lack of medical treatment, many died. No other example could explain it better than the construction of the Railway built in Burma and Thailand. The Japanese needed a supply line to their troops in India and put approximately 300,000 POWs and coolies to work in the most diseased jungle and mountains in Asia. The result of 15 months of unspeakable working conditions and treatment? Over half of those men died. The railroad was to become known to the world as the Railway of Death.
During the course of the war many POWs were moved to various parts of Asia and towards the end of the war large numbers were moved to Japan. The transportation method was the Hell Ship, so named because the men in large numbers were stuffed in holes below decks for days and even weeks. There was no ventilation and many suffocated. The dead were thrown over board leaving a trail of dead bodies in the Pacific.
When the war was finally over of those held by the Japanese, no fewer than 37 percent - 12,526 - never came out of the camps alive.
On the other side of the globe Nazi Germany held the other seventy-five percent of American prisoners. The Nazis called then Kriegsgefangen-a term that the prisoners of war shortened to Kriegie. The nickname belied the reality of daily life as a POW.
The first American prisoner of war captured by the Nazis was Navy Lieutenant John Dunn who was captured on April 14, 1942. On September 25, 1942, the first American Army Land Troops were reported as prisoners of war by the Nazis to an agency created by the Geneva Convention - the Central Agency for Prisoners of War. From that point until the end of the war Hitler s Third Reich captured a total of 98, 312 American prisoners of war.
There were three principal types of Nazi Prisoner of War camps: the offizer Lager (officer s camp), a Stalag Stamm Lager (main camp), and Durchgangs Lager (entrance camp). There were seventy five of these camps scattered mostly throughout Germany with a few located in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, and East Prussia. In addition, a number of the prisoners were in Kommandos (work camps) and hospitals.
Most camps had barracks constructed with ten rooms leading from a central hallway that ran lengthwise through the building. The rooms were supplied with triple-deck bunk beds with paper sacks filled with straw or wood shavings as mattresses for the prisoners. The washrooms and a pit latrine were located near the rear of the barracks. As the war progressed, many men had to sleep on the floor in the rooms and it became necessary to use the wash rooms to house prisoners. There was a small stove, a table, and a few stools for furnishings.
The Nazis adherence to the Geneva Convention was generally correct, but the treatment of American prisoners of war by the Third Reich depended largely on the prisoner s location, the time period of which the prisoner was captured, and what German units were in charge of the prisoners - regular German Army or SS Troops.
For example. Stalag Luft III proved to be a well organized camp of captured Air Force officers with some of the best treatment as compared to other prison camps, while Stalag VII was a camp of captured enlisted ground forces with average treatment as compared to other prison camps, and Stalag IXB, established for enlisted men captured during the Von Rundstedt Offensive of December 1944, gave poor treatment of prisoners.
As for the time period of the war, the deterioration of the German transportation system caused uncontrollable conditions of proper segregation of prisoners according to nationalities and removal of prisoners from danger zones from the air raids. Food, clothing, and medical supplies for the Germans were severely rationed causing shortages of these supplies for the prisoners of war. However, when one takes into account the provisions of the convention, there was no doubt that the Nazis made numerous willful violations ranging from technical circumstances to full-scale atrocities.
The third area affecting the treatment of prisoners was the attitude of the German soldiers themselves. There was a sharp division between the attitudes of the German regular army and Hitler s SS Troops toward the POWs. The regular army willfully violated many rules such as holding back Red Cross packages, clothing, claiming that there was a shortage of food and water as a result of bombing raids, threats of beatings and death, and ignoring medical needs of prisoners, etc. There were atrocities by the regular army - beatings, prisoners killed, terrorizing by police dogs, and placement in solitary confinement to name a few, but atrocities by the regular army were more of an exception than the rule.
The SS troops were a different story. Their main attitude toward POWs and human life was so grossly twisted that even many of the German regular army troops feared them. American prisoners were beaten, tortured,