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American Pows Of World War Ii
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Book Synopsis Prisoners of Nazis by : Harry Spiller
Download or read book Prisoners of Nazis written by Harry Spiller and published by McFarland. This book was released on 1997-12-15 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Nazis called them Kriegsgefangen, a term that the prisoners of war shortened to "Kriegie." The nickname hid the reality for the nearly seven million POWs who were placed in the German camps during World War II. These men consistently faced food shortages, medical needs were often ignored, barracks were barely heated, and personal hygiene was nearly impossible. Conditions depended on the soldiers who controlled the camp. Regular army guards might withhold clothing and food, but generally did not physically abuse the prisoners. The SS troops administered beatings, torture and murders. In this work, 19 POWs provide a vivid and often poignant look at their treatment by the Germans. The soldiers range from those captured in the D-Day invasion to B-17 crew members shot down during bombing raids.
Book Synopsis Prisoners of the Japanese by : Gavan Daws
Download or read book Prisoners of the Japanese written by Gavan Daws and published by Pocket Books. This book was released on 2007-05 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A devastating portrait of the suffering of Japanese-held POWs in the Second World War.
Book Synopsis The Enemy Among Us by : David Fiedler
Download or read book The Enemy Among Us written by David Fiedler and published by Missouri History Museum. This book was released on 2003 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "For residents of the mostly small towns where these camps were located, the arrival of enemy POWs engendered a range of emotions - first fear and apprehension, then curiosity, and finally, in many cases, a feeling of fondness for the men they had come to know and like."--BOOK JACKET.
Book Synopsis Michigan POW Camps in World War II by : Gregory D. Sumner
Download or read book Michigan POW Camps in World War II written by Gregory D. Sumner and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2018 with total page 1 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During World War II, Michigan became a temporary home to six thousand German and Italian POWs. At a time of homefront labor shortages, they picked fruit in Berrien County, harvested sugar beets in the Thumb, cut pulpwood in the Upper Peninsula and maintained parks and other public spaces in Detroit. The work programs were not flawless and not all of the prisoners were cooperative, but many of the men established enduring friendships with their captors. Author Gregory Sumner tells the story of these detainees and the ordinary Americans who embodied our highest ideals, even amid a global war.
Book Synopsis Prisoners of the Empire by : Sarah Kovner
Download or read book Prisoners of the Empire written by Sarah Kovner and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-15 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A pathbreaking account of World War II POW camps, challenging the longstanding belief that the Japanese Empire systematically mistreated Allied prisoners. In only five months, from the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 to the fall of Corregidor in May 1942, the Japanese Empire took prisoner more than 140,000 Allied servicemen and 130,000 civilians from a dozen different countries. From Manchuria to Java, Burma to New Guinea, the Japanese army hastily set up over seven hundred camps to imprison these unfortunates. In the chaos, 40 percent of American POWs did not survive. More Australians died in captivity than were killed in combat. Sarah Kovner offers the first portrait of detention in the Pacific theater that explains why so many suffered. She follows Allied servicemen in Singapore and the Philippines transported to Japan on “hellships” and singled out for hard labor, but also describes the experience of guards and camp commanders, who were completely unprepared for the task. Much of the worst treatment resulted from a lack of planning, poor training, and bureaucratic incoherence rather than an established policy of debasing and tormenting prisoners. The struggle of POWs tended to be greatest where Tokyo exercised the least control, and many were killed by Allied bombs and torpedoes rather than deliberate mistreatment. By going beyond the horrific accounts of captivity to actually explain why inmates were neglected and abused, Prisoners of the Empire contributes to ongoing debates over POW treatment across myriad war zones, even to the present day.
Book Synopsis We Were Each Other's Prisoners by : Lewis H. Carlson
Download or read book We Were Each Other's Prisoners written by Lewis H. Carlson and published by . This book was released on 1997-04-03 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During World War II, Germany captured nearly 94,000 American soldiers, while the Allies shipped almost 380,000 Germans to the United States. This book is the first ever to compare stories of POWs from both sides of the conflict. In their own words, 35 American and German prisoners of war recount their stories of survival. of photos.
Book Synopsis Nebraska POW Camps by : Melissa Amateis Marsh
Download or read book Nebraska POW Camps written by Melissa Amateis Marsh and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2014-04-15 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During World War II, thousands of Axis prisoners of war were held throughout Nebraska in base camps that included Fort Robinson, Camp Scottsbluff and Camp Atlanta. Many Nebraskans did not view the POWs as "evil Nazis." To them, they were ordinary men and very human. And while their stay was not entirely free from conflict, many former captives returned to the Cornhusker State to begin new lives after the cessation of hostilities. Drawing on first-person accounts from soldiers, former POWs and Nebraska residents, as well as archival research, Melissa Marsh delves into the neglected history of Nebraska's POW camps.
Book Synopsis Men in German Uniform by : Antonio Thompson
Download or read book Men in German Uniform written by Antonio Thompson and published by Univ. of Tennessee Press. This book was released on 2010-11-16 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examining the largest prisoner-of-war handling operation in U.S. history, this book offers a meticulous account of the myriad history, this book offers a meticulous account of the myriad problems—as well as the impressive successes—that came with problems—as well as the impressive successes—that came with housing 371,000 German POWs on American soil during World War II. Antonio Thompson draws on extensive archival research to probe the various ways in which the U.S. government strove to comply with the Geneva Convention’s mandate that enemy prisoners be moved from the war zone and given food, shelter, and clothing equal to that provided for American soldiers. While the prisoners became a ready source of manpower for the labor- starved American home front and received small wages in return, their stay in the United States generated more than a few difficulties, which included not only daunting logistics but also violence within the camps. Such violence was often blamed on Nazi influence and control; however, as Thompson points out, only a few of the prisoners were actually Nazis. Because the Germans had cobbled together military forces that included convicts, their own POWs, volunteers from neutral nations, and conscripts from occupied countries, the bonds that held these soldiers together amid the pressures of combat dissolved once they were placed behind barbed wire. When these “men in German uniform,” who were not always Germans, donned POW garb, their former social, racial, religious, and ethnic tensions quickly reemerged. To counter such troubles, American authorities organized various activities—including sports, arts, education, and religion—within the POW camps; some prisoners even participated in an illegal denazification program created by the U.S. government. Despite the problems, Thompson argues, the POW-housing program proved largely successful, as Americans maintained their reputation for fairness and humane treatment during a time of widespread turmoil.
Book Synopsis Nazi Prisoners of War in America by : Arnold Krammer
Download or read book Nazi Prisoners of War in America written by Arnold Krammer and published by Lyons Press. This book was released on 2020-10 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the only book available that tells the full story of how the U.S. government, between 1942 and 1945, detained nearly half a million Nazi prisoners of war in 511 camps across the country. With a new introduction and illustrated with more than 70 rare photos, Krammer describes how, with no precedents upon which to form policy, America's handling of these foreign prisoners led to the hasty conversation of CCC camps, high school gyms, local fairgrounds, and race tracks to serve as holding areas. The Seattle Times calls Nazi Prisoners of War in America "the definitive history of one of the least known segments of America's involvement in World War II. Fascinating. A notable addition to the history of that war."
Book Synopsis Guests Behind the Barbed Wire by : Ruth Beaumont Cook
Download or read book Guests Behind the Barbed Wire written by Ruth Beaumont Cook and published by . This book was released on 2012-11 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chronicling a lesser-known aspect of World War II, this glimpse into secret history re-creates the world of Aliceville, Alabama, during the war, when as many as 6,000 German prisoners-of-war (POWs) and 1,000 military police guards set up camp and stayed for almost three years. It discusses how the residents of Aliceville helped build, operate, and supply the camp, as well as become inextricably intertwined with camp life and the soldiers being held there. Uncovering what being treated well by the enemy meant in the lives of these POWs, this relevant and fascinating story investigates the nature of war and the principles of human dignity in the midst of America's seemingly unending war on terror, which has brought "Geneva Convention" back into common vocabulary along with questions about what is appropriate treatment of enemies and how future generations are affected by such treatment.
Book Synopsis Bataan Survivor by : David L. Hardee
Download or read book Bataan Survivor written by David L. Hardee and published by University of Missouri Press. This book was released on 2017-12-01 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A forgotten account, written in the immediate aftermath of World War II, which vividly portrays the valor, sacrifice, suffering, and liberation of the defenders of Bataan and Corregidor through the eyes of one survivor. The personal memoir of Colonel David L. Hardee, first drafted at sea from April-May 1945 following his liberation from Japanese captivity, is a thorough treatment of his time in the Philippines. A career infantry officer, Hardee fought during the Battle of Bataan as executive officer of the Provisional Air Corps Regiment. Captured in April 1942 after the American surrender on Bataan, Hardee survived the Bataan Death March and proceeded to endure a series of squalid prison camps. A debilitating hernia left Hardee too ill to travel to Japan in 1944, making him one of the few lieutenant colonels to remain in the Philippines and subsequently survive the war. As a primary account written almost immediately after his liberation, Hardee’s memoir is fresh, vivid, and devoid of decades of faded memories or contemporary influences associated with memoirs written years after an experience. This once-forgotten memoir has been carefully edited, illustrated and annotated to unlock the true depths of Hardee’s experience as a soldier, prisoner, and liberated survivor of the Pacific War.
Book Synopsis Prisoner of the Swiss by : Daniel Culler
Download or read book Prisoner of the Swiss written by Daniel Culler and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2017-08-19 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A harrowing memoir revealing the horrors that occurred within a little-known prison camp in Switzerland, by a POW who survived it. During WWII, 1,517 members of US aircrews were forced to seek asylum in Switzerland. Most neutral countries found reason to release US airmen from internment, but Switzerland took its obligations under the Hague Convention more seriously than most. The airmen were often incarcerated in local jails, then transferred to prison camps. The worst of these camps was Wauwilermoos, where at least 161 US airmen were sent for the honorable offense of escaping. To this hellhole came Dan Culler, the author of this incredible account of suffering and survival. Prisoners slept on lice-infested straw, were malnourished, and had virtually no hygiene facilities or access to medical care. But worse, the commandant of Wauwilermoos was a diehard Swiss Nazi. He allowed the mainly criminal occupants of the camp to torture and rape Dan Culler with impunity. After many months of such treatment, starving and ravaged by disease, he was finally aided by a British officer. Betrayal dominated his cruel fate—by the American authorities, by the Swiss, and, in a last twist, in a second planned escape that turned out to be a trap. But Dan Culler’s courage and determination kept him alive. Finally making it back home, he found he had been abandoned again. Political expediency meant there was no such place as Wauwilermoos. He had never been there, so he had never been a POW and didn‘t qualify for any POW benefits or medical or mental treatment for his many physical and emotional wounds. His struggle to make his peace with his past forms the final part of the story. An introduction and notes from military historian Rob Morris provide historical background and context, including recent efforts to recognize the suffering of those incarcerated in Switzerland and afford them full POW status.
Book Synopsis Building the Death Railway by : Robert Sherman La Forte
Download or read book Building the Death Railway written by Robert Sherman La Forte and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 1993 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Generosity amid the greatest cruelty, Building the Death Railway gives the American perspective on events that shocked the world.
Book Synopsis Italian Prisoners of War in Pennsylvania by : Flavio G. Conti
Download or read book Italian Prisoners of War in Pennsylvania written by Flavio G. Conti and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2016-10-19 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During World War II 51,000 Italian prisoners of war were detained in the United States. When Italy signed an armistice with the Allies in September 1943, most of these soldiers agreed to swear allegiance to the United States and to collaborate in the fight against Germany. At the Letterkenny Army Depot, located near Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, more than 1,200 Italian soldiers were detained as co-operators. They arrived in May 1944 to form the 321st Italian Quartermaster Battalion and remained until October 1945. As detainees, the soldiers helped to order, stock, repair, and ship military goods, munitions and equipment to the Pacific and European Theaters of war. Through such labor, they lent their collective energy to the massive home front endeavor to defeat the Axis Powers. The prisoners also helped to construct the depot itself, building roads, sidewalks, and fences, along with individual buildings such as an assembly hall, amphitheater, swimming pool, and a chapel and bell tower. The latter of these two constructions still exist, and together with the assembly hall, bear eloquent testimony to the Italian POW experience. For their work the Italian co-operators received a very modest, regular salary, and they experienced more freedom than regular POWs. In their spare time, they often had liberty to leave the post in groups that American soldiers chaperoned. Additionally, they frequently received or visited large entourages of Italian Americans from the Mid-Atlantic region who were eager to comfort their erstwhile countrymen. The story of these Italian soldiers detained at Letterkenny has never before been told. Now, however, oral histories from surviving POWs, memoirs generously donated by family members of ex-prisoners, and the rich information newly available from archival material in Italy, aided by material found in the U.S., have made it possible to reconstruct this experience in full. All of this historical documentation has also allowed the authors to tell fascinating individual stories from the moment when many POWs were captured to their return to Italy and beyond. More than seventy years since the end of World War II, family members of ex-POWs in both the United States and Italy still enjoy the positive legacy of this encounter.
Book Synopsis World War II POW Camps in Ohio by : Dr. James Van Keuren
Download or read book World War II POW Camps in Ohio written by Dr. James Van Keuren and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2018 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During World War II, more than six thousand prisoners of war resided at Camp Perry near Port Clinton and its branch camps at Columbus, Rossford, Cambridge, Celina, Bowling Green, Defiance, Marion, Parma and Wilmington. From the start, the camps were a study in contradictions. The Italian prisoners who arrived first charmed locals with their affable, easygoing natures, while their German successors often put on a serious, intractable front. Some local residents fondly recall working alongside the prisoners and reuniting with them later in life. Others held the prisoners in disdain, feeling that they were coddled while natives struggled with day-to-day needs. Drawing on first-person accounts from soldiers, former POWs and residents, as well as archival research, Dr. Jim Van Keuren delves into the neglected history of Ohio's POW camps.
Book Synopsis The Anguish of Surrender by : Ulrich A. Straus
Download or read book The Anguish of Surrender written by Ulrich A. Straus and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2011-10-01 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On December 6, 1941, Ensign Kazuo Sakamaki was one of a handful of men selected to skipper midget subs on a suicide mission to breach Pearl Harbor’s defenses. When his equipment malfunctioned, he couldn’t find the entrance to the harbor. He hit several reefs, eventually splitting the sub, and swam to shore some miles from Pearl Harbor. In the early dawn of December 8, he was picked up on the beach by two Japanese American MPs on patrol. Sakamaki became Prisoner No. 1 of the Pacific War. Japan’s no-surrender policy did not permit becoming a POW. Sakamaki and his fellow soldiers and sailors had been indoctrinated to choose between victory and a heroic death. While his comrades had perished, he had survived. By becoming a prisoner of war, Sakamaki believed he had brought shame and dishonor on himself, his family, his community, and his nation, in effect relinquishing his citizenship. Sakamaki fell into despair and, like so many Japanese POWs, begged his captors to kill him. Based on the author’s interviews with dozens of former Japanese POWs along with memoirs only recently coming to light, The Anguish of Surrender tells one of the great unknown stories of World War II. Beginning with an examination of Japan’s prewar ultranationalist climate and the harsh code that precluded the possibility of capture, the author investigates the circumstances of surrender and capture of men like Sakamaki and their experiences in POW camps. Many POWs, ill and starving after days wandering in the jungles or hiding out in caves, were astonished at the superior quality of food and medical treatment they received. Contrary to expectations, most Japanese POWs, psychologically unprepared to deal with interrogations, provided information to their captors. Trained Allied linguists, especially Japanese Americans, learned how to extract intelligence by treating the POWs humanely. Allied intelligence personnel took advantage of lax Japanese security precautions to gain extensive information from captured documents. A few POWs, recognizing Japan’s certain defeat, even assisted the Allied war effort to shorten the war. Far larger numbers staged uprisings in an effort to commit suicide. Most sought to survive, suffered mental anguish, and feared what awaited them in their homeland. These deeply human stories follow Japanese prisoners through their camp experiences to their return to their welcoming families and reintegration into postwar society. These stories are told here for the first time in English.
Book Synopsis We Were Next to Nothing by : Carl S. Nordin
Download or read book We Were Next to Nothing written by Carl S. Nordin and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2004-12-08 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On December 1, 1941, the author's unit was sent to the southern Philippine island of Mindanao to establish an air base. Less than six months later, on May 10, 1942, Sergeant Nordin was captured by the Japanese. For two years he was imprisoned on Mindanao before boarding a Japanese hellship destined for Moji, Japan. He spent the remainder of the war working on the railroad in Yokkaichi. Throughout his time in captivity, the author detailed the conditions and his thoughts on the camps in a secret diary that became the basis of this work. This powerful story recounts the horrors of the prison camps, the torturous journey on the hellship, and the little things that provided him and his fellow prisoners the strength to survive.
