Guests of the Emperor: The Secret History of Japan's Mukden POW Camp

by Linda Goetz Holmes

Overview

In World War II, over 36,000 American men, mostly military but some civilian, were thrown into Japanese POW camps and forced to labor for companies working for Japan s war effort. At Japan s largest fixed military prison camp, Mitsubishi s huge factory complex at Mukden, Manchuria, more than 2,000 American prisoners where subjected to cold, starvation, beatings, and even medical experiments, while manufacturing parts for Zero fighter planes. Those lucky enough to survive required the efforts of an OSS rescue team and a special recovery unit to make it home alive.

Holmes, who spent two decades tracking down the POWs, shows conclusively for the first time that some Americans at Mukden were singled out for experiments by Japan s infamous biological warfare team.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781612513829
Publisher:	Naval Institute Press
Publication date:	06/15/2010
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	192
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Linda Goetz Holmes is the first Pacific War historian appointed to advise the government Interagency Working Group declassifying documents on World War II crimes. A graduate of Wellesley College, she has been interviewing and writing about pacific prisoners of war for more than two decades. Her first book, 4000 Bowls of Rice, was published in 1994.

Editorial Reviews

In WWII more than 2,000 American, British, and Australian soldiers were transferred from POW camps in the Philippines and Southeast Asia to the largest single Japanese POW camp in existence, at Mukden, China (now Shenyang). There, they were used as forced labor for Japanese manufacturing giant Mitsubishi, best known at the time for the famed Zero fighter, in open violation of the Geneva Conventions. Conditions at Mukden were brutal, with freezing temperatures, routine beatings, forced malnourishment, and the withholding of medicine. One chilling report referenced the testing of biological weapons on the American prisoners. Much has been written about the conditions in German POW camps of the same period, but even the Nazi Party wasn't willing to risk disregarding the Geneva Conventions. Japan, however, never contemplated the possibility of defeat, or its repercussions, and this secret history shows not only the extent of their arrogance and brutality during the war to end all wars, but also the resilience and determination of the allied prisoners.
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