Prisoners of the Empire - Inside Japanese POW Camps

Prisoners of the Empire - Inside Japanese POW Camps With Sarah Kovner POW and Internment Camps    • POW and Internment Camps in WWII   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 prisoners of war did not survive. More Australians died in captivity than were killed in combat. Our guest Sarah Kovner will talk about this and why so many suffered. She will talk about the Allied servicemen in Singapore and the Philippines and also the experience of the guards and camp commanders, who were completely unprepared for the task. Sarah contends that 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. Sarah Kovner is Senior Research Scholar at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University. Prisoners of the Empire: Inside Japanese POW Camps by Sarah Kovner UK https://uk.bookshop.org/a/5843/978067... USA https://bookshop.org/a/21029/97806747... You can become a YouTube Member and support us here    / @ww2tv   You can become a Patron here   / ww2tv   Please click subscribe for updates Social Media links -   / ww2tv     / ww2tv     / ww2tv   WW2TV Bookshop - where you can purchase copies of books featured in my YouTube shows. Any book listed here comes with the personal recommendation of Paul Woodadge, the host of WW2TV. For full disclosure, if you do buy a book through a link from this page WW2TV will earn a commission. UK - https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/WW2TV USA - https://bookshop.org/shop/WW2TV