Hard labor was the rule, he said. The 4,300-plus POWs imprisoned in Taiwan worked in a copper mine, removed stones from a valley to make way for sugar cane, or dug a man-made lake.Allied soldiers just released from a prison camp in Japan after the end of World War II in 1945.“It was so hot that temperatures were well over 40 degrees most of the time in some of the places, and other holes were very cold and the men got diphtheria and died,” Hurst said.
According to the National World War II Museum, 40 percent of the American military personnel held in Japanese camps died, compared to 1.2 percent in Europe.“The men told me: ‘It’s easy to die; living day-to-day was the hard part,’” Hurst said. “Some men went into the sick hut and gave up. They would die in their sleep. They just had enough, lost the will to live.”Michael Hurst, far left, with former POWs revisiting the Kinkeseki copper mine camp in Taiwan.
Curtis Brook, far right, with his family in Las Vegas. Many years after his internment in a Japanese camp in the Philippines, he still remembers the suffering, including losing both of his parents there and becoming an orphan.“You woke up hungry, you spent all day hungry, you went to bed hungry,” Brooks said. Those who were sick received no treatment, he said, adding, “Those who tried to escape were executed.
Fourteen American airmen who’d been taken prisoner after their planes went down as they bombed Japanese bases in Taiwan were executed in the last days of the war. One was in his teens. When the men tried to tell their families, their loved ones could not believe the horror stories they told them. Some former soldiers ended up in mental institutions, and some died by suicide, Hurst said. For others, the trauma ruined their marriages.“They were the heroes of our lifetime,” Hurst said.In Taiwan, Hurst’s POW Camps Memorial Society plans to hold a memorial ceremony on Saturday.
Fighting against the very ideology that presently sit in the WH today. We have lost our integrity and have flush the countries principles down the toilet all the while Trump wipes his ass with the constitution. My grand father was in Iwo Jima and he wouldn't happy with us.
My dad, Navy, survived. He was in Nagasaki six weeks after the bomb dropped- he shared few of the horrors- but always suffered from what he had experienced - I think he came home at 20 he lived to 93. PTSD haunted him- but he was still pretty cool
Everything worked out. Don't let it happen again.
My mom's uncle served then. Their ship was off shore & each night the captured prisoners screamed as they were tortured.
Because, Gen Patton stole the show?
MSNBC giving federal troops props? Gotta be a first!
It’s worse than ever predicted. Thank you GOP. Useless assholes
To Never Be Concerned About Testing Positive , Blood Purifiering Herbs!!
World should never go in this direction ever. Peace!
I'm sorry to tell you ,they not only forgotten it, they threw it away!
Seems like people are forgetting a lot of things right now
I don’t think anyone thought the US would be the first to win the Pacific War.
A lot of folks running for political office seem to be forgetting
Ironic that 75 years later America, the victor and leader of democracy is fighting a demagogue of it's own hiding in it's White House bunker.
Are you watching 'The War' on PBS?
Victory over Japan!
I think you mean to say, “The day of ALLIED victory...”
People now are brown-nosing themselves, and I doubt if they care about anything before they were born. They probably think they're responsible for all the good things in the world. But kudos to the ones who fought for us. I'm sorry they fought for us turn out like we did.
...and what about 9-11?
Like your y’all care! Trump 2020!!!
Trump's old man was a draft dodger too
So we go out and buy toyoda's (oops that is now toyota named after the three star jap admiral).
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