The Deranged Punishments Within Japanese POW Camps as Told Through the Perspective of Both the Survivors and Perpetrators (Collection 331)

The Deranged Punishments Within Japanese POW Camps as Told Through the Perspective of Both the Survivors and Perpetrators (Collection 331)

According to Harold Stone Kirk the punishments within POW camps were as nonsensical as they were sadistically creative. A favorite punishment included forcing the prisoners to kick off their shoes and run around a group of kitchen buildings. Snow was on the ground the punishment occurred almost exclusively between the hours of two and three in the morning and the prisoners often dropped from exhaustion. This punishment was not for any infraction but rather for the enjoyment of a certain Japanese mess sergeant whenever he got drunk. These meaningless punishments merely for the pleasure of the perpetrators seem to be a major underlying theme throughout survivor descriptions of their imprisonment. Another imprisoned soldier, Michael J. Peraino recalls American soldiers were forced to kneel on bamboo slats for hours at a time in the hot sun. Many of the soldiers passed out and were revived only for treatment to continue. Another POW recalls that one guard known as The Wolf was responsible for the death of many POWs due to withholding food from the prisoners. Although most of POW testimony references the same major Prisoner of War camps the accounts vary even within the same camp from tolerable stays to relentless torture for the duration of their capture.

The recollection of the perpetrators mirrors the testimony of survivors through vivid descriptions of the brutal, yet absurd punishments inflicted upon the prisoners of war. The allocation of responsibility to individual soldiers led to great variety in the severity and manner of treatment of POWs. A chilling statement by Deguchi Motoki regarding the behavior of one of his subordinates “He punished them as he saw best” encapsulates the cause of the great disparities between individual guard treatment of the imprisoned.

The insanity and creativity of the punishments within POW camps served two purposes. The first purpose was to dehumanize the imprisoned in any way possible. The crimes committed push the limits of human imagination through both their cruelty and odd nature. Additionally, the lunacy of the torture benefited the Japanese soldiers by making the act of punishment enjoyable for the perpetrators by inviting torture, rape, and murder to be treated as a sick game rather than war crimes.

Files referenced

rg331_box1076_Ducklegs.pdf

rg331-box1079-Fish-face.pdf

rg331_box1076_kempeitai.pdf