Humiliation as a POW
Heroes Remember
Humiliation as a POW
The battle itself was bad enough but I think what was
so harmful to the psychology of the survivors was the long,
brutal humiliation of nearly four years in prison camp
where we were treated worse than animals,
where we were systematically starved,
used as slave labor, told our country was going to be defeated,
and that we were lucky to be alive at all removed
any hope that we would ever survive the experience
that we were going through - placed in mines where most men
weren't fit to work at anything, let alone mining.
The Japanese treatment of their prisoners was quite unbelievable.
There was almost no medical supplies.
People died of things like diphtheria because
the Japanese refused to give us any serum.
After you've been treated like that for that length of time,
it takes a long time to adjust to the idea that you're free
and that you are not going to... you see, at any moment,
you could do something that would lead to a beating
or some action that would lead to your death.
They had the right and they did, they killed anybody
in the prison camps that they felt like killing.
We had no rights whatever.
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