During the Second World War, hundreds of thousands of allied prisoners of war captured by the Japanese army suffered cruel slavery and inhuman abuse in the Pacific battlefield. Among them, the prisoner abuse atrocities such as Bataan Death March and Thailand-Myanmar Death Railway are generally regarded as the three major atrocities committed by the Japanese army in Asia after the war, and were judged by the Far East International Military Tribunal to be the same as the Nanjing Massacre. However, among the hundreds of Japanese prisoner-of-war camps set up in the local and occupied areas, the Japanese Fengtian allied prisoner-of-war camp, which is characterized by strong professionalism, high mortality and detention of senior generals, is little known.
At the beginning of the Pacific War, the Japanese captured about 350,000 allied prisoners of war. In order to make full use of the human resources of prisoners of war to support the war of aggression, the Japanese army threw out the wartime strategy of supporting the war with war. Tojo hideki, then Japanese Prime Minister and Minister of the Army, once admitted that in Japan, we have our own ideas about prisoners of war, so the treatment is naturally somewhat different from that in Europe and America; We should make full use of their labor force and technology to increase the production of our country and strive to make it contribute to the implementation of the Great East Asian War without wasting any manpower. 1On August 22nd, 942, Heitaro Kimura, deputy provincial official of the Japanese army, wrote to Yukio Hara, chief of staff of the Kwantung Army, pointing out that 1500 allied prisoners of war would be assembled to improve the machine tool manufacturing capacity of Manchukuo Work Co., Ltd. in order to meet the need of Japan to step up the production of anti-aircraft guns, munitions and aircraft.
1942165438+1October1,the first batch of allied prisoners of war arrived in Shenyang, including American prisoners of war 1328, British prisoners of war 84 and Australian prisoners of war1. According to the inspection report of the International Red Cross, as of June1943165438+10/3, there were 1274 prisoners of war in the Fengtian Allied Prisoner of War Concentration Camp, ranging from 7 years old to 2 13.
Prisoners of war include air force ground crew and mechanical maintenance personnel, while other services have mechanical maintenance personnel.
When the prisoners of war first arrived, their first stop was an abandoned old China military camp in the Beidaying area of Fengtian. This house has been unoccupied for a long time, and it is very shabby. The prison camp is surrounded by two barbed wires, about 1. 5 meters, the middle zone between two barbed wire fences, about two meters wide, is designated as no man's land. Anyone who enters this area without permission will be killed.
All prisoners of war who arrived in Shenyang had military technical background, including air force ground crew and mechanics, as well as other service mechanics. These technical backgrounds became an important reason why they chose to go to Shenyang. Prisoners of war were sent to Japanese factories to work as laborers, engaged in machine tool installation, machining and parts forging. Some people are sent to the design room of the factory to draw drawings. Some prisoners of war were sent to Fengtian Allied Prisoner of War Concentration Camp according to the labor categories such as steelmaking, ironmaking and civil engineering, which were set up in the first, second and third dispatching stations of Manchuria Leather Co., Ltd., Manchuria Canvas Co., Ltd., Zhongshan Iron and Steel Industry Research Institute and Toyo Timber Co., Ltd., and 772,465,438+0 prisoners of war worked in Japanese factories during their detention.
Due to the distortion of Japanese prisoners of war, allied prisoners of war suffered cruel abuse here. Oliver Allen, a surviving American prisoner of war, said that in the Fengtian prison camp, getting up, roll call and breakfast are all at 6 am. This unreasonable schedule requires prisoners of war to abide by it, and it also provides many opportunities for Japanese guards to punish prisoners of war. The forms of punishment include not only prohibiting breakfast, but also being punished, beaten or even confined in the snow, all of which depend on the personal mood of the Japanese guards on duty. Even prisoners of war will be beaten by Japanese guards for no reason, whether soldiers or generals, old people or young people.
The management of Japanese prisoners of war is strict, and a series of punishment systems such as heavy camp and heavy police have been set up. corresponding
1On July 29th, 943, the Japanese army built a highly specialized permanent prison camp in the north of No.38, Section 1 of Qi Min Street, Dadong District, Fengtian, less than one kilometer east of the factory where prisoners of war worked. Prisoners of war were transferred here from Peking University prison camp. There are two Michael walls around the prison camp, with high-voltage power grids on the walls and watchtowers at the four corners of the walls, which are heavily guarded.
The death rate is 13% of that of German prison camps on the European battlefield. three times
The Fengtian Allied POW Camp was once a Japanese propaganda model POW camp. Japanese propaganda agencies often come to interview, take photos or make movies to publicize how comfortable the life of prisoners of war is. But the real life of prisoners of war is the torture of hard labor, hunger, cold and disease, coupled with lack of medical care and inhuman abuse, which is always shrouded in the shadow of death.
Take American prisoners of war as an example. After they were captured on the battlefield in the Philippines, they experienced the cruel Bataan death March and the arduous sea trek of the hell ship, and their physical condition was extremely poor. After arriving in Shenyang, a large number of prisoners of war died in concentration. Only from 1942 to 1943, 225 allied prisoners of war died. Juno, the representative of the International Red Cross in Tokyo, confirmed after visiting the Shenyang prison camp that they could not spend the cold winter better even wearing shirts and shorts. Many people died of pneumonia and recurrent malaria.
1February 9, 944, Thomas water cannon, an American prisoner of war with number 898, was squeezed between an electric car and a factory post while working in Manchuria Work Machinery Co., Ltd., and his right leg was seriously injured. 2 1 gangrene began to appear. Due to the lack of doctors and medicines in prison camp hospitals, there are even no basic surgical instruments and operating rooms. On the 23rd, blisters died of gas gangrene.
Such a bad environment forced prisoners to risk their lives to escape from prison. 65438+June 2 1, 0943, American prisoners of war Meilinlad, Parioti and Chastain escaped from prison at night and fled to the Sino-Soviet border about 950 kilometers northwest of Shenyang. Finally, Erzi Village, Kezuohouqi, Inner Mongolia, was captured again and escorted back to Fengtian. They were shot by the Japanese at 5: 30 am on July 3 1943. Afterwards, Japan informed the United States by diplomatic note through the Swiss Embassy, and it took a year for this information to be known by the US government. 1944 August 12, The New York Times reported the news, saying that it was at this time that the US government first learned that Shenyang was holding American prisoners of war.
The location of the prison camp violates the Neva Convention of Japanese adventurer, which stipulates that the prison camp should not be set within 2 miles and kilometers from military targets and less than 1 kilometer from several Japanese factories around. Once these military targets are attacked, it is easy to be implicated in prison camps. 1944 12.7, American B29 bombers bombed Shenyang city on a large scale, and the arsenals and military targets around the prison camp were hit. During this period, three bombs were mistakenly blown into the prison camp, killing 19 allied prisoners of war and injuring 35 others.
During the 34-month detention from 1942+0 1 to 1945, the atrocities committed by the Japanese army in the allied power camp in Fengtian never stopped. Long-term abuse and extremely bad living conditions have caused such a high mortality rate, which is 13% of the mortality rate of allied prisoners of war in German prison camps on the European battlefield. Three times, it was a complete death camp.
There are 72 prisoners of war with the rank of brigadier general or above and 476 field-level officers.
1944, the Japanese army gradually lost power in the Pacific battlefield, so it transferred the allied senior prisoners of war from Taiwan Province province to Shenyang prison camp. The Japanese action was not a purely military action, but a desperate attempt to take senior allied prisoners of war as hostages in Manchuria.
10 June 14, the first branch of Fengtian Prisoner's Shelter opened in Zhengjiatun, Jilin. Among the detained senior allied generals, 72 were brigadier general or above and 476 were field officers. On June 5438+February 1 day of the same year, the Japanese army once again isolated 16 generals and senior civil servants with the highest rank in various countries and 34 entourage, and secretly transferred them to the second branch of Fengtian Prison in Xi 'an County, including Lieutenant General Wei Neureiter, Major General Edward King and Major General Moore. British Lieutenant General Percival and Lieutenant General Heath; Lieutenant General proudhon, Lieutenant General Barker and Major General Lis of the Netherlands; As well as Commissioner of Indian Red Cross MacRae, Governor Yang of Hong Kong, Governor Thomas of federated malay states States and British Strait Colonies, Governor Smith of British North Borneo, Governor Steinmeier of Dutch East India, Governor Shpits of Sumatra, Justice Michael Alvin of British Strait Colonies and Justice Trudy of federated malay states States. 65438+May 2 1, 1945, all other senior prisoners of war were transferred to the Fengtian Allied POW camp, and the Zhengjiatun POW camp was closed.
At 4: 30 a.m. on August 1945, less than 17 hours before Japan announced its unconditional surrender, the rescue team of Shenyang POW Camp codenamed "Operation Cardinal" in North America departed from Xi 'an Air Force Base in China, and flew over Shenyang at 10: 30 a.m., and rescuers parachuted for rescue, and took over the POW camp on August 20.
At 0: 00 on August 27th, General Huai Neureiter and other senior prisoners of war were rescued back to Shenyang and evacuated to Xi 'an, China on the same day. 1945 On September 2nd, at the Japanese surrender ceremony held on the Tokyo Bay Missouri, General Wainewright and General Pachwald were invited as the signature witnesses of the Japanese surrender book signed by Allied Supreme Commander MacArthur, and he gave these two signatures as souvenirs to the two generals.
Special historical memory has witnessed the historical position of China battlefield from a special angle.
Shenyang Japanese prisoner-of-war camp is a negative legacy written by the life and suffering of allied prisoners of war. The research and reflection on the history of Shenyang allied prisoner-of-war camp aims to warn mankind not to forget history and oppose war.
From 65438 to 0978, the German Nazi concentration camp in Auschwitz, Poland, was listed on the World Cultural Heritage List by UNESCO. In the evaluation report made by the organization on June 6 of the same year, the Auschwitz concentration camp museum is not a museum in the ordinary sense. It provides irrefutable, concrete and practical evidence for the most serious crimes against humanity. With the support of these shocking evidences, it will certainly contribute to the maintenance of world peace.
Shenyang Allied POW Camp also has international influence, and there are more than a dozen countries and regions directly related to it. In recent years, Shenyang Allied Prisoner of War Camp has been paid more and more attention by domestic and foreign academic and press circles. In particular, the Shenyang Allied Prisoner of War Camp witnessed not only the history that humanitarian principles and human nature were trampled on, but also the friendship between Chinese workers and foreign prisoners of war. It carries the special memories of allied prisoners of war and their friendship with the people of old Shenyang. This special historical memory also witnessed the historical position of China battlefield in the Second World War from a special angle.
Today, most of the survivors of the allied prisoner-of-war camp in Shenyang have died, and a few who are alive are dying. In their hearts, including their families and descendants, Shenyang, China is their special spiritual sustenance and spiritual home. That special life experience closely linked them with China. In recent years, some old prisoners of war have returned to Shenyang to tell their descendants about their friendship with China workers, which shows the value of this traditional friendship handed down from generation to generation.