Controversies of prisoners of war

The book “Unbroken” was a seemingly impossible tale of triumph and survival of an Olympic runner and WWII veteran named Louis Zamperini. He constantly had to overcome adversity in his early years, for he was an immigrant from Italy and a trouble maker before his brother Pete steered him into running track. This immediately turned him around as he did well enough to in running to break all sorts if local records, which were accomplished while his competitors were trying to sabotage his runs. This qualified him for the 1936 Olympic in Berlin, where he met Hitler. He still had running aspirations but felt he had no choice other than fighting in the world due to the fact that the 1940 Olympics were cancelled. So he joined the Air Crops and while flying in plane suspected to break down, he crashed in the sea with two other friends and was stranded there for over 47 days. Louis overcomes great adversity again when Japanese air assaults targeted them and they jumped in the water to get cover while fighting off hungry sharks. After the planes retreated Louis and his friends took turns swatting the sharks trying to jump at them while the other kept the boat afloat by blowing like a mad man. After they were successful in doing this, they saw land but were intercepted by a Japanese boat that took them to the notorious POW camp known as Naoetsu. This is where the infamous prison guard called “The Bird” decided that he was going to do everything to break down Louis’ spirit. This was done by intense interrogations, kicking & beatings, and forced demeaning acts. Even in these conditions Louis didn’t fully submit by not telling the Japanese entirely everything while being interrogated. As the war ended, most of the prisoners who were not killed were released but the brutal guards including the bird were granted amnesty on the basis that America wanted to have positive relations with Japan. After Louis found out that the Bird was free he didn’t have any bad feelings about it, he simply continued to flourish in his life by continuing to exercise and just recently running the Olympic torch in his hand in, of all places, Japan. How I chose to write about the POW camps was because of the prevalence and relevance it had through and with the book, Louis’ life. The reason why I chose about the POW camps and the affects it had on Louis was because throughout reading the book, it is evident that those camps made Louis into the person that he is today and brought the drive to survive out of him. I say this because it is amazing that for someone who’s been through so much negativity of the Bird and the POW camps can expel that negativity and turn it into positivity through his forgiveness, which allowed him to have no persisting angered feelings. For he knows that God will judge and that holding on to the anger will only continue to cause him pain. I feel that a person can only truly realize this after someone brings tremendous negativity upon you him or her and it doesn’t break that person. So, Louis came to this realization because of the Bird and the POW camps both of which he forgave, thus completing his mental, spiritual, and psychological journey and healing process that defines him as the human being he is today. Louis would not be as complete of a person if he had not gone through those camps and ended in forgiveness and overall dignity. I believe that is the underlying theme or message of the book, which is why I chose the POW camps as my research topic. Louie being a prisoner of war definitely took a lot out of him physically, but there was much more than just physical affects. Everyone who experienced being a Prisoner of War were followed by physical, psychological and spiritual affects, and also affects that made them feel less than a person. Louie’s journey was no different. The physical affects were terrible, Louie had little food and water so he lost an extreme amount of weight. This was compounded with beating with first and kicks. The prison guards didn’t care, they made the POW’s work long, free labor hours. There were no medicines to treat any sick or injured so, if you were hurt you would most likely end up dead. All this horrible treatment truly affected Louie psychological as well. During the imprisonment he managed to stay strong mentally by not going crazy enough to kill himself and also by staying sane enough to be strategically incompliant in the interrogation rooms to let the interrogators feel satisfied while not relinquishing U.S. security. This psychological strength didn’t last long after Louie got out of the prison camps though, for he had constant reminding of “The Bird” and the evils that happened to him by daydreams and nightmares. This is commonly known as post-traumatic stress disorder. After he found out bird was still alive, Louie tried to forget and put the past behind him but the feeling of anxiety was just too great. Louie called for a meeting with the Bird to no avail. Although there were almost overwhelming negative effects, there were very positive outcomes for Louie as a result of his POW experience. For example, Louie didn’t just keep all the negativity inside of him, he let it got. He did this by acquainting himself with god more through the use of adopting Christianity and praying nightly. This was the most important thing that happened to Louie because it gave him a new outlook on his life which was to forgive and let go, without this there was no telling how the later years of his life would be. Overall Louie was not negatively affected by the POW situation, sure there were negative things that happened to him but if anything it made him a better person. This is all apparent by one of quotes. “The one who forgives never brings up the past to that persons face. When you forgive, it’s like it never happened. True forgiveness is complete and total.” Although there was extreme scandal in by the Japanese in the POW camps, the U.S. sort of pardoned those crimes post war. Due to the Cold Car intensifying, President Harry S. Truman felt as though Japan needed to be an American ally and a defense against the spread of communism. He believed that these goals would be extremely difficult or impossible if Japan would be continually subjected to the prosecution of suspected criminals. For this reason, the United States ceased in furthering war crime prosecutions. According to “Pacificwar.org”, ”immediately after the death sentences had been carried out on seven “Class A” war criminals in December 1948, General MacArthur released a large number of the remaining “Class A” suspects from detention.” A lot of evil people were freed when prisons for Japanese war criminals were opened, such as Sugamo. Many of the people released ended up holding great political statuses and their reputations were not even harmed. In fact, the Japanese who performed biological experiments on live prisoners of war escaped prosecution because General Macarthur wanted their advanced research in the biological and chemical field. Even as America knew, MacArthur gave immunity from prosecution to the military commander and staff of the biological unit in return for their research. Some even were able to get research appointments at prestigious Japanese universities. A peace treaty with Japan destroyed the right for any POW survivor to receive money/compensation from Japan. Truman granted complete amnesty to all Japanese war criminals who were not already serving time. It is said by the US justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations that at least several thousand Japanese war criminals essentially escaped proper justice when the U.S. halted the Prosecutions in 1949. So, America just turned a blind eye to Japan’s atrocities Louie felt very betrayed when no compensation was give and especially when he found out that American didn’t give amnesty to the suspected criminals by proper trails or because it was the right thing to do, but because of U.S. interest being that they needed allies for the cold war. There were crazy Japanese military units that conducted experiments on civilians and POWs in China. Most infamous of them was Unit 731.Victims there were subjected to vivisection without anesthesia and amputated, according to “Crimes and Misdemeanors” Anesthesia was not used because it was thought to compromise results. With some victims, they got animal blood was injected into their bodies. In “Japanese biological warfare experiments and other atrocities in Manchuria, 1932-1945, and the subsequent United States cover up: a preliminary assessment. “So they could find out how to treat frostbite, prisoners were taken outside in freezing cold temperatures with exposed arms, which were drenched with water until frozen solid. They later amputated the arm. Next, doctor would repeat the process on the victim’s upper arm and shoulder. When both of the arms were gone, they would then move on to the legs so that only the head and torso remained. Plague and pathogen experiments were also used on the prisoners. According to “Unit 731: Did Emperor Hirohito Know”, these events that were caused by the Unit 731, caused 3,000 deaths. In addition, approximately as many as 200,000, Chinese died by the bubonic plague, cholera, anthrax and other diseases, resulting from the use of biological warfare which was also used on American POW’s. The most infamous cases of human experimenting occurred when nine out of twelve crew members survived a crash of a U.S. Army Air Force b-29 bomber, on May 5, 1945. The bomber’s commander was sent to Tokyo for interrogation, but the other survivors were taken to the anatomy department of Kyushu University, a Fukuoka, where they were subjected to vivisection, some were killed. On March 11, 1948, 30 Japanese including some doctors were brought to trial by the Allied war crimes tribunal. Twenty-three people were found guilty. In 1950, the military governor of Japan, General Douglass MacArthur, commuted all of the death sentences while he reduced the other terms very significantly.