Throughout the Second World War, there were a number of concentration camps and prison
camps in which inmates were treated terribly.
Some of the worst horrors of the conflict took place in The Pacific, with the Japanese
being guilty of some horrific war crimes.
They were known for their brutality, especially with regards to their treatment of POWs, and
many were ordered on huge and savage marches and were kept in terrible conditions.
Many American and Allied prisoners of war would succumb to the way they were treated,
and still today many of these incidents of poor treatment remain untold.
But there was one incident which was completely horrific which was relayed to the Allied headquarters
towards the end of the war, but what is the story of the execution of the Americans that
were burned alive by the Japanese?
Join us today as we find out and to support our channel, please make sure to subscribe.
General Douglas MacArthur’s Allied headquarters in January 1945 were informed of a horrific
incident that occurred on Palawan the westernmost island in the Philippines area.
Following the fall of the Philippines in 1942, American prisoners of war were imprisoned
inside horrific camps in manilla.
Many of them were overcrowded, and disease was rife but as time went on the Japanese
utilised these prisoners of war as a work force, and they were forced to conduct slave
labour.
The Japanese it’s believed were responsible for up to 14 million civilians during the
conflict, but in August 1942, they sent over 300 Americans who had been captured from Manila
to Palawan in a camp which was known as Camp 10-A. They had been sent to build an airfield
at Puerto Princesa which could be used to land military aircraft.
The conditions of this camp were terrible, and prisoners were housed inside of old buildings
used by the Filipino police, but if someone dared to try and escape executions were ordered
straight away.
The prisoners were beaten brutally and diseases were rife, and there was no medical care for
the inmates.
But the Prisoners would at times late in the war get Red Cross packages, but the Japanese
took all of the medical supplies from this meaning that inmates often succumbed to injuries
that they suffered.
The Americans were forced to wear little clothing, in the boiling heat and they walked bare footed
and were forced to conduct incredibly hard labour with terrible equipment.
They had poor tools and they cut trees and cleared the area for the airstrip, and made
a huge place for the planes to land.
The work was made harder as the Japanese then ordered the inmates to work quicker, and they
drove the prisoners to conduct more work in excruciating conditions.
One prisoner said, ‘You worked or you were beaten, if not then you were beaten to death.’
But work on the airfield continued, and half of the workforce were sent back to Manila
as it was nearly done, but then in October 1944, the Allies returned to retake the Philippines.
The forces landed on Leyte, and took control of the beachhead and they rampaged inland
and allied air attacks helped the advances.
One former allied soldier stated of the instructions they were given that, ‘“Whether they are
destroyed individually or in groups or however it is done, with mass bombing, poisonous smoke,
poisons, drowning, decapitation, or what, dispose of them as the situation dictates.”
The guidance was “to annihilate them all, and not to leave any traces,” the last part
an apparent acknowledgement that the directive being issued was a flagrant violation of internationally
recognized conventions on the treatment of POWs and non-combatants.’
The Allied aircraft were causing chaos sinking a number of ships and hitting bombing targets
on the island, and they targeted the airfield that had been built, with the American POWs
then forced to rebuild it and repair it each day, under threat of further bombs raining
down.
But the Americans learned that the Japanese were treating prisoners of war poorly on the
Philippines, and the Japanese commander in chief was told he would be held responsible
for the treatment of these prisoners of war.
The Allies then dropped leaflets reinforcing this to the Japanese people, and they said
that at the end of the war executions and actions would be taken against war criminals.
But then with the threat of an Allied convoy heading towards the airfield,a Leftenant General
told the 131st Airfield Battalion and the Palawan garrison that the 150 American prisoners
of war based at the airfield still were to be executed and killed.
The soldiers to carry out the job were given 30 rounds of ammo to perform the job.
But on the 14th December 1944, the Japanese soldiers ordered the Americans to stop working.
The Americans were taken to one part of the runway, and a leftenant said, ‘Americans
your working days are over,’ and after this they were forced onto trucks which took them
back to camp 10A.
But then when they got back, the air raid siren was sounded, and two American aircraft
were spotted.
They were moving away from the camp, but then the alarm sounded again and the Japanese screamed
‘There are hundreds of planes, run!’
Following this false alarm, the Japanese ushered the Americans into three air raid bunkers
that had been constructed.
These held around 50 men and there was also a long trench there.
One man a Navy signalman refused to get in the shelter, and he was then smashed in the
head with a sword.
The Americans would stay in the air raid shelter until the allied aircraft left, however they
were held in the bunkers for over an hour.
Guards would hit any prisoner who tried to look outside, or they were stabbed with bayonets
and swords.
But then it was said that ‘Captain Kojima appeared and said it was necessary to kill
the prisoners.
The Japanese soldiers then fixed bayonets and loaded ammunition, and then the Japanese
soldiers were ordered with rifles and machine guns to kill anyone who came out the shelter.’
But what happened next was barbaric.
5 Japanese soldiers climbed on top of the first shelter and covered the tunnel with
highly flammable aircraft fuel, and then two men threw torches in igniting the fuel and
causing a huge blazing inferno.
The inmates inside panicked and tried to break free, but then a machine gun opened on those
who tried to escape.
A small bunker with four officers in was also torched, and one man ran through the flames
on fire, and he begged the Japanese to cease their actions, but he was then executed.
Then the second shelter was set on fire, and screams from the prisoners were heard as the
soldiers fired their machine guns again.
Soldiers also threw their grenades into shelters which exploded, but then 30 Americans in the
third shelter managed to try and dig themselves out.
They managed to escape the shelter, and they slid down the cliff face and onto the beach.
Others made a break through the barbed wire, but the Japanese spotted these escapees and
they tried to find them.
Some on the rocks were shot dead, and others were bayonetted and were left to die.
There were some wounded who were then buried alive and some guards doused these in fuel
and set them on fire, and a number tried to swim away but were shot dead.
The search for the American POWs only stopped for dinner, and then the Japanese celebrated
their brutality that night.
The bodies were dumped in trenches and were set on fire, and they tried to make out as
if Allied planes had hit the prisoners.
It was believed they had killed all but one of the POWs.
But this was just one war crime committed by the Japanese, and the American prisoners
who were burned alive and massacred were considered forgotten victims of the Second World War.
Their story is one which deserves to be well known, and it shows the cruelty of the Japanese
during the deadliest conflict in History.
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