WWII quiz thread

[Lancer44]

During second phase of the Guadalcanal battle, commander of the 1-st US Marine Division, Major-General Alexander Vandergrift issued verbal instruction about guarding Japanese POWs.

Please describe this instruction.

Cheers,

Lancer44

P.S.

Vandergrift is my hero... Exceptional commander.

[Lancer44]

Really no one ever heard or read???

Do you want me to answer?

Lancer44

[Jim O]

Originally Posted by Lancer44

Really no one ever heard or read???

Do you want me to answer?

Lancer44

I could not find the answer though I have now learned a lot about General Alexander Vandergrift. Maybe give it 24 hours more and then give us the answer, unless someone else objects.

[Lancer44]

OK.

Vandergrift issued instruction that "Any marine which will take Japanese POW will have an obligation to guard him personally 24 hours a day."

Source-"The Tiger is Dead" The Tiger is Dead

I'll ask next question:

After capitulation of Japan, Allied forces toook thousands od POWs. In revange for horrible Japanese atrocities with Allied POW's, Australians tricked Japanese into signing agreement which effectively enabled them to starve many Japanese.

What was this tricky point in capitulation documents?
Where was the greatest concentration of Japanese troops and later POWs camps in responsibility of Australian Forces, where starvation or near starvation occured in 1945 and 1946?


Disclaimer: I do not judge, if this tricky policy was right or wrong. Question is just about facts. If further discussion will develop Moderator may decide to make it separate topic.


Cheers,

Lancer44

[Jim O]

Australian troops liberated and disarmed a fair bit of the South Pacific shortly after the armisitice. Prior to that there were several POW camps in Australia proper.

In terms of occupation forces, this was a subject of some disagreement but eventually Australia became head of Commonwealth occupation forces. Initially they had responsibility for Hiroshima area, but later that was expanded somewhat.

OK, that was the easy part. I cannot find the answer to the actual question. Still looking though.

[Lancer44]

Australian War Memorial - AJRP

The Australia–Japan Research Project From a hostile shore: Australia and Japan at war in New Guinea. The printed version of this book was distributed to institutions, libraries and related academics in Australia and Japan as part of the project's activities during the 2003–04 contract period.

Go to Chapter 7 "Japanese forces in post-surrender Rabaul".

Very interesting are interviews with Australian veterans either about post-war treatment of POWs and attitude towards Japanese during the war.

Australian War Memorial - AJRP



Colonel Stan Sly, 55th/53rd Battalion AMF:

"Oh yes, this was after defeat, yes. And then they would march onto the parade ground and dismiss. They'd all carry their billies and in that area of course, the snails...we had colossal snails, bigger than your hand and one man's duty was to collect the snails, he had a bucket and he would run around and fill that bucket with these snails and pour them in a heap, finished up with a heap of snails about three to...oh, three foot six high and every time he passed the heap he would kick them back into the centre, so at the end of the day every 'Jap' soldier would fill his billy with snails to take home, that was the change in their diet, they'd eat them...Dear! Oh, Dear! But no, they were very...Oh very humble in defeat... "


Captain Donald Simonson, 25th Battalion AMF:

"...we were one of two battalions in Rabaul with the responsibility of caring for the Japanese as they were concentrated there from all the islands around the area before being transported back to Japan in liberty ships. We had, I would have thought at about 120,000 of these Japanese brought in from Bougainville, from various other islands, from Rabaul itself where there was quite a large garrison and they were organised into camps of 20,000 each and told to look after themselves and were guarded by us until the necessary liberty ships came down to collect them and put them back into Japan. But that was the last of my exercises, that of being in Rabaul for, what was it, five months I think it was.

Were there any troubles?

Um, not - yeah, yeah, they did start to get troubles when the - because we gave these Japanese sectors of land outside their camp area in which they were responsible for growing vegetables to maintain their own food requirements. We were not giving them any food at all. They had to bring their rations or the rations were procured from their own supplies in Rabaul itself and anything more they want they had to grow in their own gardens.

Well in retrospect was that unduly harsh or were there ...

No, no, I'm not thinking that's unduly harsh at all but I was getting round to the story that once the natives knew that the war had finished, they immediately thought, well they're entitled to go back to their own villages and start their gardens. So we sometimes had the problem of having given the land to Japanese to start the gardens and the natives come back to the same spot of ground to start a garden too, that there was a deal of problem and there were the occasions where this did occur but ...

Conflict and blows, fines ...

Oh yeah, shovels, shovels. I don't think - Oh yeah it was pretty serious - but luckily the liberty ships to move them back to Japan came in much quicker than was really expected and where this operation, at one time they thought was going to take a year really only took about four months. So they were got back to Japan pretty quickly and all I can say really for the Japanese, as much as I hated them, they did prove themselves in that exercise as being a very well organised, well disciplined and administratively perfect operation as far as the camp that I was given the responsibility of looking after."


From them legal point of view Japanese were not POWs but Disarmed Enemy Forces. Australians had no obligations to feed them. For Japanese commanders signing "surrender" and becoming DEF was less humiliating than becoming POWs. Little surprise when they learned about "self-sufficiency"…

Lancer44