The Law of War

Commonwealth, and Dominions, 28,500 from the Netherlands, and 14,473 from the
United States were released after the surrender of Japan, the number for the Chinese
was only 56. The 27,465 United States Army and United States Army Air Forces POWs
in the Pacific Theater had a 40.4% death rate. The War Ministry in Tokyo issued an
order at the end of the war to kill all surviving POWs.
No direct access to the POWs was provided to the International Red Cross. Escapes
among Caucasian prisoners were almost impossible because of the difficulty of men of
Caucasian descent hiding in Asiatic societies.
Allied POW camps and ship-transports were sometimes accidental targets of Allied
attacks. The number of deaths which occurred when Japanese "hell ships"—unmarked
transport ships in which POWs were transported in harsh conditions—were attacked by
US Navy submarines was particularly high. Gavan Daws has calculated that "of all
POWs who died in the Pacific War, one in three was killed on the water by friendly fire".
Daves states that 10,800 of the 50,000 POWs shipped by the Japanese were killed at
sea while Donald L. Miller states that "approximately 21,000 Allied POWs died at sea,
about 19,000 of them killed by friendly fire."
Life in the POW camps was recorded at great risk to themselves by artists such as Jack
Bridger Chalker, Philip Meninsky, Ashley George Old, and Ronald Searle. Human hair
was often used for brushes, plant juices and blood for paint, and toilet paper as the
"canvas". Some of their works were used as evidence in the trials of Japanese war
criminals.
Page 97 of 265