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POW and Civilian Camps throughout Imperial Japan

By Wes Injerd

Manager of Center for Research: Allied POWS under the Japanese

and

Mindy Kotler, Asia Policy Point

June 2, 2019

The tables on hand show that Imperial Japan maintained approximately 775 throughout the Empire: 185 POW camps in Japan and 590 in other areas of Asia, which includes an unknown number of temporary camps/jails.

All the camps used the POWs as slave labor for the war effort in brutal and dangerous conditions. Most of the camps provided slave labor to nearly 60 private Japanese corporations that remain today as well-known multinationals. Many of the camps were managed by the corporate entities that utilized the POW labor.

The “sub-camp” designation refers to dispatch and detached camps, which were primarily for prisoners who were utilized at various company sites or in work projects near the main camps. Attached camps, e.g., infirmaries, are not included in the sub-camp count. The Japanese moved a number of camps, yet kept the same designation, as can be seen in the tables linked below.

What really makes designations complicated is the fact that the Japanese renamed camps and even camp groups, mostly though at the end of the war, as you can see in the tables. VERY hard to determine are the number of camps throughout the Southeast Asian area, as you can especially see in all the camps associated with the Thai-Burma Railway; much more research is badly needed in this vast Southeast Asian field of study. Many of the Pacific island locations were simply temporary jails and holding cells. On-going research is continuing to uncover more camps and casualties.

JAPAN AREA GROUPS – POW CAMPS

Hokkaido: 6 camps, 3 sub-camps, 3 civilian camps (12)

Sendai: 12 camps, 12 civilian camps (24)

Tokyo: 20 camps, 14 sub-camps, 17 civilian camps (51)

Nagoya: 11 camps, 2 civilian camps (13)

Osaka: 22 camps, 6 sub-camps, 9 civilian camps (37)

Hiroshima: 10 camps, 1 sub-camps, 4 civilian camps (15)

Fukuoka: 20 camps, 3 sub-camps, 10 civilian camps (33)

ASIA AREA GROUPS – POW CAMPS

Chosen (Korea): 23 camps, 4 sub-camps (27)

Formosa (Taiwan): 17 camps

Mukden (China): 14 camps

Shanghai (China): 19 camps

Hong Kong (China): 15 camps

Assorted China (mainland, Canton, Hainan): 44 camps

Thailand (incl. Burma): 40 camps, 9 sub-camps (Thai-Burma Railway: approx. 104 work camps)

Malaya (incl. Singapore, French Indochina): 74 camps

Philippine Islands: approx. 86

Java (incl. Borneo, Sumatra, New Guinea): approx. 120 camps

Asst. Pacific islands: approx. 24

TABLES AND CHARTS





All Japan Group Chart & Chronology:



CIVILIAN INTERNEE LOCATIONS

Numbers are slippery when trying to ascertain just exactly how many internee locations/camps there were in the Japanese Empire during WWII. Approximately 130,000 Allied civilians were interned by the Japanese during their occupation. The exact number of internees will never be known as records were often lost, destroyed, or simply not kept.

See this collection of POW statistics to give you an idea:







"Japan soon held some 125,000 civilian prisoners, approximately ten percent of which were in China and Hong Kong. Between 1941 and 1945, Japan held over 13,500 civilian men, women, and children as captives in China and Hong Kong." - Greg Leck,

Nearly 60 Civilian internee camps on were on Japan’s home islands, with over 750 foreign civilians in Japan interned, and over half of this number (389) being forcibly brought to Japan from other Japanese-occupied countries. More than half of all civilians interned who were living in Japan prior to the war were missionaries and nuns.

The largest civilian internee camps were in the Dutch East Indies and the Philippines.

Many of the missionaries, priests, and nuns on remote islands were not interned long and murdered. Among the well-known massacres of clergy are the 1943 Hopevale Massacre in the Philippines and the 1943 Akikaze Massacre near New Ireland.

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