Captured: The Japanese Internment of American Civilians in the Philippines, 1941-1945

382 Pages·2000·20.78 MB·English

by  Frances B. Cogan

captured
The Japanese Internment of American
Civilians in the Philippines, 1941-1945
FRANCES B. COGAN
More than five thousand American civilian
men, women, and children living in the
Philippines during World War II were
confined to internment camps following
Japan's late-December 1941 victories in
Manila. Captured tells the story of daily life
in five different camps—the crowded hous-
ing, mounting familial and international
tensions, heavy labor, and increasingly
severe malnourishment that made the
internees' rescue a race with starvation.
Frances B. Cogan explores the events behind
this nearly four-year captivity, explaining
how and why this little-known internment
occurred. A thorough historical account, the
book addresses several controversial issues
about the internment, including Japanese
intentions toward their prisoners and the
U.S. State Department's role in allowing
the presence of American civilians in the
Philippines during wartime.
Supported by diaries, memoirs, war crimes
transcripts, Japanese soldiers' accounts,
medical data, and many other sources.
Captured presents a detailed and moving
chronicle of the internees' efforts to
survive. Cogan compares living conditions
within the internment camps with life in
POW camps and with the living conditions
of Japanese soldiers late in the war. An
afterword discusses the experiences of
internment survivors after the war, com-
bining medical and legal statistics with
personal anecdotes to create a testament
to the thousands of Americans whose
captivity haunted them long after the
war ended.
FRANCES B. CO6AN is a professor
of literature in the Honors College at the
University of Oregon, Eugene. She is the
author of Ail-American Girl: The Ideal of
Real Womanhood in Mid-Nineteenth-Century
America (Georgia).
Captured
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The Japanese Internment
of American Civilians
in the Philippines,
1941-1945
Captured
FRANCES B. COGAN
The University of Georgia Press Athens and London
©2000 by the University of Georgia Press
Athens, Georgia 30602
All rights reserved
Designed by Kathi Dailey Morgan
Set in 10 on 13 Electra by G&S Typesetters
Printed and bound by Maple-Vail
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for
permanence and durability of the Committee on
Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the
Council on Library Resources.
Printed in the United States of America
04 03 02 01 00 C 5 4 3 2
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Cogan, Frances B.
Captured: the Japanese internment of American civilians
in the Philippines, 1941–1945 / Frances B. Cogan
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8203-2117-6 (alk. paper)
1. World War, 1939–1945—Prisoners and prisons, Japanese.
2. World War, 1939–1945—Concentration camps —Philippines.
3. Prisoners of War —United States —History —20thcentury.
I. Title.
D805.P6C63 1999
940.54'7252'09599 —dc21 99-30959
CIP
British Library Cataloging in Publication Date available
ISBN for this digital edition: 978-0-8203-4352-5
Dedicated to
My husband, Daniel}. Cogan
and
My daughter, Elizabeth B. Cogan
One purchased my academic freedom for six months and listened to every rewrite
The other pulled books from shelves and listened even to notecards
Both made finishing this book possible
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction J
1. Pearl of the Orient: Manila and the Prewar Philippines 9
2. First Dark Days 33
3. Meanwhile, on Several Islands Not Far Away 63
4. Inside the Gate: The Nature of the Japanese Administration
of the Civilian Internment Camps 108
5. The Japanese Soldiers Ration: Food and Health in Civilian
Internment Camps 147
6. Hunger Time: April 1943-February 1945 111
1. A Roof over Their Heads: Shelter in Civilian Internment Camps 207
8. Idle Hands Are the Devil s Playground: Work in the Camps 225
9. Angels and Tanks: Rescue Comes 260
Epilogue 311
Appendix 319
A Note on Sources 32]
Notes 333
Bibliography 337
Index 347