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Burma
Rangoon Central Jail
PoW Treatment
These pages are compiled from KEW File AIR 40/1855
(I) PoW Treatment
In this section treatment covers only the physical comfort of the PoW while in jail. It does not include treatment under interrogation, medical treatment, etc.
In general, treatment varied with the Commandants of the Jail, and subject thereto with the guards. Insofar as work parties were concerned it varied with the units or organisations for which they were working. In the early days PoWs were beaten upon arrival as a matter of policy. All R.A.F. Air Crewe were subject to initial long periods of solitary confinement when they were not allowed to converse, as also were PoWs who were considered to have committed an offence. This also meant that food was less, they had less opportunities for keeping clean and for spending comfortable nights. On the discovery of smuggling, escape or other offences, reprisals were taken against officers and men deemed by the Japanese to be responsible.
These measures included regular beating with sticks, humiliation in front of inferiors, starvation, and reduction in the rations of the camp or particular block. When one escaped, it is estimated that, as result of the reprisals, in all 20 died, as many as 5 sick PoWs dying in one day due to starvation and lack of water.
The treatment of PoWs depended nearly always on the feeling of particular guards or officials. In the case of a Beaufighter crew one member could never please a particular guard and was always beaten and knocked about as he passed and the other members got on with him quite well, for no reason in either case. One states that the attitude in general of the guards was unpleasant and arrogant. Kicking, hitting and beating were indulged in for the most trivial offences and often without the PoW being aware of the incidents or facts leading up to the punishments. The inside guards of the solitary confinement block are reputed to have been the worst. Some of the beatings inflicted by the Burmese using teak sticks.
Neglect of the worst order is exemplified in the report of the treatment of some of the crew of a B.24. Four survivors, USAAF were brought into the Jail in Nov. 1943. These personnel were very badly burned and two survived, but the other two were neglected to such an extent that their faces, ears and hands were covered with maggots. They both died in agony on the 27th Nov.1943. No attention was provided by the Japanese for any of those PoWs and the PoW medical organisation did what it could within its narrow limits. One PoW typified the callous indifference of Japanese authority as follows:-
“Saw X go mad and put in solitary confinement and starved.”
The higher ranking PoW Officers, especially in the early days, were subject to beating, chiefly, it would appear in order to humiliate them, and various incidents, too numerous to narrate, occurred which led to this so-called punishment. One instance in particular occurred when PoWs were asked to collaborate by embarking on a propaganda drive for the Japanese. Those who refused were paraded, this included nearly all from the sick, and then were set upon by Burmese under orders from the Japanese, beginning with the Senior Officer present, until the Commandant
intervened and said he would give them two minutes to change their minds. It was then tacitly agreed by the PoWs that the form should be signed without any real intention of collaborating in fact.
Clothing was seldom provided; occasionally there was a partial issue to those engaged on work parties, but, in the main, PoWs went barefoot and had little or no protection against the weather.
The Japanese throughout were particularly interested in photographs PoWs may have been able to produce of their wives and children, and it has been suggested that the ability to produce such photographs made for better relations and better treatment.
In one or two instances this particularly marked. Often the first questions were enquiring as to whether the PoW had such photographs and if they were available, they would be repeatedly asked for and passed round by the Japanese for inspection and seemingly admiration.
Conditions appear to have improved over the last six months. One PoW states that latterly references to International Law appeared to have some effect. In one instance officers were taken off work for three months. It also resulted in freeing USAAF personnel who had been badly burned and were in solitary confinement. The reason for the improvement in treatment is difficult to account for, but it has been suggested that it was due to the tide of the war in general, and also to the fact that by learning Japanese, PoWs understood better and misunderstandings liable to arouse quick tempers were reduced to a minimum.
A rough digest of the prison rules are as follows:-
- A11 PoWs are subject to the Japanese code of Military Law, and for civilian offences the Japanese Civil Law.
- It is an offence punishable by death to strike, insult or offer insubordination to Japanese sentry.
- Escape is an offence punishable by death.
- Theft is punishable by 10 years Penal Servitude.
Special respect had at all times to be paid to guards; saluting and bowing was universal.
(iii) Conclusion:-
Without an appreciation of Japanese psychology, which is outside the scope of this report, it is not possible to find reasons for the various types of treatment meted out to the PoWs. It should, however, be borne in mind that with the Japanese forces one of the general forms of punishment is summary corporal punishment of a lower rank by a superior, and all PoWs, whatever their rank, were regarded by the Japanese as inferior to their lowest ranking soldier. Instances are reported by PoWs of Japanese guards being beaten as a punishment. In the main, it appears that the guiding principle was the arbitrary whim or attitude of the individual Japanese.
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