When the American government began impounding Japanese American citizens after Pearl Harbor, photography became a battleground. The control of the means of representation affected nearly every aspect of the incarceration, from the mug shots criminalizing Japanese Americans to the prohibition of cameras in the hands of inmates. The government hired photographers to make an extensive record of the forced removal and incarceration but forbade Japanese Americans from photographically documenting the conditions of the camps or any aspect of their lives. In this insightful study, Jasmine Alinder explores the photographic record of the imprisonment in war relocation centers such as Manzanar, Tule Lake, Jerome, and others. She investigates why photographs were made, how they were meant to function, and how they have been reproduced and interpreted subsequently by the popular press and museums in constructing versions of public history. Considering such factors as artistic intention, institutional deployment, critical interpretation, and popular reception, Alinder provides calibrated readings of the photographs from this period. She uncovers the tension between Dorothea Lange's moving and critical images of the camps and the War Relocation Authority's blindly positive captions. She also analyzes Ansel Adams's attempt to combat negative war propaganda through humanizing photographs of Japanese Americans and locates the limits of such a counternarrative in the midst of a national mobilization against Japan. Moving Images examines the work of Japanese American photographers operating both during and after the incarceration, including Manzanar inmate Toyo Miyatake, who constructed his own camera to document the complicated realities of camp life for his fellow inmates. More recently, contemporary artists Patrick Nagatani and Masumi Hayashi have used photography to reckon with the legacy of incarceration by journeying to the camp sites and creating photographs that bridge the intergenerational divides between their parents, themselves, and their children. Illustrated with more than forty photographs, Moving Images reveals the significance of the camera in the process of incarceration as well as the construction of race, citizenship, and patriotism in this complex historical moment.

This book examines attitudes towards German held captive in Britain, drawing on original archival material including newspaper and newsreel content, diaries, sociological surveys and opinion polls, as well as official documentation and the archives of pressure groups and protest movements. Moving beyond conventional assessments of POW treatment which have focused on the development of policy, diplomatic relations, and the experience of the POWs themselves, this study refocuses the debate onto the attitude of the British public towards the standard of treatment of German POWs. In so doing, it reveals that the issue of POW treatment intersected with discussions of state power, human rights, gender relations, civility, and national character.

The extraordinary revelations in Traitors detail the ugly side of war and power and the many betrayals of our ANZACs. In October 1943 Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Josef Stalin signed a solemn pact that once their enemies were defeated the Allied powers would 'pursue them to the uttermost ends of the earth and will deliver them to their accusers in order that justice may be done'. Nowhere did they say that justice would be selective. But it would prove to be. Traitors outlines the treachery of the British, American and Australian governments, who turned a blind eye to those who experimented on Australian prisoners of war. Journalist and bestselling author Frank Walker details how Nazis hired by ASIO were encouraged to settle in Australia and how the Catholic Church, CIA and MI6 helped the worst Nazi war criminals escape justice. While our soldiers were asked to risk their lives for King and country, Allied corporations traded with the enemy; Nazi and Japanese scientists were enticed to work for Australia, the US and UK; and Australia's own Hollywood hero Errol Flynn was associating with Nazi spies. After reading this book you can't help but wonder, what else did they hide?

Even if you don't know much about the war in Vietnam, you've probably heard of "The Hanoi Hilton," or Hoa Lo Prison, where captured U.S. soldiers were held. What they did there and whether they were treated well or badly by the Vietnamese became lasting controversies. As military personnel returned from captivity in 1973, Americans became riveted by POW coming home stories. What had gone on behind these prison walls? Along with legends of lionized heroes who endured torture rather than reveal sensitive military information, there were news leaks suggesting that others had denounced the war in return for favorable treatment. What wasn't acknowledged, however, is that U.S. troop opposition to the war was vast and reached well into Hoa Loa Prison. Half a century after the fact, Dissenting POWs emerges to recover this history, and to discover what drove the factionalism in Hoa Lo. Looking into the underlying factional divide between prowar "hardliners" and antiwar "dissidents" among the POWs, authors Wilber and Lembcke delve into the postwar American culture that created the myths of the HeroPOW and the dissidents blamed for the loss of the war. What they found was surprising: It wasn't simply that some POWs were for the war and others against it, nor was it an officers versus enlisted men standoff. Rather, it was the class backgrounds of the captives and their precaptive experience that drew the lines. After the war, the hardcore hero holdouts-like John McCain-moved on to careers in politics and business, while the dissidents faded from view as the antiwar movement, that might otherwise have championed them, disbanded. Today, Dissenting POWs is a necessary myth buster, disabusing us of the revisionism that has replaced actual GI resistance with images of suffering POWs - ennobled victims that serve to suppress the fundamental questions of America's drift to endless war.

The mistreatment and captivity of women by the Japanese is a little known and poorly documented aspect of the Second World War. In The Real Tenko, Mark Felton, who has a fast growing reputation as an authority and author on the war in the Far East, redresses this omission with a typically well researched yet necessarily gruesome account of the plight of Allied service-women, female civilians and local women in Japanese hands.Among the atrocities shamefully committed by the Emperor's forces were numerous massacres of nurses; that at Alexandra Hospital, Singapore being perhaps the best known. The lack of respect for their defeated enemies extended in full measure to both European and Asian women and their vulnerability was all too often shockingly exploited. Those who found themselves imprisoned fared little better and suffered appalling indignities and starvation. Also covered are the hardships of gruelling marches under extreme conditions. Whereas the sexual enslavement of so called 'Comfort Women' has been regarded as affecting only Asiatic women, it transpires that this horror was experienced by whites as well.The Real Tenko is a disturbing and shocking testimony both to the callous and cruel behaviour of the Japanese and to the courage and fortitude of those who suffered at their hands.

Over the course of many years Richard Pursehouse has painstakingly unravelled the story of a First World War prisoner of war camp which held captured German personnel in the very heart of the English countryside. He first became aware of the existence of the camp while walking over Cannock Chase in Staffordshire, finding sewer covers in what appeared to be uninhabited heathland. Intrigued, the author set out to investigate the mystery and discovered that the sewers were for two Army camps - Brocton and Rugeley - that had been constructed for soldiers training during the First World War. What he also found, however, was that the Brocton Camp site also included a segregated autonomous prisoner of war camp. With the aid of an old postcard, Richard was able to identify the exact location and layout of the long-lost camp. His research continued until he had accumulated an enormous amount of detail about the camp and life for its prisoners. He found a file by the Camp Commandant, Swiss Legation correspondence, stories in newspapers, letters and diaries, and received photographs from interested individuals. Amongst his finds was a box holding scores of fascinating letters sent home by an administration clerk while he was working at the camp. During his investigations, Richard also learned of attempted murders and escapes (including the only escapee to make it back to Germany), deaths, thefts - and a fatal scandal. The letters, documents and diaries reveal how the prisoners coped with incarceration, as well as their treatment, both in terms of camp conditions and their medical needs. He has also established a definitive answer to the 'myth' that some of the prisoners assisted in building the nearby Messines terrain model. The model was a post-battle training tool to instruct newly-arrived New Zealand troops, which also provided a visual explanation of how they had defeated the Germans in the Battle of Messines in June 1917. The result is a unique insight into what life was like inside a British Prisoner of War camp during the First World War.

'Zekameron' comes from 'Zek' meaning prisoner and is a word-play on Boccaccio's Decameron. 'He came back from interrogation looking like death. Some people look better than he did when they're being put in their coffin. "What happened then? Did they stick any other articles of the Criminal Code on you? Or break your jaw?" "Nothing like that. I've got toothache..." The 100 tales in Zekameron are based on the 14th Century Decameron, but Znak is closer to Beckett than to Boccaccio. Banality and brutality vie with the human ability to overcome oppression. Znak's stories in different voices chart 100 days in prison in Belarus today. The tone is laconic, ironic; the humour sparse. The stories bear witness to resistance and self-assertion and the genuine warmth and appreciation of fellow prisoners.

An anthology of illustrated narratives about the prison and the lives it changed forever   In January 2002, the United States sent a group of Muslim men they suspected of terrorism to a prison in Guantánamo Bay. They were the first of roughly 780 prisoners who would be held there—and 40 inmates still remain. Eighteen years later, very few of them have been ever charged with a crime. In Guantánamo Voices, journalist Sarah Mirk and her team of diverse, talented graphic novel artists tell the stories of ten people whose lives have been shaped and affected by the prison, including former prisoners, lawyers, social workers, and service members. This collection of illustrated interviews explores the history of Guantánamo and the world post-9/11, presenting this complicated partisan issue through a new lens.

A thrilling tale of incredible courage and resilience, a true wartime story of William Ash. The Cooler King is at once uplifting and inspirational, and stands as a testament to the durability of decent values and the invincible spirit of liberty. The Cooler King tells the astonishing story of William Ash, an American flyer brought up in Depression-hit Texas, who after being shot down in his Spitfire over France in early 1942 spent the rest of the war defying the Nazis by striving to escape from every prisoner of war camp in which he was incarcerated. Alongside William Ash is a cast of fascinating characters, including Douglas Bader, Roger Bushell, who would go on to lead the Great Escape, and Paddy Barthropp, a dashing Battle of Britain pilot who despite his very different background became Ash's best friend and shared many of his adventures. Using contemporary documents and interviews with Ash's comrades, Patrick Bishop vividly recreates the multiple escape attempts, while also examining the P.O.W. experience and analysing the passion that drove some prisoners to risk death in repeated bids for freedom.

An extraordinary tale of the remarkable bond between one man and his dog during the Second World War. The two friends huddled close together, each of them the other's saving grace in a world gone to hell . . . There was nothing terribly unusual about POWs suffering horribly at the hands of their Japanese captors. All across the Pacific theatre, Allied captives were experiencing similar punishment. But there was one thing unusual about this particular duo of prisoners. One of them was a dog. Flight technician Frank Williams and Judy, a purebred pointer, met in the most unlikely of places: a World War II internment camp. Judy was a fiercely loyal dog, with a keen sense for who was friend and who was foe, and the pair's relationship deepened throughout their captivity. When the prisoners suffered beatings, Judy would repeatedly risk her life to intervene. She survived bombings and other near-death experiences and became a beacon not only for Frank but for all the men, who saw in her survival a flicker of hope for their own. Using a wealth of new material including interviews with those who knew Frank and Judy, letters and firsthand accounts, Robert Weintraub expertly weaves a narrative of an unbreakable bond forged in the worst circumstances. Judy's devotion to the men she was interned with, including a host of characters from all around the world, from Australia to the UK, was so powerful that reports indicate she might have been the only dog spared in these camps - and their care for her helped keep them alive. At one point, deep in despair and starvation, Frank contemplated killing himself and the dog to prevent either from watching the other die. But both were rescued, and Judy spent the rest of her life with Frank. She became the war's only official canine POW, and after she died at the age of fourteen, Frank couldn't bring himself to ever have another dog. Their story of friendship and survival is one of the great sagas of World War II.

NORMAN CROSS was the site of the world's first purpose-built prisoner-of-war camp constructed during the Napoleonic Wars. Opened in 1797, it was more than just a prison: it was a town in itself, with houses, offices, butchers, bakers, a hospital, a school, a market and a banking system. It was an important prison and military establishment in the east of England with a lively community of some 7,000 French inmates. Alongside a comprehensive examination of the prison itself, this detailed and informative book, compiled by a leading expert on the Napoleonic era, explores what life was like for inmates and turnkeys alike - the clothing, food, health, education, punishment and, ultimately, the closure of the depot in 1814.

The Ottoman-Russian wars of the eighteenth century reshaped the map of Eurasia and the Middle East, but they also birthed a novel concept - the prisoner of war. For centuries, hundreds of thousands of captives, civilians and soldiers alike, crossed the legal and social boundaries of these empires, destined for either ransom or enslavement. But in the eighteenth century, the Ottoman state and its Russian rival, through conflict and diplomacy, worked out a new system of regional international law. Ransom was abolished; soldiers became prisoners of war; and some slaves gained new paths to release, while others were left entirely unprotected. These rules delineated sovereignty, redefined individuals' relationships to states, and prioritized political identity over economic value. In the process, the Ottomans marked out a parallel, non-Western path toward elements of modern international law. Yet this was not a story of European imposition or imitation-the Ottomans acted for their own reasons, maintaining their commitment to Islamic law. For a time even European empires played by these rules, until they were subsumed into the codified global law of war in the late nineteenth century. This story offers new perspectives on the histories of the Ottoman and Russian Empires, of slavery, and of international law.

Whilst many books have been published about war, the role of the prisoner of war has been largely ignored or paid scant attention. This book, along with the author's other title - A History of Napoleonic and American Prisoners of War 1756-1816: Hulk, Depot and Parole - aims to correct this imbalance, and is the result of his quest over thirty years into this almost-forgotten field of history. Illustrated here is an extensive selection of items from museums around the world and the author's own collection - one of the largest private collections of prisoner of war artefacts in existence - revealing the incredible skills of these imprisoned craftsmen. The items - delicate, intricate and highly detailed - include boxes, toys and automata made from bone, straw or paper, as well as paintings by artists whose work is now much in demand. The creation of these pieces seems even more remarkable when the conditions under which they would have been made and the extreme limitations the prisoners would have e

Dramatic, highly readable, and fresh, The Great Desert Escape brings to light an illuminating and little-known account of how twenty-five determined German U-Boat crewmen tunneled from American POW camp, crossed the unforgiving Arizona desert, and attempted to return battle. It was the only organized, large-scale domestic escape by foreign prisoners in U.S. history. Painstakingly wrung from contemporary newspaper articles, interviews and first-person accounts from escapees and the law enforcement officers who pursued them, The Great Desert Escape brings history alive. From 1942 to 1946, the United States swarmed with captured enemy troops. Nearly 400,000 German soldiers and officers were held in more than 500 POW camps throughout the country. One such camp was the U.S. Army's prisoner of war camp at Papago Park just outside of Phoenix, Arizona, where on December 23, 1944 25 German Kreigsmariners tunneled free, determined to reach Mexico and find sympathizers who would get the back to the Fatherland. For the prisoners, life was at the best of times uneasy. On the outside of their prison fences were Americans who wanted nothing more than to see them die slow deaths for their perceived roles in killing their fathers and brothers in Europe. Many of these stranded German prisoners had heard rumors of castrations and worse for those who had escaped. On the inside were on occasion rabid Nazis determined to get home and continue the fight. At Papago Park in March of 1944, a newly-arrived prisoner who was believed (correctly) to have divulged classified information to the Americans was murdered--hung in one of the barracks by seven of his fellow prisoners. The Great Desert Escape sheds new light on the little known chapter in World War II history. Papago Park housed nearly 4000 German POWs, most of whom were U-boat crewmen. Until the arrival of a new American commander, it had been a very inefficient and haphazard operation. Author Keith Warren Lloyd describes the culture of complacency that had developed among the guards and their officers. Before the Great Desert Escape, several other attempts had been made. As a dramatic backdrop to the main narrative, Lloyd describes the life of one of the escapees: his service as an officer aboard a U-boat, his final patrol where his U-boat is sunk, his capture and interrogation, his arrival at Papago Park and finally his involvement in the escape. In September 1944 the senior POW officer, Jurgen Wattenberg, directed that tunnel should be dug from the bathhouse to the Arizona Crosscut Canal, which ran along the northern edge of the camp. The prisoners obtained digging tools from the guards, telling them that they wished to construct a volleyball court. They would go into the bathhouse at night to work on the tunnel. The soil around Papago Park was extremely hard and full of rocks, so the guards never expected them to be digging. The tunnel, six feet deep and 178 feet long, was completed in December of 1944. The plan was to escape to Mexico and locate people sympathetic to Germany (the reasons for their sympathy will also be described) who would arrange passage for them back to the Fatherland. Three of the escapees had built a collapsible raft and planned to float the Salt River to the Colorado and then to the Gulf of California, having seen the Salt River on a stolen map. They didn't know that one could step easily across the Salt River at that time of year. Discouraged, the 25 prisoners scattered. The Great Desert Escape recounts the flight of the prisoners. One U-boat officer found himself sitting at a lunch counter next to a suspicious Phoenix Police officer. Another asked for directions from a street cleaning crew, his accent betraying him. The cold and rainy weather caused several of the escapees (who by then had been acclimated to the desert) to turn themselves in. Still others lived like coyotes among the rocks and caves overlooking Papago Park before being rounded up. All of the escapees were eventually re-captured within six weeks. The book will then describe the inquiries and investigations by the army and the FBI in the aftermath of the escape. It is an ideal addition to Lyons rich military history list, including The Long Walk, which has sold more than 300,000 copies.

In Dangerous Guests, Ken Miller reveals how wartime pressures nurtured a budding patriotism in the ethnically diverse revolutionary community of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. During the War for Independence, American revolutionaries held more than thirteen thousand prisoners-both British regulars and their so-called Hessian auxiliaries-in makeshift detention camps far from the fighting. As the Americans' principal site for incarcerating enemy prisoners of war, Lancaster stood at the nexus of two vastly different revolutionary worlds: one national, the other intensely local. Captives came under the control of local officials loosely supervised by state and national authorities. Concentrating the prisoners in the heart of their communities brought the revolutionaries' enemies to their doorstep, with residents now facing a daily war at home. Many prisoners openly defied their hosts, fleeing, plotting, and rebelling, often with the clandestine support of local loyalists. By early 1779, General George Washington, furious over the captives' ongoing attempts to subvert the American war effort, branded them "dangerous guests in the bowels of our Country." The challenge of creating an autonomous national identity in the newly emerging United States was nowhere more evident than in Lancaster, where the establishment of a detention camp served as a flashpoint for new conflict in a community already unsettled by stark ethnic, linguistic, and religious differences. Many Lancaster residents soon sympathized with the Hessians detained in their town while the loyalist population considered the British detainees to be the true patriots of the war. Miller demonstrates that in Lancaster, the notably local character of the war reinforced not only preoccupations with internal security but also novel commitments to cause and country.

The time was 7.40 p.m., the date 15 February 1942. The light was fading fast, the Allied forces were encircled, and the bombardment was relentless, as Singapore fell to the Japanese. Discarding their weapons, the Lancashire Loyals quietly withdrew to their quarters, where they 'composed themselves as best they could for the silent ordeal of the night, numbed and galled by the bitterness of enforced surrender'. So began three and half years of incarceration at Keijo POW camp in Korea. This is the previously untold story of the brave Lancastrians who endured, told by Chris Given-Wilson, whose father was one of those captured. It is a story of brutality, starvation and disease, but also one of survival, determination and creativity. Among the many ways the prisoners sought to keep their spirits up were the staging of surprisingly sophisticated shows, complete with Gloria d'Earie, the resident female impersonator; the growing of fresh vegetables to improve their health; and the regular publication of Nor Iron Bars (co-edited by the author's father), with its satirical portrayals of camp life. Copies of this banned journal were successfully concealed from the guards to be smuggled home, and can be seen at the Lancashire Infantry Museum. Chris Given-Wilson writes with warmth and humour, to reveal both the best and the worst of human nature. This book should be read by everyone, but perhaps especially all proud Lancastrians.

On a freezing winter's night, a few hours before dawn on May 12, 1969, South African security police stormed the Soweto home of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, activist and wife of the imprisoned Nelson Mandela, and arrested her in the presence of her two young daughters, then aged nine and ten. Rounded up in a group of other antiapartheid activists under Section 6 of the Terrorism Act, designed for the security police to hold and interrogate people for as long as they wanted, she was taken away. She had no idea where they were taking her or what would happen to her children. For Winnie Mandela, this was the start of 491 days of detention and two trials. Forty-one years after Winnie Mandela's release on September 14, 1970, Greta Soggot, the widow of one of the defense attorneys from the 1969?-70 trials, handed her a stack of papers that included a journal and notes she had written while in detention, most of the time in solitary confinement. Their reappearance brought back to Winnie vivid and horrifying memories and uncovered for the rest of us a unique and personal slice of South Africa's history. 491 Days: Prisoner number 1323/69 shares with the world Winnie Mandela's moving and compelling journal along with some of the letters written between several affected parties at the time, including Winnie and Nelson Mandela, himself then a prisoner on Robben Island for nearly seven years. Readers will gain insight into the brutality she experienced and her depths of despair, as well as her resilience and defiance under extreme pressure. This young wife and mother emerged after 491 days in detention unbowed and determined to continue the struggle for freedom.

Useful Captives: The Role of POWs in American Military Conflicts is a wide-ranging investigation of the integral role prisoners of war (POWs) have played in the economic, cultural, political, and military aspects of American warfare. In Useful Captives volume editors Daniel Krebs and Lorien Foote and their contributors explore the wide range of roles that captives play in times of conflict: hostages used to negotiate vital points of contention between combatants, consumers, laborers, propaganda tools, objects of indoctrination, proof of military success, symbols, political instruments, exemplars of manhood ideals, loyal and disloyal soldiers, and agents of change in society. The book's eleven chapters cover conflicts involving Americans, ranging from colonial warfare on the Creek-Georgia border in the late eighteenth century, the American Revolution, the Civil War, the Great War, World War II, to twenty-first century U.S. drone warfare. This long historical horizon enables the reader to go beyond the prison camp experience of POWs to better understand the many ways they influence the nature and course of military conflict. Useful Captives shows the vital role that prisoners of war play in American warfare and reveals the cultural contexts of warfare, the shaping and altering of military policies, the process of state-building, the impacts upon the economy and environment of the conflict zone, their special place in propaganda and political symbolism, and the importance of public history in shaping national memory.

The impossibly moving story of how Judy, World War Two's only animal POW, brought hope in the midst of hell. Judy, a beautiful liver and white English pointer, and the only animal POW of WWII, truly was a dog in a million, cherished and adored by the British, Australian, American and other Allied servicemen who fought to survive alongside her. Viewed largely as human by those who shared her extraordinary life, Judy's uncanny ability to sense danger, matched with her quick-thinking and impossible daring saved countless lives. She was a close companion to men who became like a family to her, sharing in both the tragedies and joys they faced. It was in recognition of the extraordinary friendship and protection she offered amidst the unforgiving and savage environment of a Japanese prison camp in Indonesia that she gained her formal status as a POW. Judy's unique combination of courage, kindness and fun repaid that honour a thousand times over and her incredible story is one of the most heartwarming and inspiring tales you will ever read.

In early 1942 the Third Reich opened a maximum security Prisoner Of War camp in Lower Silesia for captured Allied airmen. Called Stalag Luft III, the camp soon came to contain some of the most inventive escapers ever known. The escapers were led by Squadron Leader Roger Bushell, code-named 'Big X'. In March 1944, Bushell masterminded an attempt to smuggle hundreds of POWs down a tunnel build right under the notes of their guards. In fact, only 79 Allied airmen clambered into the tunnel and only three made successful escapes. This remarkable escape would be immortalised in the famous Hollywood film THE GREAT ESCAPE, in which the bravery of the men was rightly celebrated. Behind the scenes photographs from the film are included in this definitive pictorial work on the most famous POW camp of World War II.

Very few British soldiers could lay claim to such a full war as Leslie Young. Having survived the retreat to and evacuation from Dunkirk, he volunteered for the newly formed Commandos and took part in their first operation, the raid on the Lofoten Islands. He fought and was captured in Tunisia. He went on the run before his POW camp at Fontanellato was taken over by the Nazis after the September 1943 Italian armistice. He spent six months on the run in the Apennine mountains aided by brave and selfless Italians. Many of whom were actively fighting their occupiers. He eventually reached Allied lines but not before several of his companions were tragically killed by both German and American fire.

On return to England he immediately signed up for the invasion of North West Europe and despite being wounded eventually fought through to Germany.

It is thanks to his son’s research that Major Young’s story can now be told. It is an inspiring and thrilling account which demands to be read.

Allied victory in the Pacific celebrates its sixtieth anniversary in August. Among the celebrants will be a small, largely forgotten group reliving nightmares of captivity. Dutch, English, Australian and American prisoners of war worked among more than a quarter of a million Asians--so called romushas--forced by the Japanese to build railways in Burma and Sumatra. Conditions were desperate: between 50 and 80 per cent of the romushas did not survive, not least because many were torpedoed in transit. The sinking of just the Junyo Maru resulted in the deaths of 4000 Asian workers and 1500 POWs. In Traces of War Jan Banning has interviewed and photographed 24 Dutch and Indonesian survivors. His haunting images show them as they worked, naked from the waist up. Their words elicit, with a matter-of-fact disinterest, the misery of their constant understanding of death. Unsurprisingly, they have hitherto been loath to discuss their ordeals.

Barbed Wire Diplomacy examines how the United Kingdom government went about protecting the interests, lives and well-being of its prisoners of war (POWs) in Nazi Germany between 1939 and 1945. The comparatively good treatment of British prisoners in Germany has largely been explained by historians in terms of rational self-interest, reciprocity, and influence of Nazi racism, which accorded Anglo-Saxon servicemen a higher status than other categories of POWs. By contrast, Neville Wylie offers a more nuanced picture of Anglo-German relations and the politics of prisoners of war. Drawing on British, German, United States and Swiss sources, he argues that German benevolence towards British POWs stemmed from London's success in working through neutral intermediaries, notably its protecting power (the United States and Switzerland) and the International Committee of the Red Cross, to promote German compliance with the 1929 Geneva convention, and building and sustaining a relationship with the German government that was capable of withstanding the corrosive effects of five years of warfare.
Expanding our understanding of both the formulation and execution of POW policy in both capitals, the book sheds new light on the dynamics in inter-belligerent relations during the war. It suggests that while the Second World War should be rightly acknowledged as a conflict in which traditional constraints were routinely abandoned in the pursuit of political, strategic and ideological goals, in this important area of Anglo-German relations, customary international norms were both resilient and effective.

Ever since its foundation in 2002, the Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility has become the symbol for many people around the world of all that is wrong with the 'war on terror'. Secretive, inhumane, and illegal by most international standards, it has been seen by many as a testament to American hubris in the post-9/11 era. Yet until now no one has written about the most revealing part of the story - the prison's first 100 days. It was during this time that a group of career military men and women tried to uphold the traditional military codes of honour and justice that informed their training in the face of a far more ruthless, less rule-bound, civilian leadership in the Pentagon. They were defeated. This book tells their story for the first time. It is a tale of how individual officers on the ground at Guantanamo, along with their direct superiors, struggled with their assignment from Washington, only to be unwittingly co-opted into the Pentagon's plan to turn the prison into an interrogation facility operating at the margins of the law and beyond.

Eddie Fung has the distinction of being the only Chinese American soldier to be captured by the Japanese during World War II. He was then put to work on the Burma-Siam railroad, made famous by the film The Bridge on the River Kwai. In this moving and unforgettable memoir, Eddie recalls how he, a second-generation Chinese American born and raised in San Francisco's Chinatown, reinvented himself as a Texas cowboy before going overseas with the U.S. Army. On the way to the Philippines, his battalion was captured by the Japanese in Java and sent to Burma to undertake the impossible task of building a railroad through 262 miles of tropical jungle. Working under brutal slave labour conditions, the men completed the railroad in fourteen months, at the cost of 16,000 POW and 70,000 Asian lives. Eddie lived to tell how his background helped him endure forty-two months of humiliation and cruelty and how his experiences as the sole Chinese American member of the most decorated Texan unit of any war shaped his later life.