On December 6, 1941, Ensign Kazuo Sakamaki was one of a handful of
men selected to skipper midget subs on a suicide mission to breach
Pearl Harbor's defenses. When his equipment malfunctioned, he
couldn't find the entrance to the harbor. He hit several reefs,
eventually splitting the sub, and swam to shore some miles from
Pearl Harbor. In the early dawn of December 8, he was picked up on
the beach by two Japanese American MPs on patrol. Sakamaki became
Prisoner No. I of the Pacific War. Japan's no-surrender policy did
not permit becoming a POW. Sakamaki and his fellow soldiers and
sailors had been indoctrinated to choose between victory and a
heroic death. While his comrades had perished, he had survived. By
avoiding glorious death and becoming a prisoner of war, Sakamaki
believed he had brought shame and dishonor on himself, his family,
his community, and his nation, in effect relinquishing his
citizenship. Sakamaki fell into despair and, like so many Japanese
POWs, begged his captors to kill him. Based on the author's
interviews with dozens of former Japanese POWs, along with memoirs
only recently coming to light, "The Anguish of Surrender tells one
of the great unknown stories of World War II. Beginning with an
examination of Japan's prewar ultranationalist climate and the
harsh code that precluded the possibility of capture, the author
investigates the circumstances of surrender and capture of men like
Sakamaki and their experiences in POW camps. Many POWs, ill and
starving after days wandering in the jungles or hiding out in
caves, were astonished at the superior quality of food and medical
treatment they received. Contrary to expectations, most Japanese
POWs, psychologicallyunprepared to deal with interrogations,
provided information to their captors. Trained Allied linguists,
especially Japanese Americans, learned how to extract intelligence
by treating the POWs humanely. Allied intelligence personnel took
advantage of lax Japanese security precautions to gain extensive
information from captured documents. A few POWs, recognizing
Japan's certain defeat, even assisted the Allied war effort to
shorten the war. Far larger numbers staged uprisings in an effort
to commit suicide. Most sought to survive, suffered mental anguish,
and feared what awaited them in their homeland. These deeply human
stories follow Japanese prisoners through their camp experiences to
their return to their welcoming families and reintegration into
postwar society. The stories are being told here for the first time
in English.
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