Review Essay

Abstract

To the Editors: Robert M. Citino's perceptive and informative review essay, “Military Histories Old and New: A Reintroduction” (AHR, October 2007, 1070–1090), states that prisoners of war have been “a heretofore, ignored group” (1074). This is not entirely correct, at least for World War II in the Pacific and Far East. Lord Russell of Liverpool's The Knights of Bushido: A Short History of Japanese War Crimes (1958) and my own Bataan: The March of Death (1962) were published nearly half a century ago. And since then quite a few others have appeared, including Donald Knox, Death March: The Survivors of Bataan (1981); Oliver Lindsay, At the Going Down of the Sun: Hong Kong and South-East Asia, 1941–1945 (1981); E. Bartlett Kerr, Surrender and Survival: The Experience of American POWs in the Pacific, 1941–1945 (1985); Clifford Kinvig, River Kwai Railway: The Story of the Burma-Siam Railroad (1992); Robert S. La Forte and Ronald E. Marcello, editors, Building the Death Railway: The Ordeal of American POWs in Burma, 1942–1945 (1993); Robert S. La Forte, Ronald E. Marcello, and Richard L. Himmel, editors, With Only the Will to Live: Accounts of Americans in Japanese Prison Camps, 1941–1945 (1994); Gavan Daws, Prisoners of the Japanese: POWs of World War II in the Pacific (1994); Van Waterford, Prisoners of the Japanese in World War II: Statistical History, Personal Narratives and Memorials Concerning POWs in Camps and on Hellships, Civilian Internees, Asian Slave Laborers, and Others Captured in the Pacific Theater (1994); Robert C. Doyle, Voices from Captivity: Interpreting the American POW Narrative (1994); Michael J. Goodwin, SHOBUN: A Forgotten War Crime in the Pacific (1995); Yuki Tanaka, Hidden Horrors: Japanese War Crimes in World War II (1996); Gregory Hadley, Field of Spears: The Last Mission of the Jordan Crew (2007); as well as those cited by Citino. In addition, the Australian, British, and U.S. Marine Corps official World War II histories contain lengthy essays on the subject. A great number of POW memoirs and diaries have also been published.