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U.S. POWs enslaved in Japan push for reparations

Many Americans who survived the Bataan Death March in May 1942 were shipped to Japan and forced to work in factories.

(Reuters) -- Imagine you were taken captive during World War II and forced to work for a company and a country bent on destroying people like you. You starved and got sick and many of your fellow captives died.

More than half a century later, as the question of reparations finally hit the headlines, what did the United States do?

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a) Get actively involved in efforts to get you some money from foreign corporations and powers that held you captive.

b) Essentially ignore you after first swearing you to silence about your experience, while importing billions of dollars in consumer goods made by some of the same companies that enslaved you.

The answer depends on who you were and where you were. If you were a civilian in Nazi-dominated Europe, the answer is a. If you were a U.S. serviceman in Japan, the answer is emphatically b.

"In the peace treaty with Japan, they sort of gave our rights away," said Edward Jackfert, a 79-year-old survivor of the Bataan Death March during the Japanese conquest of the Philippines in 1942. Later, Jackfert was shipped to Japan and forced to work at a Mitsui & Co. warehouse from 1942 to 1945.

Other Americans worked as slaves at such Japanese corporate giants as Mitsubishi, Nippon Steel Corp. and Kawasaki Heavy Industries, according to a new book on the subject, "Unjust Enrichment," by Linda Goetz Holmes.

"There is no doubt that Japan's postwar 'economic miracle' was fueled by many factors," Holmes writes. "... But for Americans who were forced to work in war production for at least 44 Japanese companies, the haunting perception is that their slave labor also fueled the postwar prosperity of those organizations. Too often, the miraculous recovery of Japan's industries began on the backs of our prisoners of war."

of 36,000 Americans, 10,000 died

As did the more than 36,000 American soldiers, sailors, marines and civilian construction workers who were taken prisoner and enslaved by Japan, Edward Jackfert suffered conditions so brutal that the memories still have power to bring him to tears.

"We couldn't believe that one person could treat another person as the Japanese treated us," he said in a telephone interview from Tampa, Florida. "We get recalls of everything. Some little event like a military parade will bring tears to your eyes."

As a stevedore, his job was to carry bags of rice each weighing 125 pounds -- 25 pounds more than he weighed at the time. "You couldn't stop working because you would almost immediately be shot," he said.

The warehouse was a frequent target of Allied bombing, and in at least one case prisoners such as Jackfert were detailed to "pick up the flesh of our comrades" after an attack.

Still, he was one of the lucky ones who survived in relatively good health. Others suffered long-term nerve damage, premature aging and post-traumatic stress disorder. More than 10,000 died in captivity.

In one case drawn from newly declassified U.S. intelligence documents and reported in Holmes' book, the prisoners' health was so marginal that some who lost their sight due to poor nutrition regained it suddenly after finding and eating some oranges, rinds and all -- an almost unimaginable luxury.

After they were freed, the U.S. servicemen were made to sign papers agreeing not to talk about their experience. Initially the agreement was meant to shield those still under Japanese occupation in the Philippines, but even after the war ended former U.S. slaves were made to sign, Holmes said.

"It was used again as an extension of policy: 'We don't want to arouse the American public against Japan,"' Holmes said in an interview. "Japan suddenly must become our ally. And that was really the purpose of the gag order."

A call for reparations

"Most of us don't have any hard feelings for the Japanese people," Jackfert said. But for the corporations and the country that enslaved them, he had some blunt words: "They could apologize. They could give us compensation."

Efforts at litigation and legislation have been muted at best. Dozens of lawsuits have been filed in the United States seeking compensation from Japanese firms. Many were filed in California where the filing deadline was pushed back to 2010, and most of these were consolidated as a federal case.

But U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker dismissed the consolidated case in September 2000, siding with the long-held Japanese government position that the 1951 peace treaty Tokyo signed with most of its World War II opponents settled "once and for all" the issue of reparations.

Although the treaty denied full compensation to the former slaves, Walker wrote, it provided "the immeasurable bounty of life for themselves and their posterity in a free society." An appeal is pending.

Sen. Jeff Bingaman, a Democrat from New Mexico, the home state of many of the former U.S. prisoners of war who were forced to work as slaves, offered a plan last year to pay each man or his surviving spouse $20,000, but the measure was dropped before coming to a vote. He was expected to bring it up again this year.

The question for many survivors is why the United States has not done more to help their cause. Holmes said the answer may lie in a case of profound embarrassment.

"Our government was embarrassed about what happened to our people," she said. "We never in our history had so many of our people [been] prisoners of war at one time. ... We couldn't get our civilians back and we couldn't do anything to alleviate the conditions of our prisoners. So it's the embarrassment of ... not wanting to talk about it."

Holmes felt a possible U.S.-mediated multibillion-dollar settlement for former European slave workers from German companies would set a helpful legal precedent. But she added:

"I feel very strongly that if these companies do make an honorable settlement and a sincere apology, it will be because of the court of public opinion and not a court of law."

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