During WWII the Japanese captured approximately “132,134 British, Dutch, Australian, American, Canadian and New Zealander POWs (Yap 318). The treatment of these captives was extremely poor, they experienced hard labor, lack of food and harsh punishments. Japanese soldiers were expected to never get captured because they expected that it would mean hard labor worse than death. The Japanese “utilized [the POWs] to the full and possibly to the death” (Yap 323). When the Japanese captured enemy soldiers they treated them how they expected to be treated if they were ever captured; hard labor was one thing the Japanese military found useful and thought happened to Japanese POWs in European hands. Starvation and lack of proper nutrition was common
