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Show How America Treats Axis War Prisoners In Concentration Camps Throughout U. S. J Ml - yy rrK 1 -C;::J , . J V - rr- - . - j riclured here are some of the 2,000 German prisoners of war who are housed at Camp Breckcnridge, Ky. They are marching to the mess hall. German prisoners are closely guarded at all times, for, unlike the Italians, they refuse to play ball and are confidently arrogant. Most of them arc glad to work to relieve the boredom of inactivity. Good Treatment Pays Dividends To Captor Nations WHAT is our treatment of prisoners of war? Are officers overpaid? Do they have to work? These and many other questions are being be-ing asked as the total of Axis prisoners mounts. As a matter of fact, the prisoner pris-oner problem has become a y real one since the mass surrender sur-render of Italians in Tunisia. After Sicily capitulated, Gen. Eisenhower had on his hands the staggering total of 135,000 Axis prisoners. Quite a job for any man's army! While it is true that prisoners prison-ers are enemies of this country, coun-try, and many have been directly di-rectly responsible for the loss of American lives, they cannot can-not be treated entirely as enemies, ene-mies, but must be treated as soldiers rather than as criminals, crim-inals, always with this thought in the background the treatment treat-ment we accord enemy captives cap-tives will, in some measure at least, determine the kind of treatment given American soldiers who have been unfortunate un-fortunate enough to fall into enemy hands. There are at least two other reasons for the good treatment treat-ment of prisoners, aside from humanitarian considerations, While the Japanese government tentatively agreed to certain proposals propos-als from this country with regard to the treatment of prisoners, their attitude at-titude has been far from satisfactory. satisfac-tory. A case in point was the shooting shoot-ing of the U. S. fliers who bombed Tokyo with General Doolittle's squadron which took off from Shan-gri Shan-gri La (aircraft carrier, Hornet) and who had the extreme misfortune of either being shot out of the skies or forced down for other reasons. These prisoners, it was later announced by the Japs, were shot, contrary to all the rules of war, as a deterrent to other American fliers who might engage en-gage in the bombing of Japan. This violation of the international rules of war has not, however, worked, and Japan may well tremble in its boots for the day of reckoning which is drawing closer with each dawn. Bombing perimeters are drawing closer to the heart of the Japanese empire day by day. The bulk of the work done by Axis captives in the United States is agricultural. agri-cultural. This field, of course, offers of-fers the least opportunity for sabotage. sabo-tage. When captives engage in this work they do not in any sense compete com-pete with native labor, but are simply sim-ply supplementary to it. Farmers arrange with their county farm agent for the employment of prisoners. prison-ers. The number is usually small and the prisoners are scattered over wide areas, thus removing from this practice all element of hazard. Generally speaking, Axis prisoners, prison-ers, with the exception of the Jap, of whom we have only a very small number, are a contented lot. They have better food, clothing and shelter shel-ter than they had under the Nazi banner; in a certain sense they have more liberties, and for them the war is over. , one based upon a treaty made at Geneva on July 27, 1929, and the other a purely psychological psy-chological one, namely, that war-weary and underfed troops may be tempted to lay down their arms to an enemy ' who feeds them generously and gives them safe haven. Geneva Conference. At the Geneva Convention, which was ratified by 37 countries (which, by the way, did not include either Japan or Russia) certain rules on treatment and behavior were formulated. formu-lated. Under the provisions of the Geneva Conference soldier prisoners are required to work, but officers are not. The amount of time a prisoner pris-oner must work is based on the number of hours put in by free labor in the adjoining territory, and one day a week is to be a day of rest. Food and clothing must be provided by the detaining army. Occupational classification is determined de-termined by the prisoner's physical makeup. For instance, the prisoner who was formerly engaged as a clerk or teacher should not be put at hard labor. This provision, however, how-ever, has been largely ignored in Axis countries, where many a scholarly schol-arly soldier grinds out a day that taxes his strength sorely. ' , In every concentration camp many different crafts and trades are plied by the prisoners, but in no case do they work on projects directly di-rectly connected with the war effort, ef-fort, as a precaution against sabotage. sabo-tage. Payment for labor is at the rate of 80 cents a day for the ordinary soldier, here in the United States, where we have some 70,000 Axis prisoners scattered throughout the country in 22 camps. The rate of pay for officers ranges from $20 a month to $40 a month. Officers who have been assigned no work get paid anyway, at the regular scale. At some of the camps prisoners are kept within by double barbed wire enclosures. Armed guards pace back and forth outside to make sure that all is well. Fed Army Rations. Prisoners in the U. S. army camps are fed the regular army field rations. In this respect they fare much better than General Wain-wright Wain-wright and his gallant band of de-lenders de-lenders who laid down their arms on Corregidor only after food and water supplies had been cut off. The Japanese diet consists mainly of rice, and there is reason to believe that the heroes of Bataan and Corregidor Cor-regidor have suffered considerably from malnutrition since they fell into enemy hands. The Japs evidently have nothing much better to offer, for even the warriors of Guadalcanal Guadal-canal and New Guinea have been forced to rely upon rice as their mainstay. Kiska and Attu furnished mute evidence of the Japs' utter dependence de-pendence upon rice as a fighting staple. |