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A ship with
many Americans arrived in San Francisco 4 days before the projected
date and no one was there to see these skeletal heroes get off the
ship. Some men are convinced this was because the government did not
want them to be seen in their wasted condition.
Many of the
men had to sign a promise to never speak of the atrocities of the
Japanese, and others were told never to speak of their treatment, since
no one would believe them.
These
heroes came home to have their rights to compensation from the Japanese
signed away by their own US government and were left to fend for
themselves. Many believde tht the US government treated the POWs of the
Axix powers much better than the ones held by Japan. They have yet to
get any compensation from the US government or the Japanese, while
Britain has compensated their POWs held by Japan. This is probably
because the US government wanted the data produced by Unit 731 and
because they saw Japan as a Block against the communist world, and a
deal was struck. None of the Japanese generals, etc were prosecuted for
war crimes, although a few lower level people were. Many American
lawyers were preparing for the war crimes trials, when they were
suddenly stopped.
While some
American POWs of the Japanese still hold out for compensation, at this
point, most would settle for a sincere Japanese government apology with
notice of same in Japanese newspapers and history books, and an
admission on the part of the US government of how they were deprived of
their rights to compensation for political purposes. |
Photo by Joe
Vater
When they passed under the Golden Gate Bridge, most of the men began to
believe they were really free. Before that, it had seemed somewhat
unreal.
For more of
Joe’s photos, see the “Joe Vater’s Photos” section |
