Prisoners Of War In The United States During World War II

Immediately after the outbreak of World War II the United States planned for the internment of enemy alien civilians. As early as December 9, 1941, preparations were started for the construction of a permanent alien enemy camp on the Florence Military Reservation in Arizona. While work was proceeding on this camp, ten emergency camps were established on Army posts strategically located on each coast and land frontier of the United States. In January, 1942, two additional three thousand-man camps were authorized. In an effort to move many of the alien enemy civilians from California, the Provost Marshal General and the Quartermaster General selected sites for additional camps in the Southwest, authorized the construction of nine other permanent alien camps, and planned for fourteen more alien camps.[1]

By December, 1942, there were only about four thousand enemy aliens interned in the United States instead of the March prediction of one hundred thousand. As a result of this miscalculation numerous camps under construction were later converted to prisoner-of-war camps.[2]

Early in 1942, the War Department directed the transfer of all captured enemy personnel to the United States in an effort to relieve overseas forces from the problems of guarding, feeding, and housing prisoners of war. However, very few prisoners were captured by United States forces in 1942, and by December 31 of that year only 1,881 prisoners had been interned in the United States.[3]

In August, 1942, Great Britain proposed the transfer of one hundred and fifty thousand British-captured prisoners of war to the United States. At that time Great Britain held twenty-three thousand German and two hundred and fifty thousand Italian prisoners and believed that wholesale captures would strain facilities in their country; therefore, Britain suggested that the United States intern fifty thousand of these prisoners on one month’s notice and the other one hundred thousand on three months’ notice. The United States Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Joint Staff Planners agreed to accept the one hundred and fifty thousand prisoners of war with the understanding that the War Department would be given one month’s notice before the acceptance of the first shipment of fifty thousand and one month’s notice for each consignment thereafter.[4]

This decision to accept prisoners of war in the continental United States changed the activity of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from enemy alien civilians to the internment of prisoners of war. Plans were thus initiated for the necessary construction of prisoner-of-war camps.

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~txrober2/TissingI.htm

If country A gets attacked by a beligerent group or individual from country B, and Country A attacks country B for not doing anything to prevent the said attack, then it is by no means an unjustifiable war by Country A on the basis of the individual or group not being ordered by its own host country.

Since Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, I know you are not refering to us. So who are you talking about?

Our forthcoming attack on Saudi Arabia, where 16 of the 19 came from, of course

If they are not guilty of a prosecutable crime and we hold them, we should be charged with war crimes. We should not be allowed to be inhumane regardless to our prejudices.

If they are POWs we have every right to hold them, without trial, for as long as we are at war!

It would be derelict and irrational to release them before then!

POWs should still not be tortured. We should not mistreat them even if we have to hold them because of laws of war.

War is a sick business anyway.

The Bush Administrations policies did more harm to this country than most Americans can comprehend!

Can't be so sure about that. We don't know what will be the plurality of opinions in future history books.

POWs should still not be tortured. We should not mistreat them even if we have to hold them because of laws of war.

War is a sick business anyway.


They are not enduring anything worse than what they deliver, remember, they chop off heads and display bodies